Live Review: At The Drive-In, Bad//Dreems

Support bands are important. Not only do they give well deserved exposure to local bands, but they warm a crowd up for the main act. Bad//Dreems tick both those boxes. Some people may not have heard or seen them before, but the cross-section of people should appreciate how great they are on stage.

Vocalist, Ben Marwe, lopes around the stage like a drunk uncle; he's entertaining , the music is solid and they just rock. Cuffed & Collared is delivered with fast intensity before a sudden exit from the stage. The uninitiated should be 'liking' them on Facebook right now.

A lot of words have been written about this reunion tour from At The Drive-In. The fact that it happened at all is a minor miracle and the anticipation from a sold out Enmore was palpable. The long wait between acts just serves to build the tension.

The band take the stage, sans Jim Ward of course, but when Cedric Bixler-Zavala starts screaming out Arcarsenal, we don't care. It's raw, earplug piercingly loud and the energy from the crowd is raucous and exhilarating. Naturally, following up with Pattern Against User gets the crowd further in a lather, screaming out every lyric.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez are flinging themselves around the stage with wild abandon and watching Bixler-Zavala dive into the front rows during track one, clamber over the speaker stack and launch himself into the air in track two, you wonder just how long he can keep it up.

He can't of course, but it's ok; he's north of 40 and it shows in his endurance. Unfortunately, yes, this means his voice is not once what it was, but handing the microphone to a fan in the front row just adds to the theatre of the show. The rest of the band have lost nothing. Rodriguez is consistently awe-inspiring on guitar and Keeley Davis fills the Jim Ward gap with aplomb.

With a selection of tracks that should please every diehard fan, the concert was all the more appreciated with the announcement of a new album on its way next year. Endurance will surely be tested once again, but tonight we were happy to put it all out there for a reunion to remember.