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Fear Factory and DevilDriver Play at the Metropolis Fremantle, Western Australia

Band Photo: Fear Factory (?)

Fear Factory are a favorite for many Perth metalheads, not only because they are a great live band but also because they always make the trip out to the far reaches of Western Australia, something that a lot of other international bands don't bother to do. After the release of the Archetype album they recorded the video for Cyberwaste in a disused power station near Fremantle, sneaking a bunch of locals in through a hole in the facility's fence to participate. So this was a show by a band that the audience consider their own.

Full disclosure: I am not at all familiar with DevilDriver's two albums (yes, I looked that number up). But Dez Fafara is such a good frontman that it didn't stop me from enjoying the band. DevilDriver played a solid set, although technical issues forced the band to stop playing at the beginning of the second song and demand that some annoying feedback be resolved before they continued. For the last song, Dez incited the already violently moshing crowd to create a massive circle pit, resulting in many flailing body parts and footwear-wearer separation. Side note: who wears running shoes to a metal gig?

Fear Factory came on and surprised straight out by playing two songs from their latest album, Transgression. The album was not very well-received, critically, and very few of the crowd seemed to know the songs - there were a lot of people standing around awkwardly wondering what to do. But those people got going - and the set really started - at the third song, Slave Labor from Archetype, which was followed up with other tracks from that album and also from Digimortal, Obsolete and Demanufacture. Some older tracks made it into the set list as well, notably Dog Day Sunrise and Scapegoat. Highlights of the show were Edgecrusher from Obsolete, Linchpin from Digimortal, and Perth's own song, Cyberwaste from Archetype. The night ended with the ever-popular Replica, although the speed of the track was dialed down considerably.

This show marked the end of the Australian leg of the current tour, and the strain was showing, with frontman Burton C Bell's voice cracking while he spoke to the crowd. Nevertheless, after the band left the stage, Burton returned alone and sang Timelessness from Obsolete - a mesmerising end to the night.

Overall, it was a good show - despite being spat on, drenched in other people's beer more than a few times and copping a flying shoe to the head, it was great fun and I'm glad Fear Factory are continuing to include Perth in their schedule. I'll also be checking out some DevilDriver albums.

Kay Smoljak is an Aussie photographer, geek, metalhead and goat aficioado who is currently hiding out in Berlin. She blogs sometimes at enter the goatlady.