24 May 2024 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane – words by Lucas Bell – pictures by Bec Harbour
It’s been a while between live tours for Karnivool fans. Embarking on the Tri Continental Drift Tour, the Perth five piece are hitting Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Frankston, and Adelaide, before launching over to Europe to play legendary festivals like Download, Copenhell, and Hellfest. We were lucky enough to catch the first show of this tour, and I was even treated to potentially discovering a new favorite Australian act, in Adelaide five piece, Sleep Talk.
The moment Sleep Talk walked out on stage and hit their first notes, my jaw hit the floor. Fusing an insane mixture of hardcore and progressive rock, from the opening song to the closer, this set was one of the most high energy sets I’ve seen all year. I can’t name a single song they played, except for a song I think that was called ‘Go Be Happy’, but every song in this set made me wanna thrash out on the balcony. Me and my friends joked about halfway through the set that Sleep Talk is almost like a hardcore version of Tool, but the jokes disappeared as the songs got more technical as the set moved along. I’m absolutely fascinated by this band, and cannot wait to see them again really soon.
Sleep Talk – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
As the lights grew dim, the audience grew loud as it was time for arguably, one of the best Australian live music acts, to hit the stage. Opening with the 2021 single ‘All It Takes’, Karnivool took Brisbane across a 90 minute soundscape of some of the bands best material from the last 20+ years. It’s been almost two years since Karnivool have graced a stage in Brisbane, and lead vocalist Ian Kenny reminded us of that fact, asking if the last time they were here was the Monolith Festival in 2022. We then settled in for a monster set, with songs like ‘C.OT.E.’ and ‘Goliath’ doing insane scenes from the audience, where the crowd were louder than the speakers at times.
Karnivool – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
Kenny introduced us to the song ‘Mauseum’, which I could not believe is part of the set, as this is one of my favorite Kanrivool songs. It bled nicely into ‘Simple Boy’, Ian spoke about how they should just never stop touring, so we could eventually get a new record, which the crowd erupted at the thought of, before ‘Aozora’, a live set staple at this point that has never been released, played into ‘We Are’. As much as I enjoy ‘We Are’, Aeons was never an album I was fully able to get into, and I felt like a majority of the crowd had the same opinion, especially on the balcony. It was really the first quiet part of the show. The quietness didn’t last however, as the opening notes to ‘Set Fire to the Hive’ sent the Fortitude Music Hall into a frenzy.
Karnivool – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
Another song that has long sat in the live show rotation, but never been released, is ‘Animation’. I hope they put a studio version of this out soon because it’s such a great song, and I can only listen to it at live shows. The last four songs of the show were probably some of the loudest singing I’ve both ever heard, and also took part in, as ‘Roquefort’ kicked off an insane sing along that not even Kenny could ignore.
Karnivool – FMH – photos by Bec Harbour
‘Themata’ was up next, and the chorus to this song is always huge. But in a room like the Music Hall, it felt so much bigger. If you know the chorus, you know what I’m talking about. It’s goosebumps inducing stuff. Aeons brought the crowd down a little, like We Are did earlier in the set, before a massive finale with the ultimate crowd pleaser, ‘New Day’. I think I’m close to the double digits seeing Karnivool live, and this was definitely one of the best shows I’ve ever seen them put on.
