Thy Art Is Murder Tour Diary: Part One

5:45am is a shit time to be getting up in the morning, and when I am woken by my alarm clock on Saturday the 14th of September at this time I can't help but feel a little bit pissed off. However I quickly remember that we are about to jump on a plane to head to Perth to start a tour with a band that has had a lot of influence on me growing up, not to mention one of the biggest metal acts in the world at the moment - the almighty Parkway Drive.

Blue skies before the madness of the night begins.

So we hopped in a cab and made our way to the airport. Six hours later we arrive in Perth and we are running pretty bloody late, it is then we get a call from the notorious Michael Crafter. "Hurry up you desmonds", he says while we work our way through torrential rain heading for the Metropolis in Freemantle. Luckily we made it in time to catch the last few songs of the Confession set, and I can honestly say despite all the line-up changes they have had in recent times I have never heard them sound tighter, the under 18's crowd were loving the mosh justice being dealt out by Micky C and the band and it was great to catch up and meet all the guys.

Queing up...

After having 3 weeks off playing shows and a line-up change I was interested to see how our set would go, but from the first note the crowd erupted and we all had a blast. Hopefully we played to a few people that had never seen us before and we were able to win over some new fans. Up next was Parkway and everyone was more then ready to have their heads ripped off via metal core riffage, double bass and crushing breakdowns.

We're not going to say no to free hugs.

At around 4pm Parkway took the stage, I Watched was the first song to be played and even though a lot of the people in the room were probably about 6 years old when that song was doing the rounds on MySpace it still set it off, especially for us, it was a pleasant blast from the past. Parkway continued to tear through a back catalogue going all the way from the Don't Close Your Eyes EP to their latest effort Atlas. As always Parkway delivered and I think it's safe to say everyone left the show a happy, sweaty mess.

Are you ready, Perth?

Up next was the over 18's show at the Captial, and after ironing out some of the kinks in our live performance the night before, we were ready to bring the heavy. First band up was Perth blackened death metal champs Make Them Suffer and as always they proceeded to crush and blast the audience - hopefully they hadn't worn out the crowd before we were able to take the stage. After a few cheeky whiskeys it was time to play. This was the first sold out show of the tour and there are many more to come It was a little bit daunting but after a quick line check it was time to get down to business. The set went over really well and the crowd was great, we played a set made up of mainly material off our latest album Hate and thankfully we had quite a few people singing along which is always a good thing to see. Once again it was time for Parkway to show everyone how it is done and just as the night before they tore the roof off the place and the atmosphere in that sold out room was something else. I can honestly say it has been an honor to be put on this tour and we are truly grateful for the opportunity.

Till next time...

Next stop Adelaide and we couldn't be more excited for the rest of the tour.

Written by Sean Delander (bass player)