Slowly Slowly - Gig Review & Photo Gallery 12th April @ MC Arena, Melb VIC

Slowly Slowly
Margaret Court Arena Melbourne, VIC
April 12^th 2025
Support: Grayscale and Honey Revenge

I was fortunate to see and review Slowly Slowly’s headline show at The Forum back in 2023 to celebrate the release of their fourth album Daisy Chain. I walked into that show as a casual listener of the band and walked out obsessed with them, so it kind of goes without saying that I was champing at the bit to see them step things up to Margaret Court Arena in celebration of their new album Forgiving Spree. An album that I’ve had on repeat since it dropped at the start of the year.

I’ll be completely honest and say that I had never heard either of the support acts, Grayscale and Honey Revenge before tonight and they both pleasantly surprised me. The former delivered big rock power in the vein of State Champs or The Story So Far and the latter delivered infectious and an upbeat pop vibe with powerful hooks. Getting things warmed up in an arena is no easy feat, but both of the supports got the crowd moving and I was stoked to find two new bands to add to the rotation.

‍Slowly Slowly are just a really fucking great band and this set really reaffirmed that you could put them in any size room and they’ll just absolutely crush it. Jumping straight into ‘Blueprint’ to kick off the set with massive energy, the vibe in the room was utterly electric from the very first second. I’m always impressed at how frontman Ben Stewart manages to deliver a pitch perfect vocal performance while galivanting around the stage like a madman, but he somehow does it with ease and style.

Keeping the energy up with ‘How Are You Mine?’, ‘Gimme The Wrench’, ‘Nothing On’ and ‘Creature of Habit Pt.2’, Stewart let the crowd know that the set didn’t really let up and he wasn’t wrong at all. Where the last time I had seen the band, they had cooled the set down with a ballad or two before ramping the energy back up to full speed, this one however was all about keeping the vibe as high for as long as possible. This completely worked in their favour because the crowd had their eyes glued to the stage the entire time and the singalongs were insanely loud.

Balancing the new with the old perfectly in the second half of the set, Slowly touched on a few classics from St. Leonards (‘Alchemy’ & ‘Four Leaf Clover’) amidst a slew of huge tracks from the last two albums. The crowd singing the end of ‘All Time’ back to the band was a really special moment, and I was stoked to see ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Meltdown Masquerade’ in a live setting as they’re two of my favourites from Forgiving Spree.

One thing that really surprised me about this show was the lack of bells and whistles, in a good way. When bands take the step up to arenas, that usually means that they step their production up to try and compensate for the size of the room. Don’t get me wrong, the stage setup was really cool, and the light show was epic, but the best part of the show for me was that it was still the same four dudes I saw at The Forum, playing their hearts out and having a room full of thousands of people lap every second of it up. 

Finishing the main set out with ‘God’, was an epic move on the bands part. Wonderfully moving and contemplative, then culminating with a super powerful ending, the band played with the heartstrings eloquently before returning to the stage for ‘Jellyfish’ and ‘Race Car Blues’. I said above that you could put Slowly Slowly in any size room and they’d crush it, and I stand by that statement. They write big songs, they play them with big energy and they deserve nothing but big praise and adoration for being one of the best rock bands Australia has produced in a long time.

Review by Nicholas Simonsen @blackechomusic

Photo Gallery by Jade Vassiaras Insta: @a.snapshot.of. Please credit Wall of Sound and Jade Vassiaras if you repost photos.