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Park Waves: New Parkway Drive festival coming to Toowoomba in 2026

One of the world’s biggest heavy music acts is bringing their incredible live show to Toowoomba as part of a massive new national festival. Here’s why they’re coming back to the Garden City after nearly 20 years.

He’s played thousands of shows over 20 years to literally millions of people — but Winston McCall still hasn’t forgotten Parkway Drive’s first Toowoomba gig.

“It was a hall and we played on the veranda, and we used a bike rack as a crowd control barrier so people wouldn’t fall into the drum kit,” the frontman said, reflecting on his Garden City experiences.

“We’ve got some history there — it’s the top of the big hill. Toowoomba hasn’t had a gig in terms of Parkway for years, let’s bring it back to them.”

Toowoomba is one of just two Queensland stops (along with Sandstone Point) on the homecoming of the legendary metalcore five-piece’s new festival, which will be unleashed in early 2026 across Australia.

Australian metalcore legends Parkway Drive will bring their Park Waves Festival to Toowoomba in 2026. Photo by Third Eye Visuals.
Australian metalcore legends Parkway Drive will bring their Park Waves Festival to Toowoomba in 2026. Photo by Third Eye Visuals.

The Byron Bay band is bringing fellow heavyweights (and Gympie products) The Amity Affliction with them across the 11-date festival tour, which will set up a circus tent in parks and showgrounds across Australia.

Northlane, Alpha Wolf and Story Of The Year have also been named.

McCall, who has been the act’s vocalist since its beginnings in 2003, said regional Australia’s isolation forced the kind of creativity that fuelled the nation’s metal, punk and hardcore scenes.

“There’s a degree of isolation with regional Australia, and it’s isolation within isolation (of Australia itself), and that creates really good art, it just creates really great art.

“You’re forced to seek things out, to be challenged constantly — in a major city, there’s some there’s some establishment of things, even a rehearsal space.

“You can’t count on any of those things when it’s regional, you can’t count on literally anything.

“You really have to make it work, so that’s where the work ethic comes from.”

A key pillar of Australia’s heavy scene is the emphasis on all-ages shows, with Park Waves to be open to attendants from 16 and up.

McCall said this had also revealed to him the band’s cross-generational appeal, with original fans rocking up with their offspring.

Parkway Drive performing on stage during the Homebake rock concert at the Domain in Sydney in 2006.
Parkway Drive performing on stage during the Homebake rock concert at the Domain in Sydney in 2006.

“It’s crazy to see it now become generational — there are many people who are coming in and they’re like, ‘I saw you, you were my first show and here’s my kid and this is their first show’,” he said.

“It’s really awesome to see the band’s impact has lasted that long and it’s something that now resonates with people with a whole new generation.

“At the core of why we started this band was literally because when we were kids, we grew up in a regional area and we had nothing.

“We grew up in a tourist town that catered to adult tourists who had money, who went to pubs and watched the bands playing in the pubs — the kids didn’t spend money, so the kids got nothing.

“The thing that changed it for us was us making our own scene and making it all ages, so we literally took control of putting things on ourselves.”

Australian metalcore legends Parkway Drive will bring their Park Waves Festival to Toowoomba in 2026. Photo by Third Eye Visuals.
Australian metalcore legends Parkway Drive will bring their Park Waves Festival to Toowoomba in 2026. Photo by Third Eye Visuals.

In many ways, Parkway Drive is following in the footsteps of fellow heavy music giants Slipknot by basing a festival around its own branding.

Amid a live music scene experiencing significant hardships due to the closure of major flagship festivals, McCall said he wanted Park Waves to be a shining light.

“I guess the sustainability of it simply comes down to a combination of the economics and whether or not people want it,” he said.

“Everyone and everything is going under, and we have this opposite problem where we can’t do a regional tour because there’s too many people that want this thing.

“At this point in time, we’re thinking this is something we’ve just got to do.

“It feels really good to be able to put something in the space – a positive story in a bunch of negative stories is really nice.”

McCall said he was ready to make Park Waves a regular part of the festival circuit, depending on the success of ticket sales next week.

“If it goes really great, like anything, there’s no reason to not do it again,” he said.

“I would love nothing more than to be able to establish this and it grow and for all of the reasons that we talked about previously, in terms of the festival scene in general and being able to provide access to people for these shows.”

Park Waves, headlined by Parkway Drive and The Amity Affliction, is coming to Queens Park in Toowoomba on March 12.

Tickets go on sale next week — for more details, head to the website.

Originally published as Park Waves: New Parkway Drive festival coming to Toowoomba in 2026

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Original URL: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/toowoomba/park-waves-new-parkway-drive-festival-coming-to-toowoomba-in-2026/news-story/867bf9b265d0465399fc7f94bf290a77