Live Reviews : Halestorm & Bellusira @ 170 Russell, Melbourne 08/12/2015

Words: Jonathon Besanko

Images: Sonja Maglicic

(Click here to view the full gallery)

With doors opening at 7.30, and Bellusira taking to the stage at 8, it diadn’t take long for tonight to kick into its groove. Bellusira came out with a bang, with vocalist Crystal Ignite quite the beast behind the mic. They rallied the audience with haste. But one of the immediate things that grabbed me about tonight though was just the sheer volume of people in attendance. I’d expected Halestorm to garner a solid crowd anyway – especially given this being the band’s first ever time in Australia, and their music have a wider accessibility to many – but the venue was packed. I’ve frequented 170 Russell many times now for a whole myriad of different style shows and bands, so I’m well acquainted with the size of this venue and how many it can hold (having been to sold out shows and shows with a couple dozen people in them, alike). But as it stood, after coming to the bottom of the stairwell, my eyes were greeted by dozens and dozens of people; lining all the walls and the majority of the venues multi-tiered levels. While it wasn’t packed to the point of being unable to move about, it was a full house. Seeing so many people here (a lot of whom were in an older demographic than me too) on a Tuesday night, and further one that clashed with AC/DC‘s second Australia show also, was a great thing to witness. But I digress.

Halestorm

Bellusira, whose name means “beautiful anger” we were told, received a very warm welcome. And being someone who wasn’t familiar with them or their music, it was interesting to discover they are actually a Melbourne band who relocated to Los Angeles a couple years ago, and whilst there had met Halestorm about a year back. Halestorm had later personally sought them out to join them on this particular tour. That was pretty cool to hear. In terms of Bellusira’s style of music, it is quite reminiscent in many ways of Halestorm’s own: bearing this rusted-nail style grit to its hard rock. While I’ll admit it personally took me a few songs to get into their music, the crowd seemed quite the opposite; with Bellusira gaining tremendous applause from the offset. They were the only opener for this evening, and they held their own very well. There was quite a great deal of power to their music, which in that regard was rather impressive in and of itself for a four-piece with no dual guitar lead or any of that other styled flashiness.

Crystal was lively and animated the whole time, and was quite a charismatic front-woman. She did wonderfully with their new and softer track, “Sister”, which was a personal favourite among their set for me. I loved the drive behind this band, which was explained as being that Ballusira represents the quality of “finding beauty in the dark” and about overcoming hardship. Subjects I think everyone can relate to.

Hit 9.20, the Halestorm logo appeared on a screen to the back and vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Lzzy Hale and the others hit the stage to uproarious cheer. Lzzy raised her guitar high and from the moment it swung down and she exploded into the first riff of the night, simply stated, I was wholly engrossed in Halestorm’s performance.

Halestorm

Lzzy gazed out over the crowd and cried out, “Welcome, Melbourne! This is our first time coming to your wonderful country, thank you for having  us. Let’s get this party going!” This began the first of many one-on-ones between Lzzy and the crowd, proving firsthand just how much of a likeable and relatable person she is. Throughout their set, she would often tell little anecdotes about life and the early days of Halestorm, yet never once did it feel trite or tedious, or have me waiting impatiently for their next song to start. That’s the power of Lzzy Hale. Not only is she incredibly talented as a vocalist, songwriter and musician, but she is just an all-round awesome person to be around or in the vicinity of.

One of my personal favourite Lzzy lines from the night came as: “Welcome to the family. You’re stuck with us, bitches!”

Whilst there were many instances throughout the night worthy of being put in this review (such as Lzzy giving praise to us, the concert goers, for keeping live music and rock ‘n’ roll alive), sadly to fit them all in would be impossible. One of the best moments did arrive, however, when Lzzy performed the song, “Dear Daughter”. After talking about how Halestorm had existed for 18 years and that the band never believed they’d reach Australia to play a tour, the song showcased her fine talents as a pianist. It was one of the more unexpected but memorable moments of the evening. Off to the side was bassist Josh Smith too, who lent his equal talents as a keyboardist here.

Halestorm

None of this is to say that the rest of Halestorm didn’t do just as phenomenal a job too. Guitarist Joe Hottinger was actually one of the big highlights of the night for me. His solos were always a joy to watch and resonated strongly with me, plus the way he and Lzzy would play off one another was perfect. Lzzy’s brother and drummer/percussionist Arejay Hale was also hilarious and fun to watch. With Lzzy telling earlier how her and Arejay often try to jokingly outdo one another whilst performing live, he proved this with his drum stick tricks and his ability to always rouse the crowd and get people going. Not to mention his excellent drum solo that ended brilliantly with short renditions of KISS‘s “Rock And Roll All Nite”, AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell”, and Papa Roach‘s “Last Resort”.

As the night drew nearer to its end, at the point a band would usually engage in their encores, Lzzy went on to explain the redundancy of the ‘encore’; explaining its irrelevance in live music today. Got to say though, she is rather spot on. Not really since Led Zeppelin‘s heyday has the notion of an encore at the end of a given band’s set come as a genuine surprise or shock to said live acts. Most of the time, it is just “time-wasting”, as she put it. Instead, Lzzy smiled and said to a big “fuck you!” to encores. It was hilarious. This led into “Here’s To Us” – a song Lzzy noted she’d been waiting to play all night – and lastly, “I Miss The Misery”, which went off.

Halestorm gave one of the best performances of any live band I’ve seen on this night, not only in terms of their individual performances but also in their dedication in constantly engaging the crowd and making us feel as if we were right up there on stage with them. For the rest of Australia, this is a tour you should not miss!

Halestorm hit The Gov in South Australia tonight. Check out Live Nation for all ticket information.

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