Tonight Alive - Gig Review 11th Sept @ Crowbar, Sydney NSW
Tonight Alive
Crowbar, Sydney NSW
September 11, 2024
Support: Peni Parker
Wednesday. Hump day. Infamously the hardest day of the week to suffer through. And yet I, like many across the country, spent the day jittery in anticipation.
Today, Tonight Alive would be playing live for the first time in years.
This being the first of two back-to-back shows celebrating 11 years of third album The Other Side - which the outfit will be playing in full when they hit When We Were Young Festival next month - you’d be forgiven for mistaking the energy in Crowbar for a Friday night crowd. The only giveaway being the meat raffle going ahead in the next room.
Right from the beginning of the night, the bar was packed with every type of alternative character you can think of. It’s evident Tonight Alive have cultivated such a wonderfully diverse and enthusiastic following since the album's release and it made for a very friendly and loving crowd.
That friendly crowd were quite enthusiastic when it came to opener Peni Parker who was coming fresh off tour with Scream Queen. Despite that fact, there was definitely no sign of fatigue in frontwoman Maddy Ziper as she ran around the stage with a set that entwined heavy elements while still being incredibly dancey. As a queer girlie myself, an obvious highlight for me and seemingly everyone else in the room was her fantastic Chappel Roan cover. Every time I get the opportunity to watch Peni Parker they’ve managed to blow up even more, so I anticipate big things in the near future!
After a quick Aperol Sprits break, I attempted to re-enter the building from the side door (standard procedure) only to be told to go through the main door as it “was too packed”. I thought that's a bit out of the ordinary, but maybe they're just being safe… I don’t think anyone who was given this instruction could have anticipated just how literal it was meant. From the barricade to the back door Crowbar was packed in like a bunch of partying sardines and as the first riffs of 'The Ocean' played out, the wave of cheers that crashed into the walls of the building was deafening - pun definitely intended.
The lineup, consisting of Jenna McDougall, Matty Best, Cam Adler and Jake Hardy played The Other Side from front to back like no time at all had passed. A personal highlight being 'Lonely Girl' which seemed to be a healthy crowd pleaser and angst-filled title-track 'The Other Side' - one of the many times frontwoman Jenna McDougall blew the crowd away with her range and vocal control.
Once the tracklist had wrapped up, the band announced they’d be playing the favorites from other eras and this is where the crowd transcended; ‘World Away’ kicking off the biblical experience (seriously the end of that song is so comforting). This was swiftly followed up with 'Crack My Heart', 'What Are You So Scared Of?' and 'Listening', the latter of which got everyone yelling and finger pointing; the band clearly feeding off this energy and creating this brilliant cycle of reciprocal energy that extended through ‘Wasting Away’ and ‘Disappear’ and resulted in McDougall ending up in the middle of the pit and yet not missing note (literally how is anyone that talented)
The night was perfectly capped off with ‘The Edge’ and ‘Temple’. The crowd expelling every bit of existing energy and whatever was left of their voice with earth shaking choruses of “I DO NOT THINK YOU HEARD ME WHEN I SAID” and as the night wrapped up and everyone shuffled out of the bar exhausted and dreading going back to the reality of work in the morning, a shared feeling rang out across the crowd… TONIGHT ALIVE ARE BACK BABY!!!!
Gig Review by Bree Vane @mindtheweathervane
Photo Gallery by Ruby Boland
Tonight Alive
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