Live Review: The Plot In You, Erra, Deadlights

The Plot In You's return to Australia has been a long wait since their 2019 UNIFY Gathering performance. In the meantime, we've had a pandemic and they've released a whole new album, 2021's Swan Song, to follow up the mammoth success of their 2018 album Dispose. They announced this cracking tour late last year and it's clear the wait has been ANTICIPATED.

Standing in the line to get into The Triffid, I am surrounded by people who are jostling and KEEN to get in. The room inside is already pretty much full and there's still a massive line outside. Once inside, I catch the majority of local openers Deadlights' set and honestly, they have to be the top of the pack in Brissy at the moment - a STURDY as fuck live show, backed up with ACTUAL bangers, they are sure to be finishing out line-ups at large venues rather than opening them, in the near future. They absolutely understood the assignment this evening, THOROUGHLY warming up the crowd. Honestly, its been a while since I have seen an opener pretty much get the entire room of punters there to see the whole lineup from song one, and they made the most of it. They ripped through tracks from their 2021 release Uncanny Valley and asked the crowd present who had been with them since their 2017 album, Mesma, to a HEARTY cheer. 

With a fairly lengthy break in between sets, ERRA took the stage to a PASSIONATE throng of fans. This could just have easily have been Erra's headline show tonight, as the production, sound and stage show was headliner-worthy. They rolled out Gungrave, and unrelentingly assaulted The Triffid with ‘Scorpion Hymn’, ‘Sol Absentia’, ‘Eye of God’ and ‘Divisionary' - and the back half of the set was super mosh-heavy. New banger ‘Pull From The Ghost’ proved a massive hit with the sing-along crowd, as they rolled into ‘Nigh to Silence’ into ‘Breach’ and ‘Skyline’ before finishing with ‘Snowblood’. There's a tonne of people in the room who would probably have been content to finish the night at this point, having witnessed a razor-sharp, textbook technical metalcore set from Erra, but there was so much more passion and metalcore goodness to be had.

It seems that someone clued in The Plot in You about the power of John Farnham's The Voice (or perhaps their sound guy saw the AFL grand final that afternoon where Robbie Williams performed it as a tribute to Farnesy!) as they played it before taking the stage, ensuring that the crowd's vocals were warmed up to sing along with TPIY frontman Landon Tewers. Once they took the stage, there really was just NO DOUBT whose night this was. Huge single after huge single rolled out, and the crowd lapped up E V E R Y note of it. Highlights of the STELLAR set was the 1-2-3 punch mid-set of NOT JUST BREATHING, THE ONE YOU LOVED and ONE LAST TIME, just absolute pure singalong bliss that was seemingly even HEAVIER and more passionately delivered live? How that's possible I am unsure. They thrashed their way through a slew of tracks from the new album Swan Song in the back half of the set, keeping the energy, just to round it out with DISPOSABLE FIX and FEEL NOTHING from Dispose, and frankly, there was absolutely no other way that this set was going to finish in any other or better way.

Frankly, if you missed this tour, you missed what was actually possibly the metalcore show of the year. My compliments to the agent who put this lineup together - y'all got taste!