LIVE REVIEW: Electric Callboy, ICE NINE KILLS + coldrain @ Riverstage

Words and Photography by Elizabeth Sharpe | @ummagummamumma

Just a few days ago, tonight was forecast to be a wet weather event, but Brisbane has turned on the good weather, and there’s no need for ponchos tonight as we enter Riverstage for the final show of Electric Callboy‘s ‘TANZNEID’ tour — their second show in as many nights for Brisbane, with last night being completely sold out!

Riverstage can often feel a bit bare for opening acts, with punters choosing to show up a bit later. That is clearly not the case tonight as the crowd flows in and makes the most of not one, but three merch tents, causing a mass outfit change, with many donning the new merch right there and then. The anticipation for tonight’s show is palpable.

Label-mates with Electric Callboy and hailing from Nagoya, Japan, coldrain‘s brand of post-hardcore alt-metal is a solid choice for an opener for the night. Formed in 2007, the long-serving five-piece’s most recent single is EX-HUMANITY, and that’s exactly what they open with, followed by FREE FALL — Masato masterfully switching between clean and harsh vocals for each, and I am loving the tones. Bass guitarist RxYxO has his goggles perched up on a faux-locks beanie and is epitomising fun energy! He’s a tough one to draw your eyes away from!

After CHASING SHADOWS, Rabbit Hole, and Cut Me, Vengeance begins softly and sweetly, but with a roar of satisfaction from the crowd, who keenly join in for the bridge, backing the band up with some “Whoaaa ohhhhhh”. I don’t know about you, but for me, there’s some kind of magic that happens at concerts when a band can get the whole crowd singing along, loud and in unison… live music fans, this is our church!

Closing out with MAYDAY, coldrain‘s whole performance cemented me as a fan and I’m looking forward to their eighth album ‘OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE’, out 25 September via Century Media. They’re heading home from here for a Japanese tour running from October to December.

The last time ICE NINE KILLS were in Australia, it was also at Riverstage, supporting The Amity Affliction, and they came mighty close to stealing the show — so to say I was looking forward to this set is a complete understatement. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds‘ Red Right Hand plays over the speakers while the last few props are being added to the stage, and a reel of old tv advertisements plays on the screen at the back of the stage as the fresh-faced gentlemen take to the stage for The American Nightmare.

The juxtaposition is wild to me — they look like the kind of guys your Mum would want you to bring home; reasonably clean-cut, sporting suits as though they’re about to attend a wedding as the groomsmen. Your Mum may be shocked by what’s to come…

If you’ve not been to an INK show, it’s a spectacle — let’s just say that the venue tonight carries a viewer-discretion notice for their set, which features staged horror-film reenactments, fake blood, weapon props, and actors portraying violent characters… pretty standard warning for an INK performance.

They’ve been rolling out singles all year and now we get to see another one of these live as they play The Laugh Track — it’s almost halfway through their set and we’ve seen plenty of gore so far.

There’s A LOT of moving parts in an INK show, and it has to be seen to be believed — Blood everywhere. Meat cleavers. Axes. Dismembered heads. A baby doll being swung around by its umbilical cord. A giant Freddy Krueger-esque hand. A shovel (I mean, what else are you going to bury all the bodies with?). A chainsaw. A person being wheeled in wearing a straitjacket, only for the straps on the jacket to be released slowly by frontman Spencer Charnas, eventually freeing the patient who attacks the “security guard” on stage, blood dripping from his mouth after the kill. Is it even an ICE NINE KILLS show if there’s not half a dozen brutal kills on stage? It’s all in a theatrical day’s work for INK, and their fans love it, with the crowd-surfing well underway.

The backing vocals are spot on, adding that extra depth in the right phrases of each song and Patrick Galante‘s drumming is actual insanity — I’m in awe. A PSA warning plays on the screen behind them before they launch into fan-favourite, Welcome to Horrorwood and we are all singing along.

Another single released just this year, Twisting the Knife, gets a special guest introduction for Alex Reade from Make Them Suffer and she absolutely kills it! What a voice! Play Dead is the next song and then Alex Reade joins the band again to close out the set with A Work of Art.

After selling out their 2023 headline Australian Tour and a barely containable Good Things 2022 side stage set, Electric Callboy were promoted to the main stage for Good Things 2024. With the hype this band continues to attract, it was always going to lead to this. This tour is the biggest Australian headline run to date for the German six-piece.

The curtain drops and Riverstage erupts. In their customary puffer jackets, Electric Callboy send us into full tonal whiplash — from Ice Nine Kills‘ stage blood to Eurodance synths in the space of a changeover — bursting into action with the title track from their seventh and latest album, TANZNEID.

The clean vocals of Nico Sallach complement Kevin Ratajczak‘s harsh vocals, and the two can banter like it’s no one’s business, sharing their gratitude and analogies and winding the crowd up for what’s next. “I’d just like to ask, can you do a ‘FUCK YEAH!’?” Every punter screams it back. “And that’s all you basically need for the next song, because it’s called Hypercharged.” Later, the setup for the cover: “By the way, I don’t know if you noticed it… but we are addicted to that boy band era from back in the day, you know?” — and into I Want It That Way.

There’s no single standout moment, and that’s the point. Every song has its own something that makes it land. The Hurrikan medley slides through All the Small Things and Bodies and the crowd catches every switch — I don’t think there were too many people out there not singing along. Pyro, CO2, and streamers fire off seemingly for every song. Costume changes come thick and fast between numbers, and when the drum solo arrives — complete with snippets of Slayer‘s Raining Blood — the rest of the band are offstage getting hydrated and changing yet again.

It’s time to embrace your inner 80s aerobics instructor and get physical, as Ratajczak tells us, “You guys look like you could do with a workout!” Looks like I’m getting my steps in tonight!

For almost two hours, Electric Callboy gave us their all. Walking out afterwards, in the swarm of bodies leaving Riverstage, it was written on every face — happy, satisfied, and thoroughly worked out.