Friday 12 September
Supports: Inertia, Post Heaven
Sydney melodic hardcore outfit Bloom have made the successful transition from scene upstarts to stalwarts. Eight years of grinding is finally paying off, as proven by their sold out Withered across Australia show on Friday night. After a legendary run in Europe supporting post hardcore gods Silverstein earlier this year, Bloom decided to squeeze a few Aussie headline shows in while they’re back home.
An eager crowd started gathering upstairs at the Outpost from 7pm, keen to see some new songs and witness what the last two years on the road has done for the band. I noticed a lot of attendees wearing Bloom shirts to the Bloom show – Violent Soho style. A dead giveaway that hype is building!
First up, Post Heaven from Melbourne delivered high kicks and impressive energy to a largely apathetic room. The guitarist encouraged the room to “wake the fuck up” but unfortunately Brisbane was not ready to throw down to this particular brand of alt rock. However, I was impressed by the interplay of the duelling vocalists, the moody lighting, and their interesting use of samples. In a scene of sound-alike bands, it was cool to see something a bit different, especially from a young opening act. As a jazzy outro marked the end of their set, I was left thinking, “is screamogaze a thing? Screamogaze SHOULD be a thing.”
Sydney’s Inertia presented a more traditional offering to the room, and by that I mean breakdowns. Brisbane isn’t that hard to please, we just enjoy hearing china cymbals every three minutes or so. This was the point in the night that the crowd finally woke up, and even managed to pull together a wall of death. It’s always a treat to witness the impressive vocal range of frontman Julian Latouche and the way he switches back and forth between screaming and falsetto. Unfortunately, their set was all too short, but Inertia left the stage with a promise to see us again at Good Things later on this year.
After an enthusiastic crowd singalong to ‘Lips of an Angel‘ by Hinder, it was clear that this was shaping up to be a particularly rowdy evening. While we awaited Bloom’s arrival on stage and the beers flowed, I reflected on the last two years since I saw them perform.
In 2023, I saw them play at an emo night, and remember thinking at the time their live show was noticeably better than their recorded output. If memory serves, at this point they had about ten tracks up on Spotify. I was thoroughly charmed by their live presence, and I remember ‘Cold‘ went crazy – but I didn’t expect what happened next.
They toured, basically nonstop, for two years straight. If you haven’t seen Bloom supporting Polaris, Make Them Suffer, or various other Australian rock royalty recently…. my friend, you need to get out more, because they have been absolutely everywhere.
Considering how much time they’ve spent on the road, it’s an incredible accomplishment that they’ve also managed to record two albums in those two years. And thank goodness for that, because this show demonstrated that Bloom finally have the discography to back them up and become worthy headliners in their own right.
‘Cold‘ still went as crazy as the first time I saw it, but they pulled it out relatively early in the set this time around. There was also a big audience response to tracks from 2024 album Maybe in Another Life, and frontman Jono Hawkey was noticeably stoked, commenting multiple times on the vibes. “Every time we come to Brisbane, the bar gets higher,” he observed, to raucous cheers from the crowd.
The most intriguing and surprising part of the night for me was the new material. We got to hear new track ‘Out Of Reach’ live for the first time, and of course the tour’s eponymously named single ‘Withered’ made an appearance. For their sophomore effort (and first release on Pure Noise Records) I might have expected Bloom to start following the well worn path laid out by their forebears such as new label mates The Amity Affliction. More synths, more breakdowns, more metalcore, baby!
However, dare I say it, this show felt more (gasp) emo. Don’t get me wrong, ‘Withered’ still had one of the heaviest breakdowns of the night. It’s not as if they’re doing huge pop choruses just yet, but it does seem that Bloom are sonically a lot closer to post hardcore than metalcore right now. This is largely thanks to the addition of vocals from guitarist Jarod McLaren. He particularly shined on ‘You and I’ – that one is a bonafide emo banger and it translated incredibly well live.
Compared to a couple of years ago, on this outing I saw more clean vocals, more tunefulness, and more heartfelt lyricism, which is why I use the e word. More importantly, they still maintain the Aussie sense of humour, with Jono commenting jovially after one particularly miserable number: “man that’s a sad song hey!”
Upcoming album The Light We Chase is set to feature guest appearances from Yours Truly’s Mikaila Delgado and Movements’ Patrick Miranda, which suggests that Bloom might continue heading down a more melodic path. Even the name of the new album is giving….well, Jimmy Eat World!
Tough-guy hardcore it is certainly not, and it was so refreshing to see an Australian band who can balance aggression, emotion and melody on the stage.
A decidedly non-emo highlight of the show was the moment someone passed Jono a single shoe (but no beer) and demanded he perform a shoey. He good-naturedly went along with the bit, promising to do a shoey if someone actually handed him a beer to go with the shoe. The crowd worked together to pass a beer from the bar to the stage so he could finally deliver on his promise, before declaring he would never do it again. Fair enough! Usually I find the concept of a shoey taking place at a hardcore show unbearably cringe. But considering Bloom have been spending so much time overseas, it was actually kind of heartwarming. Don’t forget where ya came from, boys.
After an enthusiastic encore, the crowd spilled out into Brunswick Street Mall to the appropriately dulcet tones of ‘Defying Gravity’ playing over the speakers. Selling out an Aussie headline tour is an amazing achievement, and this show felt like a triumph.
These days Australian alt bands have to find a way to make it overseas if they’re gonna make it long term. Based on Friday night, I think Bloom have a solid shot of appealing to the US crowds when they head out for the second leg of ‘25 Years of Noise’ with Silverstein and Thursday later this year.
Everyone deserves a chance to fly (ha ha) and I can’t wait to see where they’ll be in another two years.
Review by Bethany Taylor
