Tonight Alive, Between You & Me, AviVa @ The Gov, Adelaide 12/5/2018
Tonight Alive finished their Australian Tour in Adelaide on Saturday night. Promoting their new opus Underworld, the came to The Gov in a celebratory mood and it showed in the nights performance. They brought along with them Between You And Me and AviVa for a night of energy and empowerment.
AviVa are a Sydney three piece combo that are quite hard to categorise. Which is probably how they like it. While their music may not be typical pop punk, it certainly has the attitude. Singer AviVa has a soulful bluesy voice of a world weary fighter backed by a multi talented band. Songs like BRN, Drown and, the twelve million YouTube viewed sensation, Grrrls may not blast the guitars however they are loud, heavy yet dynamically subtle enough to hit the point home.
Next up is Melbourne’s Between You And Me, a surge of fun pop punk. Playing a set list mostly from their EP such as Trees In The Winter they do chuck in a new track off new album State Lines to a much appreciative audience. What makes the show even more impressive is they have a fill in guitarist which takes nothing anyway from the energetic and lively performance.
Which leaves the triumphant return of Tonight Alive. Last time they were here was in November when vocalist Jenna McDougall blew her voice out at Fowlers. No such chance this evening as Jenna belts out all the notes while whirling around the stage like the cartoon Tasmanian Devil.
Leading the crowds into raucous sing-songs moments during tracks such as Listening, A World Away and How does It Feel?, it truly did feel like a magical connection between band and crowd. That’s what Tonight Alive are all about, about empowering people, from within to raise their heads and sing proud. This audience singing every word back to a visibly smiling Jenna.
Crack My Heart has a heavy chorus which sees many a head bang while the emotional acoustic version of Amelia visibly had a few eyes in the crowd welling up. Breakout hit Disappear raises the bar again before frantic versions of The Edge and Temple raises the roof of the venue.
Tonight Alive make a great point during the show about Australian music and how our venues are closing from city to city. How we need to support our bands and venues by going to gigs. Tonight was exactly that; a celebration of how awesome our music is. Tonight was truly about how our music is still Alive.
Live Review by Iain McCallum