Words – Clare
Photos – @photo.amai
35 years of Fear! The Cybernetic Domination Tour marks 35 years of Fear Factory and 10 years since their last headlining tour in Australia. Saturday night was set aside for Melbourne at the Northcote Theatre, and being a sold out performance definitely put to bed the debate whether or not Fear Factory is still Fear Factory without the original full lineup. And as far as I’m concerned, the proof is in the pit, and as someone who watched the night unfold from the mezzanine above, there was no denying that the pit was pumping with dedicated fans, excited and energised by talented musicians genuinely enjoying what they do.
The Melbourne 4-piece Body Prison kicked off the night for us and with every heavy, sludgy breakdown I felt my stress and exhaustion from my manic week just melt away. Each track riled up the crowd more and more, not even a technical difficulty could interrupt the ever increasing frenzy forming in the pit below. ’Make some fucking noise for fear factory! If u came here to throw down now’s your fucking chance’ the guitars screamed as they launched into their final track. Maybe it was the onslaught of heaviness from Body Prison or it was the shot of potassium from the pit (Banana Man at it again) but I felt energised and ready for Fear Factory!
The banner was revealed as a red light flooded into our retinas and a voice sounded in our ears. Reformatted. Restructured. Reassembled. Recoded. Indispensable parts of a system. A necessary system. One that cannot accommodate descent. We are all programmed to survive. Adapt or die.
From 2001’s Digimortal the opening track of the night got the room jumping and clapping along and screaming ‘WHAT WILL BECOME OF US?!’ Next were tracks from their fifth studio album Archetype, with crowd surfers enjoying Slave Labour and fans joining in on the title track singing ‘Open Your Eyes, Open Your Eyes’ as the lead vocalist introduced the legend Dino Cazares on guitar, the now only remaining original member on this tour.
Industrial Discipline opened the pit right up while Milo Silvestro, who apparently has been residing in Melbourne for the past few months, proved once again he has the chops to tackle the powerful cleans. Taking us all the way back to 1998 was the Shock, Edgecrusher, Securitron and Descent which ignited more crowd participation.
The pit opened up again for Disruptor from Aggression Continuum released in 2021 but it was the next track that I had been hanging out all night, Linchpin, which was delivered with intensity from Milo ‘Everybody fucking bounce!’. As the epic Invisible Wounds began I heard a ‘YEAAAAAAH’ from behind me, which obviously was the track that dude was hanging out for all night.
We were then thrust back even further in time to 1992’s Scumgrief and from their second album released in 1995, was the title track Demanufacture, Zero Signal featuring a wicked dual guitar solo and Replica which ended with Milo engulfed by the crowd as he descended into the pit.
Another track from Obsolete made an appearance before the night was over, a surprise to us and a bit of fun too, was the bands cover of Cars. Bringing us to the end was the fitting Final Exit from Mechanize 2010, a song that Milo dedicated to a close friend he recently lost, and to all the loved ones who are no longer with us.
Huge thanks to the Fear Factory, Body Prison, The Northcote Theatre, Soundworks Touring Direct and Cult Etiquette PR for having us!
