Live Review: Underoath / Emery / The Amity Affliction

Underoath (USA) @ Billboards (Melbourne, VIC), Sunday June 10^th 2007

With guests Emery (USA) and The Amity Affliction 

Review by Cameron Chambers 

Underoath seems to be a huge hit with the kids these days. Upon arriving at the show I was informed that it was close to selling out, and that the underage show (earlier in the day) was stopped on 2 separate occasions due to audience members passing out and collapsing throughout the crowd. 

I’m also going to mention the fact that the cardinal rule was broken by way too many people at last night’s show… YOU DON’TWEAR THE SHIRT OF THE BAND YOU’RE SEEING TO THE SHOW (unless of course it’s Slayer, AC/DC or Metallica)!!! 

Now that’s out of the way we can talk about The Amity Affliction. Anyone who’s ever spoken to me knows that I think the sun shines out of Amity’s arse, and tonight was a great set barring 2 (albeit major) factors. 

Firstly, I don’t know what it is with mixers at Billboards, but the first few songs of Amity’s set sounded horrible. The drums and vocals sounded huge but the guitars and keyboards were barely audible.  

As I mentioned, Joel’s vocals sounded great however his pre-show activities may have got the better of him as I heard more than one audience member comment that his in between song banter was pretty much indecipherable.  

Poor sound aside, they put on a good show and big ups to fill in guitarist Andy (check out his full time gig at www.myspace.com/comaliesnc) for playing a note perfect set. 

Prior to this show I really didn’t like Emery. They only had one or two songs that I enjoyed and their set at the Story Of The Year show last year left a sour taste in my mouth – something to do with their keyboard player dancing like a ballerina rather than actually playing the keyboard! Tonight, Emery made a believer out of me. 

Their re-shuffled line-up gives Emery a much better on stage dynamic and their new material is much more cohesive and flows a hell of a lot better than any of their older songs. Both vocalists (Toby and Devin) sang perfectly throughout the set and the interaction between band and crowd made for a thoroughly enjoyable show.  

After tonight’s performance I will definitely be purchasing their new record (bonus points for their hip hop intro music too).  

Finally, the band everyone was here to see. Underoath took the stage and the vibe throughout Billboards was electric. Opening with “In Regards To Myself, the stage turned into a thrashing mess of hair and guitars. Unfortunately, the same poor mix that the other bands had worked through was also a problem for the headliners – which detracted from the first few songs.  

Underoath’s set was predominantly made up of material from their most recent record, “Define The Great Line”, with only a couple of tracks being taken from their breakthrough album “They’re Only Chasing Safety”. Any older fans (myself included) hoping to hear anything off their first 3 records would’ve been disappointed with the set list however the passion and energy Underoath put into their performance more than made up for this. 

It was refreshing to see a keyboard player actually hitting more than a few notes every couple of minutes, as Underoath’s set was littered with cool interludes and samples that ensured there weren’t any breaks in their hour long show.  

I think everyone in attendance would agree that tonight’s show was well worth the money, but any band attempting the sing/scream thing will be struggling to compete with the power and precision of the recent Alexisonfire shows.