AO Arena, Manchester, October 6 2025

In a game of two halves, arguably the best time to score is on the stroke of half-time. Inside Manchester’s AO Arena tonight, the elite sport in question – the Parkway Drive live show – is approaching that exact benchmark, bringing the curtain down on the first leg of their 20th anniversary tour in Europe. Two hours and fifteen minutes after they hit the stage, we realise that it’s been raining goals for the entire first period.

When the Byron Bay metalcore giants announced they’d be taking on Europe’s biggest arenas, there was no new album to promote. In fact, this marks their fourth extensive European escapade since 2022’s ‘Darker Still’ landed, so you’d be forgiven for assuming that a new chapter was imminent. Instead of racing onto new territory, however, it was time for the band to take stock, and investigate just how high they could elevate their live show, fuelled by two decades of experience and memories.

Definitively the biggest heavy metal band to ever come out of Australia, it’s only right that Parkway Drive make this anniversary celebration feel like a hometown affair, bringing Thy Art Is Murder and The Amity Affliction along for the ride. Teasing the extremity of the Parkway production that’s hidden behind the curtain, the latter have precious little stage room to work with, relying on new clean vocalist and bassist Jonny Reeves to amp up their presence.

“Three Australian bands going all around the Northern Hemisphere is insane,” voices a grateful Joel Birch, whose harsh screams carry the consistency of Winston McCall himself. Inside the UK’s second-largest arena, it’s in the larger-than-life synth hook of ‘Drag The Lake’ that we find the gem of The Amity Affliction’s set. The dying embers of ‘Soak Me In Bleach’ also warm things down to masterful effect, fading out while the band take in the occasion.

Thy Art Is Murder aren’t even on stage when Vengaboys’ ‘We Like To Party! (The Vengabus)’ treats the AO Arena to heavy music’s biggest guilty pleasure out of the PA, before the Sydney five-piece flick the deathcore switch. “You got yourself a nice death metal sandwich right now,” acknowledges Tyler Miller, who lets his warm, cosy speaking voice appear in between warning signs that “this is not a set to stand still and stare.” The unsettling intro riff to ‘Holy War’ and the sprinkles of melody in ‘Fur And Claw’ help add some versatility, in preparation for the megamix that tonight’s headliners will provide.

Parkway Drive’s recent arena tours have not adhered to convention. If you’ve never seen them before, their royal emergence through the crowd, escorted by two flagbearers, will surprise you just as much as they perplex seasoned fans when they set up shop on the B-stage. Crammed on top of this square box, right in the face of the crowd, Winston mouths “Holy shit”, before they unleash fan-favourite ‘Carrion’.

‘Prey’ causes an eruption inside the AO Arena, the scenes you’d usually expect from a Slipknot ‘jump-the-fuck-up’ moment. That is the scale we are now dealing with when it comes to Parkway, who make sure to find an undeniable synchronicity with their audience before reverting to the main stage. Lining up like a 5-a-side team, they have to cross a bridge to get there, one that soon morphs into Winston’s runway for the night.

Ever since Bring Me The Horizon introduced and evolved the sci-fi storytelling of their live show, their production has been lauded as world-beating – and tonight’s show feels like a similar leap of faith for Parkway. Building on the pyro, staging and theatrics of former tours, they seek to upscale what they’ve already made their own, as Winston – wearing a white boiler suit – crushes ‘Sacred’ on top of an oven-like box, flanked by fire on all corners.

“Who came to partake in the fine art of metalcore tonight?” he croons, bringing out the aforementioned Joel and Tyler for some assistance in ‘Boneyards’. Staying true to their celebratory promise, Parkway give ample airtime to material from ‘Horizons’ and ‘Killing With A Smile’, even though there’s no outing for anything from ‘Deep Blue’. ‘Idols And Anchors’ is the crown jewel from this early material, the spotlight flip-flopping between Jeff Ament’s signature riff and the circle pit spinning around Winston, deep within the crowd.

The ‘Killing With A Smile’ quickfire medley is dedicated to Manchester rock mecca Satan’s Hollow, spearheaded by “the OG metalcore anthem” ‘Romance Is Dead’ – in full – for a brutal trip down memory lane. The production is the gift that keeps on giving, be it Winston’s spiky mic stand for ‘Cemetery Bloom’, the collision of rain (a nice touch for Manchester) and fire in ‘Wishing Wells’ or the three string players that glide down from the sky like angles during ‘Chronos’.

For a band that constantly finds new extremes, their two-song encore confirms why this show is their greatest. Winston ends ‘Crushed’ hoisted twenty metres in the sky, spewing out so much fire that Ben Gordon’s rotating drum kit feels minor in the scheme of things. ‘Wild Eyes’, on the other hand, reunites these five brothers with their fans at the forefront of the B-stage, suddenly making the AO Arena feel intimate while that timeless riff does the talking.

Apart from Winston’s shaky clean vocals during ‘Darker Still’ – perhaps a natural product of a month-long tour – this Parkway Drive set is almost perfect. The inevitable question of ‘Will they headline Download?’ feels closer to its answer than ever before. Sleep Token proved this year that if a band can bring their own full-scale production into the fields of Donington, they will make light work of heavy music’s biggest task.

Their future aside, tonight is a reminder that, three years on from their previous record, Parkway Drive are more current than ever. Their immediacy, brotherhood and ability to draw upon their back catalogue in lock-step with such eye-opening production has levelled up their live show into a simultaneously nostalgic, forward-thinking phenomenon. “Viva the underdogs” – and long may they live.