5 December 2025 – The Brightside, Brisbane – words and pictures by Clea-marie Thorne
Walking into The Brightside tonight, I’m instantly copping that messy humidity settling over the courtyard like a warm Brisbane handshake. Everyone’s milling early, grabbing drinks, scoping the two stage setup, buzzing about Bird’s Robe hitting fifteen years. It feels like a family reunion for prog diehards, post rock tragics, weird time signature tragics, and people who just like being emotionally flattened by sound.
Inside, Echotide slide in first, easing everyone into the night. Guitarists Michael Gagen and Alex Hides, drummer Sam Mead and his brother Arlen Mead (bass) start with a new track and the energy is slowly building. They are breathing soundscapes that drift across the venue levels like evening fog. I watch punters stop mid-sentence, beers halfway to their mouths, realising they’re being pulled into something gentle but heavy. ‘All Frequencies Wide Open’ lands. Gagen coaxing delicate ringing notes, Arlen riding the low end like a heartbeat up through concrete, while Sam pocketed and patient, waiting for the right moment to blow the room apart.
Echotide – The Brightside – photos by Clea-marie Thorne
By the time they hit another new track, ‘A Semaphore Burning’, that all in wall of sound, people are standing letting it wash over them. Not too many moshing this early, but the crowd is shifting into that meditative prog headspace. A beautiful warm up. The night has started breathing.
Outside, Squat Club, the instrumental post rock pack from Sydney, step back into Brisbane like they never left. Josh Ahearn on bass, Josh Head on bass, Tim Brown on guitar and bazouki, Evan McGregor on drums, all wrangled back into the fold. Their set hits like a bizarre caffeinated maths experiment unfolding in real time. The room packed shoulder to shoulder. Everyone knows this band barely existed the first time and no one’s risking missing the second coming.
Squat Club – The Brightside – photos by Clea-marie Thorne
They rip through weird angled riffs, jittery rhythmic puzzles that feel like sprinting uphill then diving off a cliff. People laugh mid song, not because it’s funny, but because it’s ridiculous how tight they are after so long away. Nostalgia wraps heavy around the noise, but the energy is now, alive, unhinged.
Back inside, Kodiak Empire load the stage with hometown weight. Bryce Carleton on vocals, Fraser Montgomery and Jack Anders on guitars, Liam Cuffe on bass, Jake Koen on drums. They launch into soaring passages that stretch across the night air, big sky prog style. Carleton floats into high clean vocals, Montgomery and Anders weave riffs that flick from peaceful to chaotic in two heartbeats, Koen drums like he’s possessed.
Kodiak Empire – The Brightside – photos by Clea-marie Thorne
The crowd bobbing slowly, letting themselves get pulled in. When heavier parts hit, the air shifts. People lean in, drawn closer, into the sound’s gravity. By the end of their set, The Brightside feels unsettled, brushed by something evolving to be bigger than itself. Kodiak Empire aren’t background music. They are here to make a statement.
I was one of the fools who thought the stages were alternating and wandered outside, only to be told the next band were also inside. Cheers for the heads up. I make it back in time to see Caspian take the stage. The whole venue holding its breath. Philip Jamieson, Calvin Joss, Jonny Ashburn, Jani Zubkovs and Justin Forrest stacked as a three guitar formation plus bass and drums, the swell begins slow, heavy, ominous.
First notes of ‘ASA’ ripple through floorboards, low end vibrating ribs, guitars layering like storm clouds. People jolt, heads snap up, beers pause mid sip. They’re cracking the earth open underneath us.
Caspian – The Brightside – photos by Clea-marie Thorne
‘Halls of the Summer’ slides in bright and blinding, that warm post rock glow rolling over everyone before dragging us into the darker creeping weight of ‘Malacoda’. ‘Flowers of Light’ pours in next like its own small sunrise. Punters soften, eyes closing, shoulders dropping. The whole room starts breathing together.
Then they build. Taking their time with that climb. And when they drop into ‘Gone in Bloom and Bough’, the place is gone. Properly gone. Slow lift, beautiful ache, final explosion shaking dust out of the ceiling. People glass eyed. Church for the emotionally unhinged.
