Parkway Drive ends 2019 with a bang by headlining Good Things

Parkway Drive shows off its pyrotechnic skill.

Earlier this month, Parkway Drive was the headline act at the Good Things festival, held in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on three consecutive days.

The Byron Bay metalcore band dreamed up the most impressive production I’ve seen staged by an Australian act this year. Its high-energy 75-minute set included a knockout light show as well as a couple of songs with a string quartet that performed while raised high on hydraulic platforms. The hair-raising highlight was set to 2015 single Crushed, when drummer Ben Gordon was strapped into his so-called “cage of death”, which spun him upside-down while he kept playing — and while half the stage was on fire, at the same time as flamethrowers were detonated from atop the stage and behind the sound desk.

Towards the end of the final show at the Brisbane Showgrounds, vocalist Winston McCall thanked the festival organisers for booking an Australian act atop the bill and made a point of reminding any aspiring musicians in attendance: keep doing what you’re doing, because if Parkway Drive can work its way towards closing a major festival, then you can too.

McCall’s sentiment was inspirational, and I reckon more than a few wide-eyed — and possibly eyebrow-singed — punters took his words home with them and into the practice room.

A couple of days after the Brisbane show, I spoke with event founder Chris O’Brien about booking a domestic band in the headline slot, a year after American rock act the Offspring closed the inaugural Good Things festival.

What was the significance of that decision? “I think it’s massive,” he said. “It’s never really been done before. Sometimes people headline and you just don’t get the reciprocated level of excitement back; some bands just come out, take the money, get through a great show and ‘We’ll see you later’. But this was very different: this was a moment in [Parkway Drive’s] history where they wanted to make a really big statement, and I think they’ve done that really well.”

More than 50,000 tickets were sold across the three cities, which O’Brien said was a considerable increase on the debut festival last year. “That’s what promoting is about; there’s always an element of risk with who you’re programming,” he said. “You’re not sure if it’s going to work and whether you’ll sell the tickets you need, or how the audience is going to react. But post the event, speaking with the band backstage in Brisbane, they were just incredibly humbled and glowing. They were so happy with how it had gone down, and the response they got.”

Thanks for reading Middle Eight in 2019 — I’ll see you in 2020.

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