On Saturday 2 October 2010, Erk traveled to the Hawkesbury Hotel in Windsor see see Foundry Road live for the first time. Erk has featured the metal act on Insomnia Radio: Australia episode 7 as well as on his other podcast Erk FM.

The room where the stage was located was relatively small however a small but enthusiastic crowd were rocked hard by this western Sydney based metal band. The crowd (while small) were fully into the show and the size of the room were matched perfectly. During the entire set, there were no breaks. From the first note to the last, the room was filled with heavy guitars, booming drums and the growling vocals of vocalist eXplain (pictured). I had my initial observation confirmed that he has vocal cords of steel.

Because I had played Foundry Road on podcasts and I had listened to their album in full, I thought I knew what to expect. I was not fully prepared, on reflection. While some bands sound different live compared to their album, the album has a live feel about it with the obvious exception of the crowd interaction. And yes, there was crowd interaction. While many vocalists simply stand behind a microphone stand and don’t move around a lot, that was not good enough for eXplain. As you can see by the photo, he did not stay in the one spot. Moving around the stage, sitting down, crouching down and even at one stage going for a mid song walk through the crowd, the fans were eating out of his gloved hand. Nor did he spend the entire set growling at the crowd, either. The whole set was tight from start to finish. Even though it might not have seemed like it, it was a high energy performance on a dark and stormy night in the Hawkesbury. While the vocalist is very important, a good metal band needs some thrashing guitars and heavy drums and that is exactly what happened. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be metal, would it?

There was singing, moshing and a few inside jokes that I will probably understand better in future with more exposure to the band.  I would love to see the band again in a larger venue with a larger crowd. This chance will hopefully come soon with a new tour to be announced soon.  If you get the chance, go and check them out! I hope to be able to get to more gigs by artists that I have featured on this show.