‘Arcs of Command’ follows like a landslide, guitars hitting in sheets, Zubkovs’ bass rattling the floor, Forrest slamming the kit like he’s trying to wake the dead. ‘Burnt Reynolds’ eases the pressure a touch before ‘Castles High, Marble Bright’ rolls out. Everything feels unreal, lights buzzing, smoke hanging, faces softening into that post rock thousand yard stare.
As they rebuild into haunting melodies, the room drops quiet. Lights buzz overhead, smoke drifts, a few close their eyes, others stare at light rigs or each other like the weight is internal, personal. Bass hums like heartbeats, drums pulse like breathing, guitars shimmer like water under moonlight.
Then they build again. Jamieson swelling a chord, Joss guiding a riff, Zubkovs rattling the floor, Forrest hitting earthquake drums. Energy coils, rises, climbs, then smashes into a wave so big you feel it in your teeth. Final notes of ‘Gone in Bloom and Bough’ crash across the crowd, no cheering, just a stunned collective release. Caspian have always been masters of the slow burn apocalypse. Tonight, they remind you why. Immense. Downright filthy.
This time with the program, I head outdoors again. Chrispy Town on guitar, Gareth Rigden on guitar, Brenton Page on bass, and a left handed guitarist whose name I still can’t pin down. They strike first with ‘Requiem’. Shimmering, atmospheric, ghost like. Drifting underwater, faint lights refracting on skin. People lean on railings, smoke curls, bodies quiet down. Soft, beautiful, spare. Breath between breaths.
‘Curtis…’ comes in ahead of ‘And a Whole Assortment of Uppers and Downers’ with grooving basslines, then ‘Waiting for 5120’. When they take it to darker heavier places, it is divine. ‘Accept the Mystery’ is a great place to land, a chance to soak in the night’s bruises. Guitars stretch and fade, the air tastes resting and raw, like a moment carved out for memory.
We wait under the stars and eventually Cog walk on to a roaring cheer. Flynn Gower on vocals and guitar, Lucius Borich on drums, Luke Gower on bass. The overflowing courtyard surges. First chord lands and the place erupts, tinnies arc back, bodies lurch forward, voices rise before lyrics hit. Heat, humidity, sweat, every sense doubles down.
They kick in heavy. ‘Doors (Now and Then My Life Feels Like It Is Going Nowhere)’ opens the set and the place detonates. ‘Are You Interested?’ lands, the front pushing forward, singing every line. ‘What If’ and ‘Paris, Texas’ keep the heat rolling, the set refusing to let off. Thick riffs, bass reverberating concrete, drums pounding the skyline. Flynn snarls into the mic, audience feels every word. Hearts beat in time. Feet stomp. Floor vibrates. Tribal, ritual, messy, glorious.
COG – The Brightside – photos by Clea-marie Thorne
‘Walk The Line’ and ‘The Middle’ slot in with that familiar build and release Cog do so well. ‘Drawn Together’ feels massive and gushing, shifting straight into ‘Silence Is Violence’, sharp and pointed, making the pit feral. ‘The Spine’ and ‘Run’ ramp the intensity, ‘My Enemy’ pulls everything taut, and ‘Bird of Feather’ closes the night with that final full volume push, leaving everyone winded and grinning.
Packing up the camera, trying to remember where I parked, I flick through shots and realise half the frames look like they’re vibrating because every band tonight shook the air itself. Fine. That’s the job. That’s the joy. The Brightside still rumbling behind me, people still yelling, floating, not ready to switch off. I’m not either. Nights like this aren’t settling. They’re echoing, rattling around in the ribs long after the amps go cold.
I recall where I parked as I watch punters scatter in every direction, all wearing that sweaty blown out grin you only get from being sonically steamrolled in the best way possible. And it hits me, not in a soft poetic way, but in a sweaty shouty holy shit that was sick kind of way. Loud live music still drags this many strangers into the same venue and turns them into one loud messy organism for a few hours.
COG – The Brightside – photos by Clea-marie Thorne
Bird’s Robe didn’t just mark fifteen years. They reminded us why we keep turning up, why it keeps mattering, why it keeps working. I remember where I parked and head off into the Valley night half wrecked and fully buzzing, knowing this one’s going to ring in my bones for a while yet.
