Park Waves Festival is a product of the powerful Australian metal community

Parkway Drive frontman, Winston McCall, breaks down the heaviest festival down under.

As far as festival offerings go, Germany has it good. Hamburg-based Reeperbahn Festival draws the Aussie’s for a barbeque year after year, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park are titans in the hard rock and metal world, Wacken Open Air is a metalheads dream, and Hurricane Festival is a huge addition to the live music scene. That’s not even mentioning the festival that the country is known for – the beer and Bavarian appreciation event, Oktoberfest.

Last year, Australians were given another reason to be jealous of the Germans with our very own metalcore giants, Parkway Drive debuting their own circus carnival curated festival on German land.

Just over a year after the festival’s successful inception, Australian audiences received the ultimate news that Park Waves Festival was taking on an Australian touring circuit, stomping onto eleven sites and showgrounds across the country.

Park Waves Festival

WHERE: GEELONG SHOWGROUNDS, CARIBBEAN GARDENS, BENDIGO JOCKEY CLUB

WHEN; 22 FEB, 28 FEB, 1 MAR RESPECTIVELY

Keep connected to your live music scene here.

Frontman Winston McCall explains of the homecoming event, “It is something that we had in the making in our heads for a couple of years but didn’t know how to execute it and then while this was percolating, basically the ones overseas presented in a way that involved a lot less organisation than they did here. There were things that were already set up so we got to do two of them and have a little chance to test the theory and they went really well. As soon as they were locked in, we had Chris from DAL (Destroy All Lines) saying, “Hey, we should do that here”. We were like “That’s what we want to do anyway so if you can make it happen let’s do it!””

It’s long been known that the viability of touring festivals in Australia is dicey. They are met with logistical challenges and heavy financial constraints due to the transport requirements to get bands, stages, gear, and personnel between cities. To combat the operational obstacles, Parkway Drive and the Destroy All Lines team have doubled the load to lighten the toll.

“It’s a massive challenge. We have two mirroring setups which will be leapfrogging each other so it can happen so there’s not just one rolling. While one is playing the other will be setting up at the location the day before. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever done before and the fact that isn’t just a once off thing – it’s a festival for one day and it’s done – that’s a challenge unto itself to make it tourable. The theory seems to be highly sound and the team seems to be smashing it. It’s going to be great,” McCall details.

 

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Production is a key element to Parkway Drives surreal sets. From a stream of pyrotechnics to elevated platforms raised over the audience and a 360 degree spinning vertical drum rig, their arena and standalone festival shows alone have a textbook thick technical specifications attached. The touring element and outdoor tent setting of Park Waves Festival further sees the band shoe-boxed by limitations. But in true Parkway Drive form, the band are fly-kicking the huddles square in the centre.

“There’s a few constraints in terms of not being in an arena setting so you can’t do the shit like hanging off the ceiling, but that being said, this ain’t our first rodeo doing a tent show or a festival stage or anything like that. We know what we want to bring and we know how Parkway sets hit so it is going to be something where we’re putting more in than people will expect and you’re definitely going to walk away just “what the fuck, how did you put that in a tent?”. 

“We’re definitely not compromising, we’re just shifting the goal posts a bit, but it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

The aim is to also ensure that the crowd are given something new by maintaining the intimacy of their early days with their growing crowds and creating lifetime memories for both fans and themselves.

“Our intention with every show is to give our audience something that they can remember that sticks out in a way that it’s a core memory. That you’re not wondering where you saw it. We want that every single time we play,” McCall says. 

“It’s not always about “everything’s on fire oh my god” because that also becomes numbing – there’s different elements to the set which we want to have so returning audiences have something new. We also don’t want sensory overload. It’s all built on that intimate connection and that’s something which we do our very best at and not sacrifice any of those elements when we do it so when you walk away you do feel connected. With this one it will be heightened because it’s all curated by us.”

Whilst those elements are part of the regular routine for Parkway Drive, the festival presents an opportunity for their hand-selected lineup to integrate theatrical thrills into their live performance whilst bringing the level of world-class presentation to regional audiences, including Geelong, Scoresby, and Bendigo on the Victorian front.

 

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The Park Waves Festival lineup for Australia is a dynamic array of artists who are killing it in the metal scene including Amity Affliction, Northlane, Alpha Wolf, and international gamechangers Story Of The Year.

“All the bands on the bill are amazing in their own right and we all, other than probably Story Of The Year, have made quite an effort to tour regionally ourselves. That being said, when it’s your own headline original tour, it’s limiting in itself in terms of capacity. There’s only a certain size venue in the region – a major city you can essentially go up to a football stadium. You’ve got any size between that and like a club but regional is limited. We also were able to put the line up together in a way that showcases like some of the best in these countries and also isn’t just completely homogeneous in sound. It’s obviously celebrating very heavy music but it’s not something which is going to feel like a jack hammer pulverising you in the skull.”

The lineup features bands who have all contributed greatly to forging the Australian metal music community. From foundational acts like Parkway and Amity Affliction to upcomers who are shaping the longevity of the scene like Northlane and Alpha Wolf, and the Story Of The Year who represent the desire for international artists to continuously include Australia on their touring schedule, the Park Waves Festival lineup represents our award-winning high-calibre metal and heavy music scene.

 

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“There’s a pride of place when it comes to the music coming out of Australia. It used to be underground when we first started but now there is a quality of metal music coming out of Australia that gives us pride of place. There’s a saying outside of Australia that there’s something in the water in Australia, because everything that comes out of this country is fucking incredible.”

He continues, “It’s not just the music but the support of the community as well. The community from day one in our scene is one that uplifts each other. For us our vision has always been, “when the tide rises, it lifts all boats”, and if we’re responsible for the tide rising at that point in time then fucking great – we’re going to lift it as high as we can so everyone can come up the same time.”

Catch Winston McCall and the Parkway Drive lads take to tents across Australia across February and March of 2026.

Tickets to Park Waves Festival are still available and can be picked up here.

Words by Tammy Walters