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Karnivool

w/ Sugar Army

Metro – Fremantle, 1st July, 2009.

This was the first of two sold out shows for the Perth leg of the Sound Awake tour, playing to a home audience that 10 years ago would have been lucky to pull 50 payers. When walking through the crowd now in 2009, the diversity of attendees becomes only too obvious, proving Karnivool‘s ever-growing popularity spanning across a wide array of fans from varying music scenes.

With the chant of “Kar-ni-vool” bellowing throughout the venue, the lights begin to dim and the audience roar with excitement. A magnificent backdrop illuminates from the stage bearing flashing beams of colours, and the band members emerge to the welcoming crowd.

Opening with the first two tracks from the latest album ‘Sound Awake’, ‘Simple Boy’ & ‘Goliath’ are warmly received, with much of the audience unable to resist the temptation to sing along and move their bodies, despite the slower pace and darker feel of these songs as opposed to Karnivools previous work. The stage presence of the band members can be felt through not only their enthusiastic movement, but also the back up vocal harmonies provided by guitarists Drew Goddard and Mark Hosking.

Just when you think that Ian Kenny’s voice couldn’t send any more shivers down your spine, the set jumps into two tracks from the highly acclaimed ‘Themata’ album, propelling the crowd into a frenzy. In fact it’s at this point where you can hardly even hear the vocals from the PA over the thousand voices singing along at the top of their lungs. He proceeds to let the crowd know that they are “sexy motherfuckers”, whilst he himself clad a new hairstyle that could have anyone mistaking this for Grease the Musical.

A few more from ‘Sound Awake’ now enter the setlist, and whilst not as ‘heavy’ or ‘catchy’ as the textbook Karnivool sound, their focus on powerful build ups and majestic vocals (regardless of the bland lyrics, cmon they suck) still flow nicely in the show and continue to build the superb atmosphere. A strong Lateralus-era Tool influence can be heard on these songs, allowing you to just take a step back and enjoy the journey.

Something happened during ‘Themata’ that seemed to step the show up to an entirely different level. With the singalong chorus of ‘So good to see this world is alive’, the crowd seemed re-energised, the band electrifying and the lighting of the backdrop flashing enough to invoke an epileptic fit. The latest single ‘Set Fire To The Hive’ and the classic ‘Roquefort’ ended the show, with the moshpit using up any bit of energy that they may have had left whilst the roof could have easily been lifted off by the volume of audience vocals.

Then came the encore, ‘Change’, a 10 minute epic ride through impressive drumming, touching basslines, acoustic guitars and even DJ work by Drew Goddard to mark the end of a triumphant evening.

KARNIVOOL SETLIST: Wednesday 1st July, 2009
Simple Boy
Goliath
Shutterspeed
Cote
New Day
Fear Of The Sky
Deadman
All I Know
Umbra
Themata
Set Fire To The Hive
Roquefort
Change (encore)

Review written by Cabba (www.myspace.com/claimthethrone)