Reformed At The Drive-In Tear Up Splendour In The Grass

The last time At the Drive In performed in Australia, they cast a black shadow over their name (BDO incident, blah blah), but this time, thunderous drums, shakes and rattles introduced the band to the stage and mirrored the high hopes in anticipation of their performance.

Wasting no time, the band opened with their iconic single, Arcarsenal. While ducking and weaving through soaring psychedelic keys, ATDI passionately rolled straight into Pattern Against User with Cedic Bixler-Zavala throwing in mic tricks and the stage shaped like an Olympic gymnast.

Before reaching further into their history, Bixler-Zavala exclaimed, “Thank you for watching us, we’re watching you. We’re going to play some old stuff from a time no one would watch us”, which prompted a performance of Lopsided adding an element of surprise and a true insight into the band’s basic initial post-hardcore roots.

Their set maintained a high energy throughout with the band playing many songs from their album In/Casino/Out and the critically acclaimed, Relationship on Command, including some heavier, bluesy songs like Quarantined to slow the tempo but still maintain the alternative anarchical backbone that made ATDI popular. The band also performed a song about ‘a woman with bunions’ and dedicated a song to Angry Birds.

Pushing the energy levels further, ATDI pumped with Sleepwalk Capsules before Bixler-Zavala offered one final apology, “Thank you everyone after the last fucking thing” but their drummer Tony Hajjar was well into the iconic One Armed Scissor, which to many was a predicted but welcomed ending to ATDI’s forceful performance.

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