Parkway Drive are celebrating 20 years as a band this year and for the celebration hit the road with an all-Australian tour. On September 17, the tour rolled into New York City at Hammerstein Ballroom.

The show kicked off with Make Them Suffer who are from Perth, Australia. This was my first time seeing them, and they did not disappoint. Being the first band of four, they played a short set but did not waste any time, immediately getting the pit involved and getting the crowd moving. They played “Erase Me” from their 2020 album How To Survive A Funeral, which is one of my favorites. Last year, they introduced their new keyboardist and singer Alex Reade, and she fit right on the old songs like nothing had changed. The back-and-forth between Alex and screamer Sean Harmanis made every song soar. Make Them Suffer ended their set with their newest single, “Doomswitch,” which just is all of the best elements of the band and the combination of Alex and Sean’s voices.

Northlane were up next on the Monster of Oz Tour, and they brought a totally different energy but kept the crowd involved. Northlane is from Sydney, so these bands were really covering the different regions of the country/ continent. The band played a pretty good mix of songs from their 2022 album, Obsidian, and the 2019 album Alien. Before they played “Carbonized” from their 2022 album, lead vocalist Marcus Bridge says, “Let’s pick this energy up, and put on your dancing shoes.” The song is indeed very dancy and got the pit moving again. At one point during the set, there was a push-up pit which lasted almost all of the breakdown in “Bloodline.” Every band on this bill sounded so different from each other, but they all also fit under the broader umbrella of metalcore.

The direct support band was the mighty The Amity Affliction. Even with the balance of screamer Joel Birch and clean vocals Ahren Stringer, the band’s live set moves at 100 miles per hour, and this one was no exception. The band just played hit after hit, and the crowd were more alive than they had been previously.

They opened with the crowd favorite “Death’s Hand” from the 2014 album Let The Ocean Take Me. The Amity Affliction put out a record earlier this year, entitled “Not Without My Ghosts,” so they weaved a couple of songs from it into the set of crowd pleasers. Joel introduced the song “Fade Away” and then asked who in the crowd had heard the new album and most of the crowd raised their hand. Around mid-set, they started another crowd-pleaser, “Pittsburgh,” and for the first verse, Joel Birch and Ahren Stringer turned their microphones toward the crowd and let them just sing. It was a great moment and one of the reasons I love seeing this band live. Top to bottom, this tour is not to be missed because every band brings it but that is especially true for Parkway Drive and their full production like we’ve never seen in America.

Finally, it was time for Parkway Drive, and the venue was buzzing with excitement. The lights went dark; “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen started, and when it finished, the band walked on. Parkway Drive are from Byron Bay in New South Wales. They ripped right into “Glitch” from the 2022 album Darker Still. The song has this drum part before the guitars and vocalist Winston McCall kick back in where pyro started and was blasting straight towers of fire up in the air. No matter where you stood on the floor of the venue, you could feel the heat being emitted from them.

When the band said they were bringing their full production, they weren’t kidding; fire was coming from all over the stage and just made the show that much more massive. The second one in the set, “Prey,” from the 2018 album Reverence, just continued to ratchet up the energy with the crowd screaming along with Winston to every word. Before it could even be mentioned by Winston for the crowd to circle pit to “Idols & Anchors,” the pit was already kicking it into high gear and running in a circle.

Similar to the other bands on this tour, once the music started, the band were rolling through the set like a freight train. Before a newer song titled “Soul Bleach,” Winston McCall said, “Got a few heavy ones for you,” and he was right. He dedicated their song “Dedicated” to Make Them Suffer, Northlane, and The Amity Affliction, and mentioned how this was the first time in his memory of touring that a tour was made up of all Australian bands. (It is the only time I can remember too.) “Dedicated” had a huge amount of pyro too and it came out of several different places on stage so you never knew where it would be.

As the set was slowly winding down, the band did not show any signs of stopping. “If you came to pit, now is the time. This song’s called ‘Karma,’” McCall yelled. The circle pit happily obliged and ran and people two-stepped and just absolute mass chaos as the song chugged on. There was a quick breather in the chaos in the form of the title track from the latest record, “Darker Still” which was a much slower song. The band played two more songs in their main set, “Bottom Feeder,” which had plenty of pyro, and “Chronos” before walking off stage and then coming back on for the encore.

The encore consisted of a drum solo where Ben Gordon’s drum set rotated and the production really kicked up once it rolled into “Crushed.” The production for this song can only be described as all the pyro with the whole stage seeming to be on fire and the edge of the cage of the drum also lit up. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The set finished with “Wild Eyes” which pales in comparison to the all-out blitz of fire we just had but still ripped and was a great song to end the set on. If you have a chance to get out to this tour, I really encourage it because every band does not disappoint.

Words by Meaghan D’Amico. Photos by Alyson Coletta.

Parkway Drive

The Amity Affliction

Northlane

Make Them Suffer