Ocean Grove, Diamond Construct, Dregg @ UniBar, Adelaide 30/5/2025
There isn’t a venue in the world that symbolises open thoughts, creative endeavours, and the wild dreams of youth than a university venue. There isn’t a band in the world that mixes all the colours, musical genres and fashion styles of today’s youth into a painting of those wild dreams than Ocean Grove. Pairing them both tonight is more than ‘just another show’, it’s the Zenith of freedom.
The whole evening is about letting your inner spirit fly, your child roam free and a true expression of unbridled happiness. A Friday night after a disenchanted grey school/work week, a monotonous dirge of adulthood is thrown into the wind like a paper plane aimed at the back of your boss’s head.
Ocean Grove are a come one/come all band. Everyone is welcome if you check in your ego at the door. Clown faces, unicorn hats, gruff metal dudes and bright glittering purple shell suits stand side by side and are at one with the band.
A band that have ridden their own turbulent history are here to present a unique – even for them – show. Playing current Oddworld album alongside decade old Black Label, the four piece are now a five as O.G. vocalist Luke Holmes returns to the stage with the current OG line up and delivers a dual vocal punch.
The set list others will write like you don’t know what songs are on those albums, it’s how they are laid out that, again, is in true Ocean Grove style. It’s not one album and the next, the songs are switched about, each one poking and jostling the next into action like opposite sides of a prom dance.
That is the vibe for the night, expect the unexpected. Dregg for instance, open up and have an epic wall of death slap bang in the middle of their first song. It’s a hell of a start and front man Christopher Mackertich performs like an over enthusiastic gym instructor bouncing from stage to barrier and everywhere in between. Combining Aussie hip hop, old school punk and downright face melting metal, Dregg have in equal measure landed a loud blow to the senses while delighting. We need more of this.
And we get it when Diamond Construct appear. These guys bring their own uniqueness to the party. A sprinkling of metalcore, with dance and huge dollop of hip hop on the side, vocalist Kynan Ground-Water works the crowd like a someone tightly packing a bomb that will go off with one wrong move. Cajoling, directing, re-framing us all, Ground-Water masterfully gets the crowd energy, absorbs it and gives it back sharper and more powerful as the band lift the venue roof when tracks like Hypno and Hit It Back drop.
How the crowd still have energy for Ocean Grove only the headliners know as Dale Tanner and crew detonate that tightly packed bomb and have the audience dance like it’s the apocalypse.
Crowd surfers, circle pits, wall of death and even a guy with a broken leg being escorted out happen during the set. Ocean Grove are an expression of freedom and everyone is buying.
Fist pumping, arms waving, camera lights out and chanting back, it’s all here and more and looking at the crowd, the feeling of being heard and seen is palpable. Grown men don’t need to be macho, young girls don’t need to be fearful, everyone gets to be who they truly are for an hour. Of all the bands I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a few, no one unlocks this more than Ocean Grove and in this harsh grey world, we need more of it being an Oddworld.
Live Review By Iain McCallum