Review: Cradle of Filth + DevilDriver at Astor Theatre
Cradle of Filth + DevilDriver at Astor Theatre
Thursday, July 16, 2026
The best of gothic metal and groove metal teamed up in a glorious double header as Cradle of Filth co-headlined with DevilDriver, resulting in an epic gig that chewed up and spat out Perth’s metalheaded-hordes at the Astor on Thursday night.
DevilDriver kicked off as you’d expect them to: with zero fucking around, getting straight to it. Opening with perennial crowd-favourite Clouds Over California is a sure-fire way to get everyone bouncing from the jump. Hopefully the crowd were pit-fit and had done their warm-ups, ’cause this set the tone for the entire set: groovy, hard and heavy with no downtime—catching your breath can wait till after! Frontman Dez Fafara was electric. Ageless, he amped the crowd up to a fever, demanding circle-pits from a moshpit only too eager to comply. As always, the band delivered an intensely satisfying setlist, playing old favourites while perfectly weaving in some new tracks, too.
Hot off the success of their eleventh album, Strike and Kill, which has been getting accolades all over the show and hanging out pretty high in album charts across the globe, when recently interviewed by X-Press, Fafara told us what to expect from the new album, which dropped while they were already here in Australia: “a groove, riff-driven and energetic record full of all killer and no filler”, which is exactly why new tracks like Dig Your Own Grave and Dead in the Water blended so seamlessly with utter classics like I Could Care Less, Grinfucked and Cry for me Sky.
Some might remember the last time DevilDriver blessed our shores, when the band treated the OGs amongst their fanbase to some Coal Chamber covers. This was indeed marvellous, but a quick glance around the pit on Thursday night showed no disappointed faces, and it’s a safe bet those in attendance were speaking in hushed, hoarse voices at their various workplaces on Friday morning after a night of screaming along to an epic setlist.
In between all this merriment, we were treated to a glimpse of what a bloody legend Dez really is, getting security onto some troublemakers on the balcony and kicking them out, because “nobody fights at my shows”. Good guy. It’s hard to think of a better song to nail a not-encore (since Dez is from punk and “punk don’t do encores”) than End of the Line. Good gods, how satisfying. Here’s hoping they visit us again soon.
A hoard of sweaty, bedraggled DevilDriver fans slowly made way for the make-uped, costumed Cradle of Filth fans as they began to descend upon the floor. As expected, Cradle of Filth‘s set was a gothic feast for the eyes and ears, with super cool lights and visuals and the kind of technical mastery in performance that screams “we’ve done this for 35 plus years”, with a setlist of bangers that beautifully blended the cult classics like Nymphetamine with newer tunes.
While the rest of the band stood and delivered, impressive long-haired pendulums flailing in perfect synchronisation, frontman Dani Filth stood out like some kind of impressive demigod of darkness, with seemingly the winds of Hades arriving to blow his hair back romantically while he showed just why he’s one of the most respected frontmen in the game. His vocal range is stunningly vast and varied, leaving you gobsmacked at the range of sounds that can come out of this man’s mouth—fully controlled and perfectly executed, and in a live setting, too. Regardless of genre preferences, you gotta take your hat off to that. Engaging, likeable, clearly having a great time, he urged Perth to go hard too: may as well “make it a long weekend!”, right?. Cradle of Filth fans were treated to a tidy, polished, very aesthetically-pleasing show, and more than a few of the humans who may have come for DevilDriver stayed to enjoy the spectacle, mosh-pit-sore old bones and all.
Whatever you may have thought of the genre-combo of this co-headliner, sick performances were guaranteed and delivered by both bands, who are each masters of their respective corners of the magnificent metal spectrum, even if the vibe-shift from one to the other was significant. And, sure, at first glance the pairing did seem strange. On the one hand we have DevilDriver, one of the most high-pace, all-out-energy live bands you’ll ever be lucky enough to see. On the other hand, Cradle of Filth, from whom a highly dramatic, technically excellent gothic spectacle is always guaranteed. But after experiencing the double-header and upon further thought, it becomes clear what these two bands do have in common: a level of brutality so extreme you need more than a tissue to clean yourself up after the gig!
MELISSA KRUGER
Photos by Adrian Thomson
