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

Relentless hard rock duo Corpus get us quickly onside with storming riffage and a drum beat that buries into our collective skull. The young Sydney pair have been championed relentlessly by Bert McCracken since The Used frontman moved to Australia last year, and it’s pretty easy to understand why. They melt faces with closing cut The Real Motherfucker and we’re all left wanting more.

A big banner reveals itself soon after to let us know The Used will be taking on ‘main support’ duties tonight, though with anticipation in the pit tangible, you get a feeling that this is who most punters have come to see. Sure enough, when McCracken appears with his cohorts, opening with Cry, the place turns into a human whirlpool. This fervent energy is then kicked into overdrive with a frantic Take It Away. The quartet sound so much better than they did during their mid-afternoon slot at Warped Tour last year – you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a new band entirely. McCracken is especially on-point, barely missing a note while his crazy eyes dart about maniacally under a mohawk that’s given up – maybe it’s the “better weed up here”? Maybe he’s just reinspired? Either way, he owns it during The Taste Of Ink, All That I’ve Got and Buried Myself Alive, while bassist Jeph Howard takes control of his five-string throughout. A Hero Condoms competition winner (they’re doing great things, look them up) has a full fangirl moment with Bert serenading her during The Best Of Me, then a large circle pit turns into a full room wall of death for Pretty Handsome Awkward, before A Box Full Of Sharp Objects, complete with snippets of Smells Like Teen Spirit and Killing In The Name, concludes a pretty-much flawless set.

You immediately get the sense that tonight’s ‘headliners’ Taking Back Sunday knew they had a tough act to follow, and though songs like Stood A Chance, Liar (It Takes One To Know One) and They Don’t Have Any Friends sound great, despite some minor tech issues, the energy in the room has noticeably dropped from ‘Beatlemania’ to ‘super fun times’ – something like that anyway. Adam Lazarra isn’t as match fit as he once was, but he still gets the microphone swinging around his neck, and it’s always awesome when you see band members passionate enough about the music that they’ll sing along sans mic (Shaun Cooper (bass) – well played). Trading vocals have always been the point of difference for TBS, and they shine on What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?, Error: Operator, One-Eighty By Summer and Flicker, Fade, before the six-piece give us a couple of singalong favourites in Cute Without The ‘E’ (Cut From The Team) and MakeDamnSure to send us home smiling.