Muchos gracias to the folks from “Destroy All Lines”; your intrepid scribes were able to materialize at the last ever show at the Max Watts Club ( West End – the club is closing and this was the last ever gig there) and the last ever tour from the mighty Dillinger Escape Plan. Brisbane was the last gig on the Australian leg of the world tour and the band and the punters were wound up like a spring.

 Walking into Max Watts the sense of anticipation was electric – you could cut the air with a knife.  It felt like your whole life was inside the room. Backing music changes – the lights go out and Dillinger casually wander on stage.  Greg Puciato- lead singer was last. The band open up with “Prancer” off the “One Of Us Is The Killer” album and it was on. The pit was boiling over and a sea of arms and legs. I lost count of how many times Greg disappeared in the crowd and lead guitarist Ben Weiman was up to his usual running up the side of his speaker box and jumping on the drum kit like a fly with sticky glue on his feet ( saw Ben do same at a soundwave festival gig and it seemed supernatural). This was quickly followed by “When I Lost My Bet”, “Milk Lizard”, “Panasonic Youth” and “Black Bubblegum”. For a band with a million line up changes in its 20 year history and always a mix of incendiary highly strung personalities what you heard and saw tonight was a united front of math metal addicts who were at the top of their game fully owning every note they squeezed out.

“Symptom Of Terminal Illness”, “Weekend Sex Change”. “Destro’s Secret” and “Surrogate” – were up next and the band was like a runaway rollercoaster.  Greg and Ben Weiman have an almost psychic connection and follow each other’s leads intuitively. This was a very emotional night  – Dillinger’s last gig in Australia on a farewell world tour-the end of a 20 year reign where Dillinger have consistently stayed at the top of their game – leaving us with the “Dissociation” album. Hopefully Greg will do more with the “Killer Be Killed” project and Ben Weiman and the others will go on to greater heights.

The band go off and after a tense 5 minutes they reappear to leave us with – “The Mullet Burden”, “Sunshine Werewolf” and “43% Burnt” ( it was his version of this Dillinger track that made the band select Greg as their singer when original singer Dimitri Minakakis left in 2001)

So Dillinger spend an eternity saying goodbye to the crowd – everyone is emotional and they walk off stage into the future.

Donald Gunn