Neck Deep, State Champs, Late 90s @ Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide 23/4/2025
Long before a couple of Hollywood movie stars bought the local football club, created a successful documentary and led the club through their various tiers of the football league, Wrexham already had a gang of bright lights tearing it up on stages across the world. Neck Deep are back promoting their self-titled fifth album on their Dumbstruck Dumbf***k tour and if the title is their end goal to make us, we’re in for a fun night.
The album was mostly self-produced and recorded back in North Wales, really digging into the guy’s garage band roots. It shows not only on record, also in their stage craft. Always an interactive love in, the full creative freedom allows the band to pick a cool touring line up, a subtle yet expressive set up and a set list that is sure to make you reach the lozenges the next day.
Along for the ride are Americans State Champs and Perth’s Late 90’s who bring with them a ‘Turnstile’ type ambience of ethereal and hardcore music. There’s a certain energy playing to a rapidly filling room that being from the remotest city on earth brings. The downstrokes go harder, the beats boom and the focus from frontman Zacc Morgan is akin to a game of do or die. These guys do.
State Champs also released a self-titled fifth album recently and they stride onto the stage full of energy on a Silver Cloud. For Losing Myself a mosh breaks out and in vocalist Derek Di Scanio they have a front man who does about fifteen kilometres running and jumping all the while imploring all to get involved.
The lights drop, the room darkens, and the beat gets faster for Outta My Head as everyone on the floor bounces their hands at the instance of Di Scanio who puppeteers the audience all evening.
Every song is an anthem, every song sung word for word – verses and all – by the crowd. Ben Barlow from Neck Deep joins for Everybody But You, a raucous party vibe down on the floor and on the balcony ensues before the heavier Secrets concludes the bands forty-five minutes of furious, fast paced fun.
It’s Neck Deep’s show and the visible surge of the audience when the band open with Heartbreak Of The Century is like watching the waves of a storm crash against the dam wall. Straight into STFU and Take Me With You you can feel the emotions in fans voices. Watching those on the barrier sing each word to each other, not even the band, tells you what these songs and lyrics mean to people. It’s more than music, it’s hope.
The stage set up, with a full stage riser creates a football formation. The Terminator drumming of Matt Powles leads the rhythm section of defence, solid, impenetrable. The guitars, twirls and tricks of Sam Bowden and Matt West creating pretty patterns of sonic openings for the star striker Ben Barlow to score the goal. And they score a lot.
Lime St, It Won’t Be Like This Forever and the girl created pit of She’s A God’land like an Olympic diver into the ocean of the audience. A huge wall to wall pit opens for We Need More Bricks and the encore of December (Again) and In Bloom finishes the night of surfers and singers uniting as one.
It’s been two years since Neck Deep were last here. Is it too much to ask not to wait another two years?
Live Review By Iain McCallum