NAILBOMB DECIMATES MELBOURNE – THE GIG THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST LIVE: SOULFLY, NAILBOMB, SNOT The Forum, Melbourne – January 30th, 2026. words-Mark pics-Dan McKay

NAILBOMB DECIMATES MELBOURNE – THE GIG THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST

LIVE: SOULFLY, NAILBOMB, SNOT

The Forum, Melbourne – January 30th, 2026

words-Mark pics-Dan McKay

Some albums were never meant to be played live. One studio record, one legendary performance captured on the Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide live album from Dynamo '95, and then thirty years of silence. Point Blank exists in that rarefied space occupied by records that defined a moment—1994's unholy union of industrial metal, hardcore punk, and thrash that arrived when Max Cavalera and Alex Newport decided to detonate everything polite about heavy music.

It influenced Fear Factory, Rammstein, the entire nu-metal explosion, and anyone who ever thought drum machines and downtuned brutality belonged in the same room. Friday night at The Forum, we got to witness something that, by all logic, shouldn't exist: Point Blank played in full, thirty-two years after its release, in front of a crowd that spanned three generations of metal fans.

SNOT opened with the kind of unhinged energy that reminded everyone why Lynn Strait's death was such a criminal waste. New vocalist Andy Knapp doesn't try to impersonate Strait—he channels that same reckless fury without cosplaying a ghost.

The setlist was obviously pure Get Some worship: Snot, Joy Ride, Stoopid, The Box, Snooze Button, Get Some, Deadfall, I Jus' Lie, Tecato, My Balls, Absent.

Every track is a reminder of how far ahead of the curve this band was—merging hardcore aggression with hip-hop swagger and nu-metal heaviness before anyone had vocabulary for it.

Deadfall hit particularly hard, that groove still sounds completely unique. The diehards down front were losing their minds, singing every word, bodies flying. Thirty minutes was exactly right—Snot are a shot of adrenaline, not something you nurse all night.

Could they headline their own tour? Absolutely. Should they? Maybe(a new album is in the works!). But as an opening salvo of concentrated fury, this was flawless. They reminded everyone they never got their due, then vanished before anyone could catch their breath. Incredible value for a band that deserved so much more. Thank fuck they are back!.

Then NAILBOMB took the stage, and the entire night shifted into something else.

Max Cavalera walked out, joined by his son Igor Amadeus on guitar and vocals, Jackie Cruz (Go Ahead and Die, Jade Helm) on bass, and three members of fucking Pig Destroyer—Travis Stone on guitar, Adam Jarvis on drums, and Alex Cha on samples. The lineup alone was absurd, a who's who of modern extreme metal royalty backing one of the genre's most mythical projects.

From the opening assault of Wasting Away, you knew this wasn't nostalgia—this was war. They tore through the entire Point Blank album: Wasting Away, Vai Toma No Cú, 24 Hour Bullshit, Guerrillas, Blind and Lost, Sum of Your Achievements, Cockroaches, World of Shit, Religious Cancer, Shit Piñata, Sick Life. Each song was more caustic and crushing than the last.

Here's the thing about Alex Newport's work on Point Blank—it's legendary. That surgical precision in crafting industrial chaos, those massive Fudge Tunnel riffs played backwards and slowed down, the samples from Apocalypse Now and A Clockwork Orange that nobody had to clear because it was 1994 and you could just grab what you wanted. Newport's contribution to metal history is undeniable. But he stopped touring decades ago, and what Igor Amadeus brought to the Forum was something entirely different and utterly devastating.

Where Newport was calculated brutality, Igor is pure youthful savagery. He attacked those riffs with a raw, almost feral intensity that made thirty-year-old songs feel reborn. His vocal prowess and powerful hostility on Sum of Your Achievements was remarkable. The kid wasn't even alive when this album dropped, but he delivered those parts like he'd been carrying them his whole life—caustic, crushing, absolutely relentless. His guitar work transformed studio perfection into something more dangerous and unpredictable. Watching him trade vocals with Max while destroying his fretboard added a new dimension to material we thought we knew inside out.

Meanwhile, Jackie Cruz brought that post-punk death rock precision from her work in Jade Helm (and hostile technique from Go Ahead and Die), grounding the chaos with bass lines that were both brutal and eerily melodic. And having three members of Pig Destroyer—one of grind's most punishing bands—powering this machine? It elevated everything to a level of ferocity that felt genuinely unsafe.

The crowd was a trip—grizzled veterans who may have caught that legendary Dynamo performance back in '95, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with kids discovering this music for the first time, all of them equally demolished. By Cockroaches, World of Shit, Religious Cancer, people looked shell-shocked, trying to process the sheer aggression. When Sick Life closed the set, the Forum felt like it had survived something traumatic.

This was, without question, the highlight of the night (or year, decade???). Not just because the performance was flawless, but because witnessing Point Blank played live feels like accessing something forbidden—a one-off project that should've stayed locked in 1994 suddenly manifesting with all its original fury intact and somehow amplified. The album that helped set the agenda for nu-metal, that proved industrial and hardcore and thrash could collide into something uniquely devastating, played in full for a frenzied crowd that understood they were witnessing something genuinely rare.

SOULFLY had the impossible task of following that apocalypse.

Max returned for his second performance of the evening with the same intensity he'd brought to Nailbomb.

The setlist was impactfully solid—opening with Indigenous Inquisition leading into Storm the Gates, then moving through No Hope = No Fear, Seek 'n' Strike, Prophecy, Fire, Bumbklaatt.

Deep cuts like No Pain = No Power and Back to the Primitive showcased the band's enduring power, while Chama and the drum solo-enhanced Tribe proved Soulfly's commitment to their tribal metal vision. The encore brought Jumpdafuckup and the closing dynamic anthem Eye for an Eye, with Mikey Doling from Snot making a guest appearance.

On any other night, this would've been the performance everyone went home raving about. Max's commanding presence, the grooves, the spiritual weight—it was all there, brilliant and crushing. But trying to match what Nailbomb had just done was like trying to compete with a natural disaster. It wasn't Soulfly's fault. Some nights just belong to one band, and this one belonged to Nailbomb.

Walking out of The Forum with ears ringing and shirts soaked through, it was clear this wasn't just another tour stop. Three bands, three different approaches to heaviness, all connected through Max's uncompromising vision. But Nailbomb? They reminded everyone that some albums achieve legendary status not despite their scarcity, but because of it. One studio record, one live album, decades of silence, and now this—proof that Point Blank still hits like a bomb thirty-two years later.