The lights drop inside the Hordern Pavilion, and the room tightens. The smell of sweat and anticipation hangs thick as silhouettes move against a crimson wash. It’s a Thursday night in Sydney, and the sound system hums with distortion before the first riff tears through the dark. The crowd knows what’s coming. They’ve been waiting twenty years for this — a full-scale revisit of The Poison, the record that made Bullet For My Valentine a name written into the fabric of 2000s metalcore.
The Devil Wears Prada take the stage with calculated ferocity, their rhythm section punching through the mix as synth textures rise and fall around Mike Hranica’s vocals, proving why they remain one of metalcore’s most consistent live forces.
Sheffield’s While She Sleeps open with defiant precision, a collision of punk urgency and melodic muscle that turns the pit into motion within seconds. Their set feels raw yet deliberate — a statement from a band who have built their world on independence and intensity. Just outside the pit, a young boy throws himself into the music with relentless energy, his small frame bouncing in time to the drums. His father watches on, equal parts amused and weary, trying to keep pace with a kid who refuses to stand still. Halfway through their set, the band pause to announce that it’s their sound engineer’s birthday; a cake appears, and vocalist Lawrence Taylor crowd-surfs across the room to deliver it to the desk. It’s a fleeting, human moment amid the chaos — the kind of spontaneous connection that defines their live shows as much as the riffs themselves.
By the time Bullet step out, the energy is already fractured and frenzied, the mosh pit heaving like an ocean in mid-break. There’s no theatrical preamble — just impact. On stage, Matt Tuck grips the mic, his voice steady, almost reflective before the storm. Michael Paget leans into the opening guitar line, his tone sharp enough to split air. The Welsh band have always walked a line between discipline and chaos, and tonight that tension feels alive — taut, precise, and unrelenting. Every chorus met with the kind of roar that reminds you why people still come to metal shows like this: not for nostalgia, but for release.
For all their precision, Bullet remain human and heavy, sounding every bit like the band that once helped define the architecture of modern metal.
The tour moves to Brisbane next, tickets HERE.
Images Deb Pelser
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