2 November 2024 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane – words by Lucas Bell – pictures by Bec Harbour
Two years after the inaugural Monolith Festival, featuring an all Australian lineup including Karnivool and Cog, 2024s version of the event featured much more of an international flavor. Headlined by a band I personally would consider one of the best current bands on the planet, Coheed and Cambria, the show also featured Washington DC based djenters Periphery, Norwegian prog metal band Leporus, Canadian instrumentalists Intervals, French proggers Novelists, and Australia’s own Silver Fang.
These Monolith shows are incredibly special as well, as these are the first shows Australia have received, where Coheed and Cambria have brought out the Neverender concept, which is their name for a full album playthrough. And that album is the most commercially successful record the band saw in Australia, Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness.
Before the shows started, there were two workshops I attended. First, a Q&A with Spencer, Misha, Jeff, and Jake from Periphery, hosted by Adelaide guitarist Keyan. This was pretty cool to get a behind the scenes look into how the band form the records, with a big focus on the technical side of building and album. My only issue with the Q&A is that Spencer barely had any questions or things to talk about, as most of the questions from Keyan and the crowd seemed tailored to the musical writing and production sides of the band, a part Spencer doesn’t do a lot with. This was followed up by a fantastic Q&A with Claudio Sanchez about the beginning, middle, and future of both Coheed and Cambria, and the Amory Wars concept.
Silver Fang – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
As for the band side of things, Silver Fang were out first. I didn’t get to catch much of the start of their set while I grabbed a drink after the Claudio Q&A. But I really enjoyed what I heard here. A band on the rise for sure. There was a bit of a delay for the next act hitting the stage. French progressive metal crew Novelists were 10 minutes late on, but it seemed to have stemmed from technical issues with their gear and samples. They played a shorter set, but it didn’t seem like the lack of samples had any impact on the quality of the tunes. The band was super fun, and another band I’d suggest keeping your eyes on.
Novelists – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
Swinging back into the set time rhythm, Canadian progressive metal instrumentalists Intervals hit the stage next, and put on an insane show. This is not my first time seeing Intervals and I hope it’s not my last. Aaron is such an incredible guitar player, and even if the lack of vocals isn’t your vibe, they’re still a band worth checking out. Shout out to the bass player too. Some killer bass lines throughout the set that stood out and popped the crowd huge. They closed the set off with the song ‘Circuit Bender’, which had its live debut, and is such a solid track.
Intervals – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
Leprous were out next, and I purposely kept myself from checking these guys out before the show, to see what the live experience was like. And holy hell they did not disappoint. They were on stage for about 40 minutes or so, but I could have watched them play for two hours. They were just too good. There were some really solid tracks in the set. The best song of the set though was a track called ‘Atonement’, that I know I need to now go digging into the catalog and start with whatever record that song is on. They give a real Opeth vibe instrumentally, but vocally a much deeper power metalish kind of feeling
Leprous – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
As the clock hit 7:55pm, the lights dimmed for Periphery, which ruled because they were scheduled for 8pm, and caught everyone off guard. They opened the set with ‘Wildfire’, which ruled. They even do the jazzy sax interlude as part of the song live, which was so amazing. It’s my favorite part of the music video for the song. ‘Atropos’ was up next, before the boys legitimately shocked me, with the intro to ‘Reptile’.
Periphery – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
I was hanging with my friends, going “there is no way they’re doing this song here, live, right?”. And lo and behold, they played it. All 16 glorious minutes of it. The band was only scheduled for 60 minutes. And they used a quarter of their set, for one song. That cracks me up so much. Spencer mentioned the next song on the set is one that they haven’t played much, and they were really excited for, which ended up being ‘Zagreus’, which I totally didn’t expect. The last two songs for the set were ‘Marigold’ (which I lost my mind during), and ‘Blood Eagle’, which drew the only Wall of Death of the day. Shame I have to miss the Periphery show at Brightside, because this set was basically just an advertisement for that show tomorrow. And it should be a killer show.
Periphery – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
As the final break before Coheed was going on, there was this weird and wonderful sense that people around me did actually know what was about to happen. The show had been advertised as Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness being played in full. But there was almost a sense around the crowd of “Will they run it in album order or not”. Since I knew what a Neverender entailed, I fully knew the show was going to open with ‘Always and Never’ into ‘Welcome Home’. The moment the acoustic guitar rig was walked out onto stage, the excitement built up. The lights dimmed, as ‘Keeping the Blade’ played over the speakers. Claudio walked out to sing and play ‘Always and Never’, as Travis, Zach and Josh all walked out to prepare for ‘Welcome Home’. It’s weird not seeing ‘Welcome Home’ as the closer. But seeing it as sort of an opener, is even weirder.
Coheed and Cambria – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
The hits kept rolling as album order continued with ‘Ten Speed’, which was another song that the crowd bopped along to pretty hard. Once ‘Ten Speed’ finished though, the remainder of this record was songs I was going to hear for the first time ever. Monolith was my eleventh Coheed show. And there was no better way to start off the run of songs, with ‘Crossing the Frame’. This song is notoriously a song Claudio mentioned during a Reddit AMA 11 years ago, he wished he never put it on the record. This is such a bop though and super fun live. ‘Apollo I: The Writing Writer’ was just as good as I expected it to be live, as ‘Apollo I’ and ‘Apollo II’ are two of my five favorite Coheed songs.
‘Once Upon Your Dead Body’ is maybe my least favorite song on the album, but live it’s pretty good. ‘Wake Up’ was beautiful to see in person, before ‘The Suffering’ woke the crowd up and got Brisbane back into moshing around and screaming out lyrics. ‘The Lying Lies & Dirty Secrets of Miss Erica Court’ and ‘Mother May I’ were up next, before we got deep into ‘The Willing Wells’.
Coheed and Cambria – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
‘The Willing Wells’ suite is 30 minutes of some of my favorite prog rock ever. ‘Fuel for the Feeding End’ would have to be THE song though, I would say, where all four members of the band all shine simultaneously. The complexity in the drumming from Josh, to the frantic bass from Zach, and Travis and Claudio trading off riffs. It surely has to be one of the most complex songs in their catalog, but they all make it look so easy. ‘From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness’ and ‘Apollo II: The Telling Truth’ got their playthroughs, before we got the utter chaos that is ‘The Final Cut’.
Coheed and Cambria – Monolith Festival – photos by Bec Harbour
This song is pretty well known for being a track that is a little unpredictable live. Some shows might get the original 7:40 version. Other shows might stretch to about 15 minutes. Ours were for about 10, and involved Claudio ripping his amp up, playing on top of it, before using it to play his own guitar to close out the track. It was bonkers and chaotic in the best way. The crowd was going ballistic, before we got the encore of ‘A Favor House Atlantic’, and ‘In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3’, to close out probably one of the best shows I’ve seen all year.
