It was Saturday night and fans of Protest the Hero were gathering, eager to see them perform at Sydney’s Factory Theatre in Marrickville. However, at the entrance of the venue a sign with bold writing greeted us stating: “Due to a family emergency and technical difficulties Protest the Hero have cancelled the show and will be rescheduling at a later date”. Whatever had happened, it felt like devastating news for the band and dampened the enthusiasm of their loyal fans. Admirably, all the acts that were due to support Protest the Hero were still ready to perform on the night and fans could stay at least to see the 6 other local bands if they wanted to.
The venue had already arranged 2 separate stages to accommodate the unusual amount of support bands so the disappointed punters got a chance to focus their attention on Sydney local acts of the caliber of Junk Head, Scoredatura, Hemina, Genetics and the Blue Mountains own Red Bee. All of them carefully selected to fit nicely into the bill, as their styles ranged from instrumental prog metal to Djent and hard rock/sludge metal.
As it turned out, the headline act of the night ended up being Melbourne’s Closure in Moscow, a band with a formidable reputation in the Australian metal/hard rock scene. They seamlessly fuse metal with jazz and vocalist Christopher De Cinque assaulted us with his high falsetto voice in a style reminiscent of Mike Patton and Mr Bungle.
The venue was only half full when De Cinque announced to the crowd the news of Protest the Hero’s cancellation and how they would be sending them lots of love in this difficult period, also mentioning that when they do perform in Sydney fans should give them their full support and energy. Closure in Moscow did justice for Protest the Hero as a surrogate headline act with some sardonic humor in between songs particularly mocking the band Staind who had one big hit single with “It’s Been A While” and then completely disappeared from the limelight. Closure in Moscow filtered their vocals through pitch benders adding theatrics to the live show and the audience received their performance with a very positive reaction despite of all that had unfolded that night.
Of course the whole gig finished much earlier than originally scheduled but fans were told to hold onto their tickets for a rescheduled Protest the Hero show in Sydney and informed us about the remaining dates of the tour were to continue without one of their key members who had taken a flight back home so the band would be performing as a 4 piece instead.
On the following Monday the band’s management announced the rescheduled Sydney show would be taking place this Thursday at The Bald Face Stag in Leichhardt and all tickets purchased for The Factory Theatre show would remain valid with additional tickets also available whilst Genetics and Junkhead will be joining them as support acts. Despite the adversity Sydney fans greatly appreciate that Protest the Hero will still be playing in our city and are continuing with the remaining dates of their Australian tour, what Australian metal fans are not short off is passion when it comes to supporting live music. We will stick by our favorite artists and sacrifice a week night to go see live music that we love and that’s exactly what all the fans from Saturday night will be doing this Thursday.
If you would like to purchase tickets for the rescheduled show you can do it through this link: http://selecttouring.oztix.com.au/?Event=69799