Live Review: The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

"Tonight we're going to play Don't You Fake It all the way through!" shouts frontman Ronnie Winter. This tour is the first time that The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus has ever played their most popular album in its entirety in Australia, so it's a huge deal for any die-hard fans of the band that have followed them since the very beginning. Melbourne is the only city to get the show twice and both have sold out, which is a testament to their loyal fan base.

The band begin from the top with the opening track In Fate's Hands including an impressive guitar solo to get our hearts racing. They keep it rolling with the sequential order of tracks exactly as they appear on the album. There's something pretty special about hearing an album played live from start to finish, particularly one that brings back those nostalgic teenage years from a time when emo/post-hardcore music was at its peak.

"Technically the album is ten-and-a-half years old," Winter admits. "But it's my fault we couldn't tour last year because I got my wife pregnant and I wanted to be with her for the birth of my son Wolfgang." He stands in front of us tonight with no regrets, now a proud father. He points out that the band has been going for 14 years and despite him being the only original member remaining not much else has changed, except the length of his hair, which is now short enough that he can actually see us all from every side of his face. 

They reach a point in the night when they decide to film the audience for a change, to show the world how we rock out to Damn Regret. The moshpit gets rowdy and one guy even skols a shoey full of beer. "Life is short... So tonight is the night for me every time," Winter declares before launching into adolescent anthem Seventeen Ain't So Sweet. To our surprise, he reveals that he didn't think he'd even able to sing tonight because he's actually really sick, but he believes praying all day helped. We don't notice any sign of his vocal performance wavering and the energy level remains at a steady high.

Winter announces that they have a new album coming out this year but in case we want to binge-listen their back catalogue for free then we're encouraged to do so via their website. "If you're going to steal it then we prefer you to steal it from us!" he jokes. The show ends with the first song the band ever wrote as all the new and old fans in the room join in from the top to the bottom with all the "Whoa-ohs" of the seven-and-a-half minute closing track, The Grimm Goodbye.