Punk genre-melding five-piece, Zebrahead returned to Australia for the first time in five years for a national headline tour celebrating their new album Brain Invaders. 

Australia had been waiting for a headline tour from Zebrahead after their frequent appearances and chaotic party sets at Soundwave in 2012 and 2014. Adelaide finally got to experience a Zebrahead headline show on Thursday, 2nd May in the intimate space of the Crown and Anchor.

Touring Australia in support of Zebrahead was Death By Stereo who brought a frantic, hardcore punk set to energise the room. Death By Stereo featured Zebrahead guitarist Dan Palmer pulling double duty for the night as a longterm member of Death by Stereo and recently Zebrahead since 2013.

The band played for a full hour with no rest seeing them take advantage of the whole room as three-members stepped into the crowd with guitars in hand and walked out to the bar to order a drink without missing a note. The set ended before the band realised they had an extra six minutes remaining, so they went into a cover of Slayer’s ‘Reign In Blood’ to farewell the room.

Zebrahead started off their set on a fast note with one of their most well-known hits ‘Rescue Me’, making sure everyone in the room began their night on a familiar note. The next hour was full of high energy hit after hit with only a wholesome lull in the set for ‘Mike Dexter Is A God…’ where the audience swung together arm in arm from the direction of vocalist Ali.

Classics like ‘Hello Tomorrow’, ‘Falling Apart’ and ‘Hell Yeah’ from the 2000 albums were lapped up by the crowd, but newer material from albums 2010 onwards like Call Your Friends and Walk The Plank were just as loved by the dedicated audience. Songs from Brain Invaders like ‘All My Friends Are Nobodies’, ‘We’re Not Alright’ and ‘When Both Sides Suck, We’re All Winners’ featured some of the biggest moshes of the night.

Ending fittingly on ‘Anthem’, the band left the room all smiles after finally being treated to the return of Zebrahead and a headline set covering everything necessary and more.