Parkway Drive (w/ While She Sleeps, Lorna Shore) Bring Fire to Manchester’s AO Arena [Photos]

Lorna Shore’s Will Ramos strode through the heavy smoke at the back of the stage like a wiry yet sinister WWE wrestler making their stage entrance as the New Jersey-based new heroes of deathcore opened up proceedings for tonight’s Parkway Drive show.

With a completely brutal sound topped off by some truly spectacular noises coming from Ramos, they smashed their set and made a few new ears prick up. His demonic pig shrieks and guttural vocals are extremely distinct and have helped the band find even more success across the globe since he joined them in 2021, which is where they focused their 5-track setlist, using material from their most recent EPs.

Next up were Sheffield’s While She Sleeps, who brought 1.21 gigawatts of energy to the arena – if there’d had been a flux capacitor somewhere on stage, they’d have likely disappeared into the future somewhere. They are a group that never gives less than their best wherever they play, and they are big fan favourites because of it, as could be seen by the increased number of crowd surfers during their set.

Frontman Loz made the most of the walkway that jutted into the crowd and conducted proceedings from atop a riser or, at times, from in the crowd itself, inciting an insane reaction from the Manchester audience. Completely backlit, they look like the metalcore equivalent of turning off the kitchen lights and sticking a fork in a microwave – with rapid sparks of light piercing the darkness in time with the relentless music delivered by the rest of the band, who for the most part stayed rooted to the stage some distance from the front row.

The crowd was well and truly ready for the headliners after those two bands.

Australia’s Parkway Drive have made a massive impact over here with a momentous Alexandra Palace show and a phenomenal Bloodstock headline set in 2019, and this tour, initially scheduled for 2020, would have been a great crowning glory for them, but the world had different plans and put the brakes on for a couple of years.

It wasn’t clear whether they’d slightly overstretched by playing the arena or if the nationwide train strike had badly affected people’s ability to get to the show, but there were some big empty spaces around the arena, which did ultimately affect the overall atmosphere in this shed of a building.

Not that you’d know if you were up close to the stage as the band made their entrance. With hooded flame-carrying figures escorting them onstage as a giant rockface opened up on the screen behind them. The intro tape built to a crescendo when Winston McCall appeared from beneath the walkway, and things were about to heat up. Literally! And the crowd collectively lost their shit.

The stage itself looked like a health and safety nightmare, with upturned spikes marking out two built-up levels on the stage where the rhythm section Ben (drums) and Jia (bass), were rooted on the top deck for the night with the two guitarists, Jeff and Luke on the lower level.

Launching straight into “Glitch,” the giant frontman stomped his way up and down the walkway with menace and seemed to conjure 50-foot flames from the arena’s bowels with a raise of his fist. It all got a bit toasty with the amount of pyro on tap throughout the set. The Parkway Drive energy bill must be extortionate with this Hollywood blockbuster level of theatre.

More fire and more crushing riff-driven breakdowns and anthem singalongs followed throughout an epic 15-song set that shook the foundations of the Arena, taking in tracks from all but one of their seven studio albums.

Parkway has a massive sound and a massive stage presence to back up the massive production on show, they’re just deserving of a bigger audience to witness it.

Parkway Drive (w/ While She Sleeps, Lorna Shore) @ AO Arena (Manchester, UK) on October 1, 2022

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