Live Review: Defeater, Blacklisted, Waiting Room

The Zoo is nice and full when Brisbane melodic hardcore outfit Waiting Room do their thing. There are a couple of equipment issues that keep the five-piece from really making an impression, but when they hit their mark the crowd is impressed.

With only 40 minutes onstage, Philadelphia's Blacklisted take a while to find their groove. During the first half of the set vocalist George Hirsch seems unable to keep up with the rapid-fire streams of lyrical self-loathing from numbers like Our Apartment Is Always Empty and Stations. The rest of the band cannot compensate for the vocalist and it feels that the material, sterling cuts like Always, is carrying the performance rather than meeting it halfway. Then the band introduces a new number, Houdini Blues, and everything clicks. Hirsch grows more animated, his wounded bark sounds exponentially more compelling, and the band matches the frontman's intensity. Their set is immediately exciting, and the kids up the front respond rabidly. Guitarist Jon Nean pushes a hip feedback jam on Circuitbreaker into gnarly, grating dissonance, banging the neck of his instrument with a beer bottle while drummer Shawn Foley and bassist Dave Sausage respond with their own squalls of noise. The set comes to feel like a maelstrom where the crushing despair of numbers like I Am Weighing Me Down and Wish are heightened and Blacklisted are an unstoppable juggernaut. That is, until they exit the stage and the crowd has to decide whether they're frustrated or elated by the short set.

Where Blacklisted capture moments of brilliance in a patchy set, Defeater come on strong with The Red, White And Blues. The Boston five-piece maintain a high standard throughout their performance, working through cuts from last year's Empty Days And Sleepless Nights record with a polished aplomb. Their twin guitars are lithe and quick through faster numbers like No Kind Of Home, where the rhythm section deftly lends the necessary heft to the thrashy breakdowns of Warm Blood Rush. Mid-set, vocalist Derek Archambault kicks off the requisite block of acoustic songs with I Don't Mind before inviting the band back onstage to transform But Breathing into a palatable, but somewhat gauche, Gaslight Anthem-style rock ballad. Switching back to their hardcore sound, Defeater adeptly punch out another handful of pit-motivating numbers to close out their set.

Exiting The Zoo, the crowd is left considering the differences between tonight's co-headliners. They're left to discuss whether Defeater's set, consistent and strong, matches the excitement of watching Blacklisted's performance veer from the brink of disaster to verging upon brilliance, and whether being polished should count for anything at a hardcore show. Which is a pretty interesting conversation for a Tuesday night.