King Parrot, Scarnon, Headbore, Sundowner @ UniBar, Adelaide 22/11/2025
Through the glass windows, a majestic performance of movement with subtlety, poise and a dash of danger is underway. To a backdrop of the brutal extremity of King Parrot’s music, the ‘Swan Lake’ like performance is captivating before the ‘artist’ in question wrestles a bouncer, taunting him with interpretative dance, before sprinting off into the evening darkness aka ‘Forrest Gump’ style, never to be seen again. Welcome to a King Parrot show.
That ballet performance of ‘Bouncer kicks out punter’ is only one of many surreal moments in the Melbournians show tonight to promote the snarling new album A Young Person’s Guide To King Parrot. Some lucky fan has a video of singer Matt Young’s brown eye for instance.
The evening comes with weather to match. Those summer rains where it pours incessantly with no wind can be treacherous underfoot yet beautifully refreshing and warm. To have four, quite different, bands on a bill who ram it down in no nonsense style yet embrace the audience as one is quite fitting.
Opening is Sundowner, who start to the hum of feedback, which then tears out of the speakers and the bands doom grind riffage is the quintessential sonic musical accompaniment to the barrage of rain outside. Remember the first time you heard the opening to Black Sabbath? This takes you back there. Sludge, filthy riffs, harrowing vocals and a beat that sounds like Satan moaning, Sundowner lay the necessary concrete foundation for the evening.
Up next is Headbore. With the precision sharp album Branded on hand, the guys sound like a T-800 killing machine. The guitars sizzle, the bass shudders and vocalist Fish prowls like a tornado, destroying all in his path. The complete change of pace, with rapid heart attack inducing riffs, slam like a Mad Max chase scene. The band are in complete control like a surgeon on the operating table, slicing through the audience then stitching you up to send you on your way.
And on the way is Melbourne’s Scarnon, a completely different type of band again. The chaotic juxtaposition of a King Parrot show, trickling down to their own supports. If you’re looking to categorise them you’re going to find yourself changing that opinion with each song. One part speed metal, another punk, throw in some old school metal, all on a foundation of Aussie pub rock and you getting vaguely close. They are the closest to a heavy metal jukebox I’ve ever seen and it seems most punters agree as the front row get wild, moshers fly kick and everyone chants ‘can’t pee with someone standing next to me’.
With everyone suitably lubricated on life or alcohol or drugs (see interpretive dancer), King Parrot are gloriously antagonistic. The years of playing the biggest stages in Europe and America mean the intimate venue adds to the tension of pent-up fury the band have.
Matt Young barks like a rabid dog, the riffs rip holes through time and space and the beat hits you in the chest like a defibrillator. The boys are on song.
Disgrace Yourself is anthemic, as the crowd, many of them now shirtless like members of the band, chant the chorus.
The banter between band and crowd is hilarious as Young mocks a fan for a Temu bought King Parrot shirt, my peer is mocked as an ‘old journalist’ as others in the crowd scream ‘pick me’ to be next in line of ridicule. Did you know ‘Robb Flynn’ was in the crowd? Well, King Parrot decided he was.
Target Pig Elite is the song the phone is taken downtown to browntown, and a stage diver dives into open space as the crowd parts. The anarchy of the music reflecting on the end-of-times crowd behaviour.
Hell Comes Your Way is fist punching, chair breaking awesome. Everyone punches the sky as the band get dirty with the riffs and Home Is Where The Gutter Is has Young decides the gutter is the mosh pit and he gets in there and pours petrol on an already combusting fire pit.
The night draws to a close with King Parrot’s huge MTV ballad Shit On The Liver, middle fingers in the air, screams from the stage and half naked sweaty bodies crashing into each other in between.
A King Parrot show is a spinning wheel of ‘WTF have I just witnessed’ and is the definitive young persons guide to the band. I also do wonder if our interpretive dancer is still running?
Live Review By Iain McCallum