After spending the American Summer playing the Warp Tour, Hands Like Houses have returned home to do a few East Coast shows. They have already warmed up playing in Melbourne and Canberra and now it is Sydney’s chance to catch these guys live, in one of the cities best venues to get up nice and close with live music, The Metro Theatre. 

It is really, really crowded in the Metro that’s for sure, opening the night was PLTS but I arrive in time to catch Dream on Dreamer. Tonight, Dream on Dreamer had on vocals former frontman Michael McLeod, so it was a special treat to catch them in this line-up. As always, this band just impress and I never grow tired of seeing them perform songs like Don’t Lose Your Heart or Stay and it seems the audience like them just as much as I do.  

Now, when I arrived things were pretty packed in here but after a trip to the bar I return to find things even more packed than before, something I thought not possible, but as the Cd fades out the band walk on stage and announce who they are, as if the giant backdrop hadn’t let us know already. They open thing right up with Colourblind, the flashing of light, the cranking of guitars, the pounding of drums, all mixed in with our beautiful singing voices, we know we are in for a great night. 

This tour is the biggest headline show the band have played to date. The band tell us how nervous the show was making them as the Sydney date crept closer and closer to being sold out, so they thank us for helping make this night one to remember. Tracks like New Romantics made things intense but it was an oldie like Shapeshifter that things became so intense the pit had to be stopped and a crowd member pulled to safety. Normally when this happens the band play on to the next song, but Hands Like Houses decided to take us back to the start and play it all over again. Circle pits and crowd surfing were rife, as they should well be, but tonight’s show delivered something not even I had seen before. When they played the track Motion Sickness, the guitarist literally hopped into an inflatable dingy and sailed the entire metro floor on top of the crowd with a passenger all whilst not missing a single note, it was impressive. Along with the stage lights and fireworks you just don’t see this kind of performance from a band of this level, inside this venue, it was unreal. 

It’s always good to go see local bands and even greater to see other local bands in the audience supporting those local bands. Amongst the crowd tonight I saw members from Tonight Alive, Hellions and Awaken I Am, plus they bought out on stage Zach from Young Lions to do that great local custom of The Shoey right before the set finisher Drift which is a more recent release and it went off. Thinking encores are bullshit, lead vocals Trenton Woodley simply asks who wants to hear two more, the crowd’s roar is unanimous, of course we do and with that we get the beautiful sounding Oceandust followed up by the big finisher Fire on A Hill.

Hands like Houses really showed us why they are one of the bands to go and see live, they are amazing. The almost operatic vocals mixed into the shredding of guitars on top of the pounding drum beats, you cannot stand still tonight and what an awesome stage performance as well. These guys just killed it tonight, what a show.

 

Review – Chad

Gallery Shot By Christian Ross