Deafheaven
Powerstation, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Friday, July 3rd
Deafheaven didn’t exactly draw a crowd of metal fans at The Powerstation on Friday night.
While I could see strong spikes of hair rising and jackets with patches reading 666 and Cannibal Corpse, they were equally mixed in with — if not overpowered by — folk in casual dress; jeans, flannels, scarves, and tees with no band name scratched on them.
This didn’t really come as a surprise, however, as Deafheaven are a band in between — not exactly this, not exactly that, something mirrored by their fans.
With some unfortunate visa troubles leaving the shoegaze-adjacent Nothing with no choice but to cancel, local act Erase Everything were called up to fill the sizeable hole left on the bill.
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Featuring members of esteemed acts like Bleeders and Pluto, Erase Everything play a sort of alt-radio-rock, which is heavy in patches, ethereal elsewhere, and at times pleasantly melodic. They moved efficiently through a sharp, five-song set, with little to say other than a rather sweet, “We’re not Nothing, but we’ll do our best.”
The crowd responded well, and the set had a few notable highlights, like “Hollow” and “Glass Souls” from their EP of the same name. Erase Everything were clearly grateful for their last-minute slot, and walked offstage smiling as the corners of the Powerstation filled up with more flannels and plain-black tees.
Deafheaven wasted no time, and within seconds of walking onstage the San Francisco stalwarts launched into “Doberman” from last year’s Lonely People with Power.
Hands reached for earplugs, and the room became warm with distortion. George Clarke’s scream is from another planet, and the sound engineer did well to find space for him above the fuzz of Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra’s guitars. Clarke moved around the stage quickly, and his hands seemed to conduct the band in all of their sudden rhythmic turns — he would keep this energy up for the remainder of the set.
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“Magnolia” began with a rolling, thrash-metal riff that would bring any budding mosh pit to life. The Powerstation was no exception, taking the riff as an instruction, and once the crowd was moving in this way Clarke did well to ensure that this energy remained until the end of the show.
“Brought to the Water” extended Deafheaven’s love letter to thrash metal, the band sounding their most fierce through this section of their set. Transitioning from this into “Sunbather”, taken from the more shoegaze-influenced portion of their catalogue, was a clever way for Deafheaven to showcase their range within the usual constraints of blast beats, distortion, and Clarke’s angelic scream. They are masters of finding new possibilities out of the same old tools.
The show was mostly set in the world of Lonely People with Power, with “The Garden Route”, “Body Behaviour”, and “Amethyst” all included in the set. “Incidental II” was used as an interlude that gave the band a well-earned second to have a glass of water offstage.
Deafheaven then saluted their fans by playing “Dream House’ from their seminal 2013 album Sunbather. With a discography like theirs, every record acclaimed by fans and critics alike, they didn’t exactly need to play a song like “Dream House”, but this track in particular felt like a gift — all around me I saw fans looking ecstatically at their friends. (Of course they played the nine-plus-minute opus perfectly.)
“Winona” was a bold and brilliant closer. With “Dream House” coming before, the decision to close with a newer track felt like Deafheaven proving how much they have left in the tank, assuring fans that they’re not just going to make more records for the sake of it — that new Deafheaven records to come may be as essential as Sunbather or Ordinary Corrupt Human Love.
