Review: Ocean Grove at Amplifier Bar

Ocean Grove at Amplifier Bar
w/ Indigo Blaze, Cane Hill 
Thursday, August 13, 2026

Ocean Grove shows have always been energetic, but Thursday night at Amplifier was on another level.

Bringing their Oddworld Underground tour to Perth alongside US metal act Cane Hill and local supports Indigo Blaze, the Melbourne heavyweights sold out Amplifier for a sweaty night of circle pits, moshing and massive sing-alongs that only seemed to get louder as the night went on.

With such solid support, there was already plenty happening on the floor early in the night, with the energy building until huge sections of the room were moving. Having been around for over 15 years now, it was also cool to see just how broad their crowd has become, with younger fans packed in alongside people who have clearly been following them since The Rhapsody Tapes days and earlier.

If anyone is flying the flag for nu-metal in Perth right now, Indigo Blaze are them.

The local outfit wear their influences proudly, combining huge riffs and plenty of bounce with a modern heaviness that stops it from ever feeling like pure late-90s nostalgia. There are wonderful shades of bands like Limp Bizkit in there, but Indigo Blaze have enough of their own personality to make it work.

More importantly, they are just really good live.

As the only Perth band on the bill, they felt perfectly at home alongside Cane Hill and Ocean Grove. There was a clear musical thread running through all three acts, and Indigo Blaze wasted little time getting the early crowd moving.

Cane Hill followed, returning to Perth for the first time in around a decade.

The New Orleans outfit brought a noticeably darker edge to the night, shifting between crushing heaviness, atmospheric passages and melodic moments. Vocalist Elijah Witt spent plenty of time stirring up the crowd between songs, while a small mosh pit that had started in the middle of Amplifier became considerably bigger as their set went on.

There was a loose, playful energy to Cane Hill between songs that worked nicely against just how heavy they sounded once everything kicked back in. By the closing stretch, they had the floor properly moving and left the room exactly where it needed to be for Ocean Grove.

There was a bit of a wait before the headliners arrived, but as the anticipation started to build, Chop Suey! suddenly blasted over the PA and basically the entire room joined in. By the time the impromptu sing-along was over, Amplifier was ready to explode.

Then Ocean Grove came out and everything went nuts.

Opening with JUNKIE$, the four-piece immediately sent Amplifier into chaos. A huge pit opened through the middle of the crowd, and there was barely any time to recover as SUPERSTAR, NO OFFENCE DETECTED and MY DISASTER followed.

Four songs in, and the room was already sweaty, but thankfully, the state-of-the-art air-con at Amps was absolutely up to the task.

Ocean Grove looked completely at home amongst the chaos. The band have reached a point where their catalogue spans enough different eras that people can come to these shows loving completely different versions of Ocean Grove, and the set did a great job of bringing all of them together.

A couple of weeks before the tour, the band had asked fans what older tracks they wanted to hear, which led to one of the night’s coolest moments.

Before MR CENTIPEDE, vocalist Dale Tanner recalled playing Amplifier around the release of The Rhapsody Tapes in 2017, describing its return to the set in the same room as a “full circle moment.”

Nine years later, it still sounded huge.

INTIMATE ALIEN, OG FOREVER and CELL DIVISION followed before ASK FOR THE ANTHEM delivered one of the biggest reactions of the night. The chorus became a massive sing-along, as expected, with the entire room shouting it back while the floor continued moving underneath them.

Another surprise came a few songs later with BEERS, which the band hadn’t played live since 2017.

It was a genuine deep cut and absolutely went off, but what made it even better was hearing it alongside songs from completely different stages of Ocean Grove’s career.

SUNNY followed shortly afterwards and was another highlight. Hearing the two songs so close together probably summed Ocean Grove up better than any genre label could.

And that’s always been one of the most interesting things about Ocean Grove. They’ve experimented heavily with their sound over the years, but somehow all of those different ideas fit together live.

There was even room for an awesome drum solo before LIGHTS ON KIND OF LOVER and RAINDROP pushed things towards the final stretch.

LAST DANCE was another standout, and somehow the crowd was still finding the energy to open pits (and gigantic circle pits, for that matter) despite having spent most of the set throwing themselves around the room.

At one point Tanner told the crowd, “We will NEVER miss Perth. We love playing shows here.”

The feeling appeared to be mutual.

STRATOSPHERE LOVE followed before FLY AWAY closed the night with one final huge surge, sending the room off exactly as the set had started.

I cannot overstate this enough: bodies were absolutely flying for this one.

It ruled.

Ocean Grove are a much bigger band than the one that played this same venue around The Rhapsody Tapes era. Their catalogue is bigger, their sound has evolved, and their audience now spans people who discovered them at completely different points in their career.

But seeing them back inside a sweaty room like Amplifier showed that the fundamental appeal hasn’t really changed.

They’re just bloody great.

With Indigo Blaze holding it down for Perth’s nu-metal scene, Cane Hill cranking the intensity and Ocean Grove eventually sending the entire room into a frenzy, it was a pretty perfect night for heavy music in Perth.

HARRISON JONES

Photos by Linda Dunjey