TOUR DIARY: Hand of Mercy

So just a quick foreword, my name is Dawson and I play bass for Hand Of Mercy. This November we are embarking around Australia on the 'Resolve' tour, which is the title of our latest record that we released at the end of October via UNFD.

It’s been ages since we have done our own headline tour, so we are stoked to be back on the road and playing some of our favourite places around the country, plus a few new ones. To make things even better we have our best friends in Hellions along for the ride and also our new friends in Void Of Vision from Melbourne.

DAY 1: Thursday 6 Nov – YAC, Byron Bay

We rolled into Byron to catch the sunrise early Thursday morning and met up with the bro's in Hellions. We went and grabbed a well-needed breakfast on a cracking summer day! We then filled up the esky and spent the rest of the day between the Tea Tree Lake and beach at Lennox Head where we lapped up some sun and a few cold, cold beers. After a traditional fish and chips down at main beach in Byron, we headed to the show to get set up.

It’s always cool playing in Byron and this time was no different. For me, there is always such a cool vibe at the shows and every kid there is legitimately stoked on music and really down to get into new bands which is a great attitude to have. The show was sweet and it’s always nice to watch your friends bands kill it on the first night of tour and realise you get to watch them play and hang out for the next month.

After the show we gapped it up to the Gold Coast and stayed the night with our new mates in The Brave at their bachelor pad.

DAY 2: Friday 7 Nov – The Brightside, Brisbane

We didn't sleep a whole lot on the way up to Byron so getting some solid shuteye after the Byron show was great! The Brave dudes cooked us up a mad breakfast feed and then we took some bikes and skateboards out and went on a little roll around their suburb, which was rad! We had a quick dip before getting on our way to Brisbane for the show.

The show was at The Brightside in Brisbane and there was a really great turn out! The boys in Hellions fucking killed it, kids were going skitz! They are playing a new song on this tour and it’s as hard as nails. They will be releasing a video for it really soon so be sure to keep an eye out for it! I was blown away by the crowd tonight, and stoked kids were going so wild we got to play a legit encore song which was nice. Cheers Brissy!

After the show all of the bands hung out and we all hit the party pretty hard! We hopped from club to club until the sun came up. While we are already great friends with Hellions it was a really cool chance for us both to get to know the guys in Void Of Vision and bond and hang out outside of a show setting. Generally nights like this happen right at the end of the tour and you always get bummed it’s taken so long to hang out properly and break the ice, we were all stoked we got to bro down on only the second night. Legit great night out and we managed to catch our second sunrise of the tour.

DAY 3: Sat 8 Nov - The Lab, Brisbane

As you would expect the morning after was a bit of a write off, but by midday we were hanging out at Lewis from Hellions’ place and we grabbed some late breakfast before heading out to The Lab for the Brisbane AA show.

This was our first time playing there and it was such a cool venue! Obviously Brisbane has had some problems with AA venues over the last few years, so I really hope people support this one because we all had a great time playing there. The turn out was great early for this show and our mates in Time Crisis and The Brave both killed it!

We had a really fun show! It’s been so great playing some of the new songs on this tour and already it’s a trip seeing the response to them and how people are getting into it. 'Static' was one of those new songs that really stood out to me at this show, which was really cool!

We had to pack up and bail after the Lab show quickly because there was a school formal after party there and a few hundred high school girls coming in hot to hit the blue light disco haha. That was a sight.

Most of the guys decided to take the rest of the night off, while the HOM's decided to have a couple of drinks at back at The Brightside, which turned into a 4AM homecoming (rare).

DAY 4: Sun 9 Nov – Gympie Civic Centre, Gympie

We hit the road relatively early and started making our way up to Gympie for the AA show kicking off that evening. We have never played Gympie before so we were really stoked to get to play a new place and hopefully meet some new kids and have a fun show! Rivals and Take Us Vegas opened the show and both killed it, Void Of Vision had a mad set and won over a heap of new people. They haven't played a lot of the cities we are playing on this tour before but are winning over people wherever we go. They are such a great band and are going to be doing huge things in the future! The show for us was a heap of fun and hopefully the more shows that come through will only make things better there. They have a great venue and an awesome set up for shows, so we can't wait to come back!