Live Review: The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Corpus, Breakaway

24 August 2014 | 2:36 pm | Melissa Borg

The crowd was fucking insane.

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Sydney pop rock five-piece Breakaway kicked off the evening’s double header bill, but unfortunately played to a very bare crowd on account of starting their set just as they were letting punters into the venue. 

Next up was post-hardcore act Corpus who as a pair thrashed through their set. They grabbed the attention of some crowd members, but most just waited patiently and in anticipation, for it to end.

The wait was finally over and the sold out crowd greeted Taking Back Sunday with a loud cheer as they kicked off their set with new track Stood A Chance. This was followed up with arguably one of their best songs Liar (It Takes One To Know One), which the crowd yelled right back at them. Charismatic lead singer Adam Lazzara was working the crowd from all angles of the stage, showcasing his hip thrusting, hand popping dance moves along with every microphone trick in the book as the band powered through a set of new and old tracks.

The band did not leave without giving the sold out crowd what they wanted, which was evidently their more classic tracks, including What’s It Feel Like To be A Ghost? and closer Cute Without The ‘E’. Everyone was pleading for an encore of MakeDamnSure and as soon as the first chord dropped the crowd went nuts, leaving us satisfied. 

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The Used entered to a screaming, heaving crowd and singer Bert McCracken didn’t waste any time getting the crowd involved, signalling for us to clap in Cry to kick off the set. It was obvious that this show was for diehard fans, not only because they mostly played the best tracks from their first four albums, but because Bert insisted on sharing anecdotes about his life throughout.

Besides the downtime between songs, the crowd was fucking insane, there were multiple mosh pits throughout the night, with songs I Caught Fire, The Taste Of Ink and The Best Of Me eliciting the rowdiest crowd responses. And just when it couldn’t get any more hectic, Bert insisted the crowd split and prepare to run at each other at the sound of the first drop in Pretty Handsome Awkward, chaos ensued. 

The Used began their encore with heartfelt On My Own, with Bert having a moment as the crowd finished singing the line for him. This only seemed to recharge the crowd because when Bert said he wanted us to go mental for the last song, the crowd went for it as the intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit fired up before morphing into A Box Full Of Sharp Objects and then finishing up with the ‘fuck you’ outro from Killing In The Name Of

The sold out crowd left sweaty, exhausted and satisfied, with enough ringing in their ears to remind them that this was a double headline show to remember.