Live Review: Tonight Alive @ The Triffid

It’s almost been a year since Australian music lovers last saw Sydney five piece Tonight Alive at the 2015 leg of Soundwave, and while the festival itself might not be around the band are still kicking and are set to release their new album ‘Limitless’ in March. In order to celebrate the release of the album, they treated fans to an intimate live album preview tour along the east coast of Australia.

“We are Tonight Alive and we stand for personal expression and emotional freedom”.

The man that is just him and his acoustic guitar, D At Sea, opened the show and set the atmosphere for the night. While no original songs were played, he without a doubt knew how to please the crowd. Labelling himself as a heavy music lover, a cover of Bring Me The Horizon’s Drown was soon played whilst a group of ten six foot tall guys started what can only be described as a ‘mellow circle pit’ as they skipped around in the middle of the crowd. While most girls were probably ready to jump onstage and propose to him on the spot, he pleased the masses (and probably all the boyfriends attending) with a beautifully done performance of Carrion by Parkway Drive that featured a wall of hugs, instead of the usual wall of death.

Tonight Alive finally graced the stage in a performance that cannot be fully described into words. Running on stage in a white track pants set, lead singer Jenn McDougall jumped straight into the first three songs of the night starting with Hell and Back before stopping to introduce the band: “We are Tonight Alive and we stand for personal expression and emotional freedom”.

While there was a lot of crazy dance moves and head banging, there’s something magical about this outrageously talented band and how they express themselves to the crowd whilst on stage. Although Jenna is the front of the band, it’s clear that her words of wisdom come from all members of the band showing just how tight knit they are and all stand for similar values. This becoming clear when Jenna had everyone repeat after her “From tonight I refuse to live in fear of someone else’s judgement” before they jumped right into What Are You So Scared Of’.

Crowd favourites were played throughout the night such as Lonely Girl and Wasting Away from their previous releases, but everyone was given a taste of ‘Limitless’ with Human interaction and the first song the band has ever received commercial radio play on – Drive.

From humble beginnings to now being played on commercial radio, Tonight Alive are only going to higher places from here on out with the ‘Limitless’ era set to best their best yet. Without a doubt everyone left the Brisbane gig truly inspired and not disappointed with how their Thursday night turned out.