January 16, 2018 11:53AM

Photo Gallery: Unify Gathering 2018

Highlights from a wet weekend alongside the country’s best heavy music acts.

By Carl Neumann

After selling out in under just four days, Unify Gathering 2018 — hosted on Friday, January 12th and Saturday, January 13th — was poised to be mental as the predominately Australian line-up (with a sprinkle of International artists) suggested. Headliners Parkway Drive and Amity Affliction were hot draw cards along with Architects (UK) and Hands Like Houses — performing with their biggest live production to-date.

It was a very wet south-east-Victorian weekend but that didn’t inhibit the 8,500 strong crowd as they filled the Tarwin Lower residency. Rain, mud and wind proving no barrier, with even the early afternoon bands of each day receiving a large attendance of onlookers and moshers.

Polaris delivered the standout Friday set where, although scheduled in the early-evening 5:30pm slot, drew quite possibly the biggest crowd (and biggest moshpit) of the entire weekend. While only releasing their debut album in November, the Sydney metalcore band proved to already have earned a substantial fan base, justifying a slot closer to the headliners for UNIFY 2019.

Alongside impressive early-afternoon Saturday slots from Dear Seattle, Introvert and Young Lions, there was also a few surprise guest appearances across the main day sets — Lochlan Watt (host of Triple J’s The Racket, one-time fill-in vocalist for Thy Art Is Murder) joining Aversions Crown vocalist, Mark Poida, who both filled in for the missing-in-action Cursed Earth vocalist, Jazmine Luders. Meanwhile, Marcus Bridge from Northland guest appeared with Hellions to the crowds delight.

—

All photos by Carl Neumann.