Hatebreed - Gig Review & Photo Gallery 5th March @ 170 Russell, Melb VIC

Hatebreed
170 Russell, Melbourne VIC
March 5^th 2025
Supports: Algor Mortis and Fever Shack

My first thought when the KNOTFEST lineup for 2025 was announced was ‘I hope Hatebreed play a headliner in Melbourne’ and luckily enough, that hope became a reality. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the hardcore heroes on our shores, and I just knew that a festival set wasn’t going to be enough after such a long wait. The Melbourne hardcore scene has changed a lot over the last 12 years, but it was great to see 170 Russell full of familiar faces. You could definitely feel the excitement in the room to see the band back in full force after such a long absence.

‍Fever Shack opened proceedings and did a fine job of picking the energy up with big riffs and big beatdowns. It was easy to see that opening for hardcore royalty was a dream gig for these guys and they smashed it. Great to see a tonne of crowd activity for an opening act as well.

‍Algor Mortis were absolutely crushing from the jump, and I could tell it threw the crowd in the best possible way. Super sick, very slammy and the insanely immense gutturals from vocalist CC had everyone hyped. It was an added bonus to see a few members of Hatebreed watching from the green room and loving it. Algor were certainly a different vibe to Fever Shack, but it made for a really interesting and surprising dynamic from the support bands.

You ever go to a show and feel like the wait between the main support and the headline act just has this slow brewing tension? From the moment Algor had pulled their gear off stage, I could see the hundreds of people in the pit getting antsy and excited. By the time Hatebreed took the stage, it took all of 15 seconds for the pit to become utter chaos. Coming out the gate with the triple onslaught of ‘To The Threshold’, ‘I Will Be Heard’ and ‘A Call For Blood’ indicated that the band most definitely chose violence on this day. I’m fortunate to be tall and can happily stand up the back with a clear view of the stage, and it was insane to see the crowd just going for it, no holds barred.

Keeping the energy up with absolute classics ‘Proven’ and ‘Perseverance’, frontman Jamey Jasta kept egging the crowd on for more activity, and they delivered in spades. The pit just didn’t stop throughout the entire set and people were crowd surfing at every opportunity. As someone who has listened to Jasta’s podcast for a long time, it was hilarious to hear him ask the crowd who was coming out of most retirement for the evening.

As I said above, it’s a long time since Australian audiences have seen Hatebreed and you could tell the band was doing their best to make up for lost time. While the set was largely made up of a tonne tracks from Perseverence, the band made sure to touch on material from all of their albums, even all the way back to the beginning with tracks from Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire and Under The Knife.

15 tracks into the set and the energy was still at fever pitch. The band gave no quarter and neither did the crowd. Closing out with ‘This Is Now’ and ‘Tear It Down’ from the often overlooked The Rise Of Brutality and putting the show to bed with the monstrous ‘Looking Down The Barrel Of Today’, Hatebreed had a lot of making up to do after a such a massive gap between visits, and they delivered one hell of a show that fans old and new were ecstatic about. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we don’t have to wait another 12 years to see these heroes back on our shores.

Review by Nicholas Simonsen @blackechomusic

Photo Gallery by Adam Portelli. Insta: @adam.ellia. Please credit Wall of Sound and Adam Portelli if you repost.