This night was the definition of mixed bag. Being Iron Reagan’s second Melbourne show, planned as a secret show originally with tickets only available at the door as well as it being the last show on the Australian tour the whole thing felt a little off. With the first 2 opening acts being straight up hardcore acts it didn’t seem to fit on the bill with the head liners and the main support act. It certainly didn’t seem to mesh with the crowd well either.
The first band Acid Vain took to the stage in a way that I just found baffling. The band started playing these extremely distorted repetitive riffs with the guitarist screaming but it turned out he wasn’t the front man. A dude with a read beanie on appeared from now where and jumped off the stage screaming into the microphone and running around flailing his arms while the crowd just stared seemingly in disbelief. One jacked up buff guy wearing shorts and a beanie joined in throw out some pit karate. The front man then thought it would be hilarious if he took the microphone with him into the toilet and then come back as the crowd clapped politely between songs. Thankfully they were gone quickly.
Up next were Cold Ground who just seemed like your typical hardcore meat head band. Every song seemed to have about a million breakdowns and out of no where they seemed to have their own little group of about 5 or 6 fans that looked like the typical hardcore fans with all the HxC gear and generic tattoos, ear gauges and flat brimmed caps. This group of fans took the microphone from the singer a bunch and sang the songs and threw down their own pit karate as well. They were not seen for the rest of the show after Cold Ground finished. When I see bands like this I feel like I am from another planet. I can enjoy and watch most genres of music from metal to hip hop to even country but when I see hardcore acts and their fans just flail like they’re having a seizure and deliberately kick each other in the face with no regards for each others safety I cant comprehend what’s going on. Stage diving, circle pits and walls of death may seem extreme but they’re just people bumping into each other and helping each other up when they fall down. You cannot justify to me accidentally throwing a spinning kick or a flailing fist into another humans face without any concern that you’ll seriously injure someone.
Thankfully all that is now over and its time for some thrash. Party Vibez took the stage and the crowd came alive. Every ones favourite local thrash crossover wunderkinds showed why they were the perfect fit for this show and why the thrash harder than most. Tearing through new tracks for their “Greatest Pits E.P.” Like “Strapped For Thrash”, “Soul Pizza”, the 2000AD comic themed “Rogue” a long with classics like “Indiana Cones and the Temple of Goon” and the ode to Robocop “Prime Directive” not the last Robocop related track that was played that evening. Party Vibez were the perfect fit for this show. They have the musical chops and the humor to slide right in with Iron Reagan. The crowd ate up everything they threw out and PV gave it back in spades. This show would have been better it was just the 2 main acts.
Finally it was time for Iron Reagan to hit the stage. You could tell it was last show of the tour. They looked exhausted. Tony Foresta’s voice was completely shot and drummer Ryan Parrish had spent the night before in the emergency room but they still played as hard as fast as they possibly could. Absolutely tearing their way through the set list the band didn’t mess around. Playing blistering fast version of tracks like “Your Kids An Asshole”, “Miserable Failure” they tribute track to Oderus of GWAR “The Living Skull” and the second Robocop themed song of the evening “I Don’t Like Cops”. They also threw in a cover of Slayers “Can’t Stand You” as a little tribute to Jeff Hannemen and a SSD cover as well. You could tell they were struggling from exhaustion of not stop partying and being on the road so long but they didn’t disappoint. Sure the show was over way sooner than the crowd would have liked but after the show everyone was invited to stay at the Bendigo and party with the band so no one went home upset. The band definitely lived up to their reputation.
