Live Review - Swarm Tour

Artists:  Twelve Foot Ninja, Jericco, Circles (All Melbourne, Australia)

Date/s:  24 March & 30 March, 2012 – Evelyn Hotel & Ferntree Gully Hotel

The Swarm Tour brought together three of Melbourne’s leading upstart bands.  If you’re familiar with the alternative metal scene in Melbourne, you’re probably familiar, in some way, with all three artists on this bill.  Each one has been forging their own path around the country, slowly gathering their own loyal following and infecting the ears of anyone willing to listen.  Circles have been gathering fans abroad, Jericco are becoming one of the most recognisable names in Melbourne’s live scene and Twelve Foot Ninja continue to build upon their reputation of being Australia’s answer to Faith No More.  So why not join together, tour the country and leave a path of ringing ears and the after-effects of silly metal nerd antics in their wake?  I happened to see two of these shows, so what follows is sort of a mashed together review of both nights.

Circles:  Let’s start with the babies of the tour.  Even though, Circles have been around for quite a few years, things have really picked up in the last eighteen months for the Melbourne quintet, giving the impression that they have emerged out of nowhere.  While the sound at The Evelyn show wasn’t the best, the band seemed to have one of, if not the largest crowd of the night.  Each time I go to a Circles show, I notice a few more Circles t-shirts, which of course, is an excellent sign that things are catching on here at home as well as overseas.  The band didn’t play any of their newer tunes, preferring to save them for later in the year when, hopefully, their debut album is complete (and from the demos I’ve heard, it’s going to be killer!).  I’ve written about their live show before and not much has changed.  They still hit hard, they still engage, they’re still winning fans.  Go check them out.  A strange thing happened at the Ferntree Gully Hotel show of this tour though (and I’ve heard from various sources, that it was the norm for the other shows, despite not being the case at The Evelyn).  Circles played first and were followed by a local band before Jericco and Twelve Foot Ninja closed the night.  Now, this is odd because the shows were advertised as a three-band tour.  Twelve Foot Ninja, Jericco and Circles were all on the poster.  It was billed as a three-headed metal beast.  Any supports should have played before Circles, not after.  As a punter, you’d expect to see the three bands on the bill playing the three last sets.  As a punter, knowing that this is normally the case, you might decide to turn up late to the show because you know some local band you’re not interested in will be playing first.  As a punter, you’d be extremely disappointed if you turned up late, assuming that the support band would play first only to find that one of the bands you were really excited to see (Circles) had already played and now you have to sit through a set by the very band you were trying to avoid.  This is not a rant against the support band, whoever they were at the Ferntree Gully Hotel.  It’s just to point out the organisational stupidity of whoever was in charge of making that boneheaded decision.

Jericco:  Jericco are an interesting prospect for me.  For several different reasons, I’ve missed them at every gig they’ve played at, whether it is a festival or their supporting another band.  It has never been done on purpose.  How can I deliberately avoid a band I know very little about?  So now, at The Evelyn I finally managed to see them and all they have to offer.  Personally, they’re not really my style.  There’s no doubt that they are a very good band.  They put on an engaging show and the crowd showed their love for the band.  It’s just that there is a glut of these kinds of bands in Australia at the moment.  After the initial popularity of The Butterfly Effect, Cog and Karnivool, it seems as though every musician in Australia is imitating this style to varying degrees of success.  Jericco are a good band.  I could just as easily listen to Karnivool though who do this style better.  At The Ferntree Gully Hotel show I, again, missed Jericco’s set (due to a strange mission involving driving up a mountain, walking for ten minutes in pitch black bush and two thirty litre barrels of water), so I can’t comment on it.

Twelve Foot Ninja:  What can I say?  This band is killing it right now!  They’ve never been tighter, they’ve never sounded bigger and they’ve never delivered a set with this much punch (apart from, maybe, their supporting set at the Tesseract/Periphery show).  Everything about Twelve Foot Ninja on these two nights pointed to something very exciting around the corner.  That thing, of course, is their debut album to be released at some stage later this year (recording has finished and they’re in the middle of mixing).  Twelve Foot Ninja are on fire and you should definitely check them out if you’re a fan of alternative metal in any way.  The band played some of the new tracks and they seem to be getting heavier.  While the band does incorporate many different styles into their music, there is no doubt that, with each batch of new songs, the emphasis of skull crushing riffs and rhythms is growing which only indicates excellent things for the album.  Their new guitar player also seems to be quite an asset to the band, providing some great fretwork and backing vocals that blended perfectly with Kin’s powerful voice.  Go see them and buy their album!