Live Review: Funeral For A Friend, Relentless, Perspectives

For the first 30 minutes, Manning Bar was a very uncomfortable place to be, with a majority of those in attendance seemingly quite deterred by the prospect of setting foot onto the near-empty dancefloor. Thanks to Perspectives, it was easy to forget about the initially awkward atmosphere. Whatever character the frontman lacked during his between-song banter, he made up for tenfold with a genuine display of passion, matched (and sometimes challenged) by the emotively-charged La Dispute-esque guitar arrangements and immaculately mixed drum-kit.

What a person chooses to wear has very little to do with how well they perform – and in most instances, it has absolutely nothing to do with quality of performance. But when two fifths of the band is wearing their own merchandise, it's hard to take a group like Relentless seriously. The amount of aggression collectively exerted by the band was often comical and with such a lack of variety in the band's music, their aggression seemed to be what their performance relied on.

Funeral For A Friend have really shifted their focus musically. For fans of their earlier work, their first Australian headline tour in six years would've been a real kick in the teeth; they seem hellbent on becoming a hardcore band and their once hyper-emotional melody-driven songs (such as Juneau and History) were re-arranged to fit their new tough-guy front. The combination of frontman Matt Davies' attempted bravado and a damaged throat made it trying to listen to his forced efforts at yelling. While you can hardly blame him, he made it hard to be sympathetic with occasional intervals of unwarranted hostility directed at the audience.

Bands like Funeral For A Friend can get by simply on nostalgic value, but the amount they butchered their earlier catalogue made it hard to even enjoy that aspect. Bluntly put, their performance was a let-down.