The Amity Affliction

Amity Affliction (Chasing Ghosts Australian Tour) // 10-6-12 // Adelaide, SA
Review and Photos by Sammy Roenfeldt

After officially hitting No.1 in Australia on the ARIA charts this week with their latest studio album ‘Chasing Ghosts’, who better to pop Highlight Magazine’s Australian cherry than arguably the most popular Metalcore band to come out of Australia, THE AMITY AFFLICTION.

The Queensland boys embarked on their longest run of Australian tour dates in their career thus far, supporting the release of their new album ‘Chasing Ghosts’. Bringing along some huge international supports including California’s Melodic Hardcore juggernauts THE GHOST INSIDE and Brighton’s modern day Metalcore legends ARCHITECTS as well as Local Sydney boys and self-proclaimed “Stadium hardcore” band BURIED IN VERONA.

Safe to say this tour was huge, and honestly any of these bands could have easily headlined solo tours around Australia and still have solid crowds, so fans knew they were in for a special night. I was lucky enough to catch the Adelaide leg of the tour at one of Australia’s most loved venues, Thebarton Theatre.

The near sold out crowd arrived early and rightly so, as there wasn’t a band not worth watching. Sydney boys, BURIED IN VERONA opened the show and definitely set the tone for the night. Despite playing a short set, the crowd seemed to really get into it. BURIED IN VERONA were extremely entertaining and were everything that you would want from an opening act. One of the security guards even got a bit of an air hump from guitarist Richie Newman.

ARCHITECTS hit up the stage next and although they hadn’t been on our shores for nearly 2 years they were welcomed by the Adelaide crowd. They played a face meltingly epic set with one of the more memorable moments being the wall of death during ‘Even If You Win, You’re Still a Rat’.

Earlier in the week THE GHOST INSIDE front man Jonathan Vigil found out the heart breaking news about the passing of his father. Being on the opposite side of the world no one would have blamed the band taking the next flight back to the states. However, they decided to stick around. Vigil mentioned during their set that his father was also a musician and how he had taught the frontman from a young age that what happens between the four walls of a gig is nothing like the rest of the world, that it’s something special and this is why they decided to continue on the rest of the tour. Vigil dedicated their new hit ‘Thirty Three’ to his late father and the crowd brought even more energy during the song and it was a special moment felt by all. You could feel that passion throughout their whole set . THE GHOST INSIDE also had a little surprise to end out their set, when they invited ACHITECTS frontman Sam Carte out to help sing the melodic ending in ‘Engine 45’.

 

It was now time for THE AMITY AFFLICTION to hit the stage. They kicked off their set with ‘Chasing Ghosts’ to an explosion of Sparkly confetti which shot into the crowd backed with an amazing light show. It was evident from the very first song that both THE AMITY AFFLICTION and the crowd were really enjoying themselves and the atmosphere was amazing.

Playing mostly from their last two albums, ‘Chasing Ghosts’ and ‘Young Bloods’, halfway through their set they treated us with some old school Amity, playing ‘Stairway To Hell’ from their debut album ‘Severed Ties’.

Hands down the highlight of the night for me was when a young lad in a wheelchair crowd surfed from the back of the venue all the way to the front of the mosh. Both Joel Birch and Ahren Stringer acknowledged the wheelchair surfing legend throughout his epic paddle through an ocean of moshing teens. Birch then proceeded to help security bring the fan onstage wheelchair and all. The fan rolled onto the stage turned around and saluted the crowd with devil horns and the crowd went up in a hair raising applause. The fan stayed on stage for the remainder of their set. No doubt a night he will never forget.

Ending up their set with fan favourite ‘Youngbloods’ The crowd was screaming back the lyrics at the band and it seemed like the crowd had enough energy to continue for another hour. It could have been a perfect ending to the show but THE AMITY AFFLICTION had one more song up their sleeve.

It was all but two seconds after Amity walked off stage after ‘Youngbloods’ that the “ONE MORE SONG” chant commenced. The stomping feet of the crowd echoed throughout Thebarton Theatre. Amity came out for their encore and played their new, highly popular song ‘Open Letter’ and ended the night in yet another explosion of confetti.

Everyone who was fortunate enough to get to one of the shows on The Chasing Ghost tour knows they were part of something special. 2012 is definitely Amity’s year and a band to keep an eye on in 2013 and beyond.