Sarah Van der Meer

While standing in the crowd of Northlane’s sold-out show at Enmore Theatre, you can see how many people's ears’ around Australia pricked up when Northlane announced they would be touring the country again, as brought to us with many thanks to the remarkable team at Destroy All Lines.

You can see how much Northlane has grown as a band over the years, having become a universal band across many different groups of people across all of Sydney with an extremely diverse fanbase, possibly the most diverse fanbase we’ve seen at any metal gig.

The anticipation was building while Plini played as the supporting act right before Northlane came on. Northlane showed their support for Plini in return by bringing out a birthday cake onto the stage for Plini, to blow out his candles as the entire venue sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to both the bands on stage together.

Plini performed a dreamy melodic sound with heavy jent tones building into strong metal riffs and back again into the melodic softness. You could see the crowd really appreciated them with hands in the air and cheers of support throughout their set and ending with a huge cheer from the entire crowd.

As Plini finished up their set you could feel the eagerness growing in the crowd for what was to come next. The venue was buzzing with energy. Fans who didn’t know each other began asking each other about what they hoped would be played as part of the set and you can’t help but sense how sorely missed Northlane has been in the Sydney crowd for the past few years.

The first song played on the night can sum up the vibe of the entire show with the first 89 seconds of the opening song ‘Clarity’ from their new album Obsidian sounding off with building techno music with dreamy melodic vocals before erupting into heavy metal at 90 seconds in; opening the first pit of the night with the pent up energy of every Northlane fan who had been waiting years to see them live since the pandemic and what came through, was wall to wall explosive energy.

As the futuristic light show illuminated the entire venue with coloured lasers flying over heads into the back wall of the venue with coloured smoke floating in the purple lights with flame cannons launching into the air, Northlane led the show forward with their next song ‘Plenty’ and it was exactly just that, plenty. Within the first 30 seconds of the song, the crowd exploded again, feeling into the music as much as the band was.

Northlane gave their all to the crowd for the entire duration of the show and the crowd gave it right back, with Marcus Bridges sounding even better live than he does on the record, with the crispest cleans and deepest growls we’ve heard from him yet.

“Echo Chamber” was the third song of the night and it fully delivered on the techno-neon show expectations Northlane shared with fans as their intentions for the tour with impeccable production value delivered throughout the show.

Nic Pettersen was playing the drums tighter than a bank safe even per the new drumming style that their new album, Obsidian, called for him to adopt.

Our favourite Northlane hits such as Bloodline from ‘Alien’ and Quantum Flux from album ‘Singularity’ played into the night and as they did, every fan there lived their old-time favourites that made Northlane the deeply loved band they are today. The crowd also followed the charge into the techno-metal future that Northlane is leading with their latest album Obsidian as they explore and pioneer a new space in the metal genre.

The show finished up with everyone in the venue calling Northlane back out to the stage for an encore and the final song played was ‘Clockwork’.

The entire show consisted of techno elements that were supported by the mind-blowing futuristic neon light show that all seamlessly tied in perfectly with the notes of Jon Deiley and Josh Smith on the jent guitars, rocking the entire venue wall-to-wall.

Each song surpassed the quality of the recordings that made us all love them, making this gig something unmissable for every Northlane fan out there.