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‘Gratitude and renewed purpose’ – Poison The Well in Newcastle

June 15, 2026

There was an unmistakable electricity in the air at King Street on Saturday night, the kind reserved for occasions when a band that shaped a generation’s idea of heavy music finally comes home. Poison The Well, silent on Australian stages since 2009, were set to close out the night with a set drawing from both their storied back catalogue and the new material that’s seen them return with real purpose.

Kicking things off were local heavy hitters Cutthroat, and there’s nothing quite like a hometown band stepping up in front of their own. Newcastle’s hardcore scene has always punched above its weight and the locals showed up to get behind yet another killer band. A confident, no-nonsense start that set the tone for the night.

Iron Mind followed, and they’re a band I’ll never pass up the chance to watch. Few groups bring the same combination of raw intensity, genuine passion and sheer stage presence. They tore into their set behind a suitably menacing Intro track, and from there it barely let up with the pit heaving from the first note. Favourites like Calm and the Storm, How You Get Down and Assume Your Ultimate Form landed exactly as you’d hope, with the crowd giving back as much energy as the band put out.

Then came Haywire, arriving in Newcastle hot off the back of a Southeast Asian run and clearly ready to make the most of their first-ever Australian shows. They opened with a cover of “Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again” by The Angels, a cheeky, crowd-pleasing nod that had the room grinning from the first chord. From there it was pure, unfiltered fun. Big singalongs, relentless energy, and a band that seemed genuinely thrilled to be there.

Frontman Austin Sparkman clearly wasn’t interested in staying up on the stage, ditching it almost entirely to perform from inside the crowd. What followed was chaos in the best sense with bodies everywhere, crowd surfers going up constantly, and a room fully won over.

And then, finally, Poison The Well took the stage for the first time on Australian soil since 2009. They wasted no time proving the years away haven’t dulled them one bit, sounding as ferocious and locked-in as ever, nearly thirty years after they first formed. The set moved fluidly between the heavier, more aggressive material and the softer, more melodic passages they’ve always been known for, weaving together old favourites with newer songs in a way that felt seamless rather than segmented.

What stood out most, though, was just how much the room had been waiting for this. Every lyric was screamed back at the band with the kind of conviction that only comes from years of pent-up love for a record. Between songs, singer Jeffrey Moreira spoke openly about how meaningful it’s been for the band to be writing and playing music together again after so much time apart and that sense of gratitude and renewed purpose was written all over the performance. It wasn’t a band coasting on nostalgia, this was a band that sounded genuinely glad to be back, and a crowd that was just as glad to have them.