Review: The Ghost Inside @ The Gov 21/10/2025
Fresh from supporting Parkway Drive last year, The Ghost Inside put on a mesmerising gig at The Gov, showcasing why they are so revered in the metalcore space.
Words Thomas Jackson // Images Danny Wallace
The Ghost Inside w/Bleed From Within & Day of Contempt @ The Gov 21/10/2025
Metalcore’s favourite comeback story, The Ghost Inside, return to Adelaide as part of their first Australian headline tour in nearly a decade. Shortly after their last 2014 tour of Australia, the band’s tour bus was involved in a horrific crash that saw members of the band suffer serious injuries.
They earned the moniker as metal’s most resilient band when they finally returned to the stage in 2019 in a true phoenix rising from the ashes story. After being slowed down by the pandemic, The Ghost Inside are making up for lost time, returning to Australia only a year after visiting with Parkway Drive for arena level shows. Tonight, at The Gov, they've brought one of the most exciting upcoming bands in metal, Glasgow’s Bleed From Within, and hometown heroes Day of Contempt.
The Gov is packed at 7:30pm on a Tuesday for the return of one of Adelaide’s hardcore pioneers, Day of Contempt. The last time Day of Contempt played at The Gov was in 2009 with Earth Crisis. “We’re old as shit,” summarises Day of Contempt vocalist Benjamin Coyte. If they are, they don’t show it on stage, and neither does anyone in the audience as they churn through 2003’s ‘Tear You Down’ and ‘Walk Away’ with everyone warming up in the pit.
It’s a wholesome return as Coyte points out and calls out familiar faces and friends in the crowd. It’s like a time capsule in the room as everyone’s transported back to Adelaide in the 2000s, guided by one of the defining bands of the scene. The wormhole closes with ‘One by One’ and ‘The Slaughter Begins’, the nostalgia activates the sleeper agent that’s buried deep in the brain of the audience as the lyrics come back to them word for word.
The room is now full by the time Bleed From Within take to the stage. It's not surprising to see such a large turnout, as their latest release, Zenith, is one of the best metal albums of the year. It's their first time in Australia and a “dream come true” for them to visit. After blasting onto the stage with ‘Violent Nature' and title track ‘Zenith’, vocalist Scott Kennedy unbelievably gets handed a can of Irn-Bru from someone in the crowd before he fittingly announces, “We are Bleed From Within from Glasgow fucking Scotland!”
Bleed From Within have a familiarity to them that somehow has all the elements of modern metalcore but still sounds original. It feels wrong to witness songs like ‘I Am Damnation’ performed at a venue as intimate as The Gov; it feels like it's meant to be played to stadiums full of people. An easy comparison would be to call them Scotland’s answer to Parkway Drive; it's the perfect recipe for a first-time visit to Australia, and they've got everyone in the audience enthralled. They whip through their (too short) eight song setlist with confidence and bravado like it's their own headline show. Bleed From Within makes an unforgettable impact with what time they have, enticing multiple walls of death and circle pits, and easily winning the crowd over.
To herald the end, backing track bagpipes erupt through the venue announcing final song ‘In Place of Your Halo'. Kennedy crowd surfs on his knees as the audience raises him to the sky like an Egyptian pharaoh. It's an outstanding debut performance in Adelaide, and after this national support tour, Australia will be begging for them to return for their own headline tour.
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The Ghost Inside come out swinging with the triple threat breakdown attack of 2024’s ‘Going Under’, 2020’s ‘The Outcast’ and 2012’s ‘The Great Unknown’. There are no excuses not to be moving by this point, as the five-piece delivers something for everyone, no matter when you first heard The Ghost Inside.
Despite the aggressive screaming vocals, colossally loud guitars and monstrous drums, The Ghost Inside are known for their positive lyrics that shine in contrast to their demonic soundscape. Old lyrics, most notably 2014’s ‘Mercy’, “Life’s swinging hard but I’m swinging harder”, hit deeper than ever with all new meaning with hindsight of the bus crash. This emotion flows through to the crowd and is palpable.
Vocalist Jonathan Vigil reminds the room that the first time they came to Australia was to play Adelaide in 2008. The band throws back to this as they play 2008’s ‘Faith or Forgiveness’ for the old school fans. It’s a song Vigil admits they don’t really want to play, so the crowd had better go off for it. It gets one of the largest reactions of the night as the older members of the audience scream along, and Vigil tries to keep up with the onslaught of zombie-like hands reaching for him as fans try to scream down the microphone. It’s a sharp one-two of old school pride as they then go into ‘Between the Lines’ and the crowd roars the lyrics “What do you stand for?” in unison.
Vigil makes it clear there’s no encore and these are the last three songs. They go straight into ‘Aftermath’, the first song they released after the accident. It’s a reminder of a band that keeps moving forward in the face of adversity, with Virgil screaming, “I won’t live in the aftermath / I will rise”. Drummer Andrew Tkaczyk lives these lyrics by still killing it on drums, never missing a beat and sounding better than ever, even after having his leg amputated because of the accident and now using a prosthetic. Two anthems close out the night with ‘Avalanche’ followed by ‘Engine 45’. It’s a cathartic moment as the room cries, “You will never see a waved white flag in front of me”, back to them.
It was a long-overdue victory lap for one of Australia’s favourite adopted bands and a celebration of redemption. Everyone can leave feeling like they can achieve and overcome their next battle after seeing one of the most inspiring bands in live music.
Want more pics of the gig? Check out our full photo gallery here.
