Parkway Drive’s arena-sized debut for 20th anniversary Australian tour
‘It’s not a transient art form or community,’ says Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall. ‘There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country involved in this very thriving music scene.’
In their early touring career, the members of Byron Bay act Parkway Drive were thrilled by the prospect of booking high school halls and youth centres, and filling those spaces with young bodies who moshed, thrashed and yelled themselves hoarse to the band’s kinetic blend of heavy metal and hardcore music.
That was 20 years ago, and during that time the group’s following of dedicated headbangers has grown considerably both here and abroad.
The quintet is an established headline act at some of the world’s biggest metal events, while in its homeland, its most recent concerts have been near the top of the bill at alternative festivals Good Things (2019), Knight and Day (2021) and Knotfest (2023).
“The last few jumps of this band’s popularity in this country have been shocking, in terms of the exponential growth,” said vocalist Winston McCall, 42.
“It takes a little while for you to realise what that all means in the scope of things, and wanting people to have access to it as well – but also wanting to give them something of substance.”
To mark its two decades in operation, the group decided to take a chance by booking some of the biggest venues in the country: arena-sized entertainment centres in five capital cities.
To outsiders, their timing appeared poor: that tour went on sale the same day in March that mainstay Byron Bay winter camping festival Splendour in the Grass was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, in a move that shocked many while revealing how tentative the live music market had become in a straitened economy.
McCall and co were rattled by the coincidence, but their trust in their hard-earned fanbase was rewarded: sales for the band’s arena debut were so strong that second dates were swiftly added in Brisbane (September 18 and 20) and Melbourne (September 22 and 24), while the final show in Perth was upgraded to RAC Arena (September 30).
With seven albums under its collective belt – including three ARIA No. 1 debuts and three ARIA Awards, most recently for 2022’s Darker Still – the five surf-mad mates from Byron Bay proudly fly the flag for an often under-appreciated music community that has also grown into a major box office force, with more than 65,000 tickets sold for its 20th anniversary tour.
“It definitely takes a while for something to grow to this point where it becomes undeniable. It’s also the spikiest sound that you can have for any genre of music; it’s like trying to pick up a ball of barbed wire and go, ‘Give it a hug!’” said McCall with a laugh.
“It’s not a transient art form or community,” he said. “There are tens and hundreds of thousands of people in this country involved in this very thriving music scene.
“You may see it as a subgenre, you may see it as something that is not worth having an interest in – but you should be interested in it if you just break it down to the economics.”
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