Hawthorne Heights
Hawthorne Heights, Armor For Sleep and heaven//alone live at Magnet House | 22 April 2026
Hawthorne Heights played the first show of their Australia leg of their ‘Lonely World Tour’, during this tour they were also celebrating the 20th anniversary for the album ‘If Only You Were Lonely’ at the Perth's Magnet House.
When I arrived, the venue was already getting pretty full and there was a big line for the band’s merch. The crowd was a solid mix between older fans who were there for the album's release and newer fans who started listening in other waves of emo popularity.
The first opener was Perth band Heaven//Alone. They had an emo post-hardcore sound. They had an engaging stage presence and with plenty of movment on stage, with the lead singer taking the opportunity to head down to the barricade to sing with the crowd. They were very chatty on stage which is always fun. I hadn’t heard of their music prior, but would definitely listen to them now. They also did a Deftones cover of ’My Own Summer (Shove It)’ and that helped bring the energy up. They also successfully split the crowd down the middle during the set so that the crowd could run in and mosh during the breakdown. They did this successfully which is always good to see especially during an opener, the crowd was very willing to participate.
The second act was a band called Armor for Sleep. They are an American, New Jersey, emo band that formed in 2001, so a band similar in vintage to Hawthorne Heights, which explained the crowds knowledge and enthusiasm during their set as a lot of people in the crowd knew the lyrics to the majority of their songs which is often quite rare during for an opening band. The band had a good vibe and were definitely feeding off the crowds energy and love for them. I hadn’t heard of them before the gig but would defi nitely listen to them post concert, and think that they were a very good act to have right before Hawthorne Heights came out, as the crowd were getting very hype from their music.
When Hawthorne Heights finally came out, the crowd were very excited with most people around me knowing all the lyrics to all of their songs. The crowd was very respectful with most people in my area in their own space, not bumping into people, and not many people had their phones up which is honestly a rarity these days and was refreshing to be able to enjoy an artist through my own eyes and not someone’s screen. They played a lot of stuff from ‘If Only You Were Lonely’ which was to be expected with the fact it was their 20th year anniversary of that album. They also played other older hits focusing more on their classic 2000s emo sound. They did play a new song called ‘Like A Cardinal’ which was good and even though the crowd didn’t know it as well, they still got into it. They fi nished off their set playing their biggest hit, ‘Ohio Is For Lovers’ which obviously had the crowd singing along. I also found that they sounded very similar to the record.
Before playing the last 2 songs, they talked about encores and not doing them. Usually artists will leave the stage with 2 or 3 songs left on the setlist to build excitement for the last tracks. They criticised the concept of the encore and I couldn’t agree more as I would rather have an artist play their full setlist then done, I think encores are less relevant for bands like these and more for artists who are doing choreography on stage, to have a small break before the final, usually biggest, parts of the show.
Overall, I think that the concert was very good, with the artists all playing very well and entertaining sets and the venue being a good size and space for this type of gig.
Review by Ava Thomson
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