ELECTRIC CALLBOY - Live in Brisbane!
ELECTRIC CALLBOY Play Their Last Show Of The Year in Brisbane!
Sunday 13th September 2026
Written by Tom Wilson
Photographed by: Tracy McLaughlan
If it wasn’t for their bizarre rule about cloaking bags (meaning you’ve got to fit everything in your pockets like you’re a Swiss army knife), Riverstage would be my favourite venue. No matter how vertically challenged you are, you’re always going to find a place on the slope where you can see, and the scenery is fantastic. As we made our entry, I line up some dinner and grab a patch of grass, and I smile at the timing as the first band takes the stage while I’m taking my first bite. As far as dinner and a show goes, Turkish Gözleme and Japanese metalcore is quite the pairing.
Touring with the same lineup since their inception in 2007, COLDRAIN are an interesting band. While hailing from Nagoya in Japan, they perform all of their songs in English, and as they drop into EX-HUMANITY frontman Masato Hayakawa cuts shapes and unfurls a massive voice. The sound is immaculate, and the crowd swells throughout their set, with the first pits breaking out. They call for more aggression and seem happy with what they get as they power through VENGEANCE and bring their set to a close with a MAYDAY. Awesome.
I missed the boat on ICE NINE KILLS, but I’m clearly in the minority, as there is a massive turnout for them tonight, including one girl who managed to perfectly apply horror makeup FX on a moving train to get here. They recently held an anniversary screening of the original Scream in Brisbane with WALL OF SOUND (and contributed a track to the soundtrack for Scream 7) so when Red Right Hand by NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS starts playing on the PA, I don’t need to check my watch to know what time it is. Horror-themed metalcore with a penchant for the theatrical, there is a lot going on onstage, as a pair of stage actors duck and weave around the band to kill each other in entertaining ways, like a macabre version of the staged combat you’d see at Movie World. For their Scream number Twisting the Knife featuring Mckenna Grace, MAKE THEM SUFFER frontwoman Alex Reade comes out onstage to sing Mckenna’s parts while someone dressed as Ghostface stalks the stage, and for her trouble, she’s stabbed and carried off. Rude! Tonight is an all-ages affair, but you wouldn’t know it from the stage show, which at one point featured a prop baby being swung around by the umbilical cord like something from Freddy Got Fingered (this is at the same show where a punter was refused entry for having the word “cunt” on his shirt). They close with A Work of Art as Art the Clown from Terrifier wreaks havoc and even ends up playing the drums, and the fans around me are losing their minds. (NOTE: No one was allowed to photograph ICE NINE KILLS, and the band did not supply imagery in time for this review)
Given that the two bands that come to mind when I think of Germany are RAMMSTEIN and KRAFTWERK, it makes sense that someone would think to combine the best parts of the two, and the result is ELECTRIC CALLBOY, who will make you dance as much as bang your head. I last saw them at Good Things in 2024, so I am well aware that they’ve got the moves, but I was not prepared for just how hard EC go straight out the gate as they kick off with TANZNEID, before their cover of SUM 41’s Still Waiting has the whole of Riverstage going bananas. It’s a good thing that TANZNEID is a good album, because we hear the whole thing tonight, and it’s the framework around which ELECTRIC CALLBOY have built their party monster. Everyone gets a giggle when they keep announcing that it’s Saturday night, and rejoices that we don’t have work tomorrow … except it’s Sunday. Still, I’ve seen Amy Shark say “Hey Gold Coast” on that stage, so maybe we’ll just chalk it up to being so tired from the tour they don’t know what day it is. What they do know is that tonight is special, because not only is it the end of their Australian tour, but it’s the end of their 2026 touring commitments. Tonight, Riverstage gets the last taste of ELECTRIC CALLBOY for the year, and it tastes good.
There are seemingly endless costume changes, including some Velcro tearaways – ELECTRIC CALLBOY pack more clothes for one show than a grindcore band would pack for a whole European tour. Throughout their show, the stage detonates with white streamers, like Riverstage is a giant party popper and someone yanked the string, leaving the mosh pit covered, and giant balls of paper are hurled around like beach balls at a GARBAGE show. At one point the band point out a small child sitting on her dad’s shoulders and ask her to throw the horns, and when she does, the only people more impressed than the crowd are the band. Drummer Frank Zummo has a drum battle with a CGI robot on the screen behind him, before EC come out wearing matching white puffer jackets like they’ve just stepped out of a boy band music video from 2000, and knock out a rendition of I Want It That Way that will have any BACKSTREET BOYS or Brooklyn Nine-Nine fan singing along. This leads us perfectly into The Way You Are, the band’s ruthless takedown of turn-of-the-century boy band culture, and I can’t help but worry that they’re a fire hazard standing next to pyro jets in those shiny clothes. Let the Good Times Roll and Elevator Operator bring their set to a close, but we know they’re not done, so when they re-emerge and plunge into BABYMETAL collab RATATATA I smile when I realise this is the second time I’ve heard that song played at Riverstage this year (BABYMETAL were here in March). We’ve been hearing the crowd yell the famous beat for We Got The Moves all night, so when it finally comes, it’s absolutely exhilarating, and with that, ELECTRIC CALLBOY wave goodbye, both to us, and to live music for the rest of the year.
This is the second of two sold-out nights at Riverstage, and it’s fair to say that this might be the last time we see them on a stage of this size – they’ll be a shoe-in for the Entertainment Centre next tour. Let the Good Times Roll.