Choosing Our Aussie Local Openers (TC Blog June 5, 2025) (Patreon)

Hey Everyone!

It's been a fun, but busy week since inviting the public to share their thoughts on who they would like to see opening each of our Australian shows. We were flooded with literally hundreds upon hundreds of comments and messages-- which in my enthusiasm for the concept, I had guaranteed I would listen to every band put forward if I didn't already know them. In the end I listened to about 130+ bands that were submitted to be part of the shows. First was going through all the comments and noting every band in a spreadsheet, working out what city they were from (seeing not all were mentioned up front), and then heading to Spotify or Youtube to find a song from each of them. Now I definitely did not listen to a full song from every single band. Sometimes after 1-2 minutes I had a pretty clear idea of whether I thought they suited the show and if it was a clear no I would move on to the next. On other hand, if the band seemed like they were worth considering, I would make sure to listen to at least the one full song. If the band was added to the shortlist (5-8 bands per city) then for each of those bands I would circle back and listen to another 1 or 2 songs to help try and narrow it down.

This process took many hours, but honestly it was also really fun in many ways. My background in the early days of NeO (2007-2015) was as one of the biggest local metal promoters, booking agents and managers in Australia. I can absolutely say I was one of the top experts in the local scenes in every city across Australia. I knew who was pulling what sort of crowds, who were the up and coming bands, the one's that could headline, the one's that were great value supports & more. If it was quality Australian metal or prog I knew it, and I had likely booked shows and tours for many of them as well. Many people wouldn't realise, but I was actually the first booking agent for bands such as Be'lakor & Caligula's Horse. I even released the latter's album 'The Tide, the Thief & River's End' through my record label 'Welkin Records' in 2013. In the end as NeO got busier I reduced more and more how many other bands I was working with, then from 2015 (aside from continuing my festival 'Progfest' up til 2018) I mostly stepped back from working in the local scene as I began to try and become an expert in the new frontier for NeO... become a worldwide international metal act.

But because over the last decade NeO has spent so much time travelling overseas, combined with the fact that as a father my time when back home for a few weeks each time was prioritised with my daughter, getting out to local shows has been much more of a rarity. So it feels like this whole process was quite a cool way to get a crash course on getting up to date with the local metal scenes across Australia, especially in regards to bands that suit and want to tour with NeO.

I definitely discovered a number of bands that I'm now fans of, and not just the 5 we were able to choose to open. As we announced our choices to open each of these shows it definitely felt nice to be able to give this opportunity to bands that were hungry for it. One member from a band chosen messaged me privately on insta yesterday saying he was a huge fan and it was a dream come true to open for us. Which is a pretty special thing to hear. I know that feeling of getting to open for one of your favourite bands, and the fact that we are anyone's favourite is still something that blows my mind.

4 days now until we fly out to Perth for the start of this tour... and incredibly excited to play for all our Aussie fans! - Tim

AUSTRALIAN TOUR OPENING ACTS

PERTH- Crypt Crawler

ADELAIDE- EKOSA

MELBOURNE- IRONSTONE

SYDNEY- NAUGRIM

BRISBANE- VALHALORE