The Amity Affliction have added some serious Australian firepower to their only headline show on home soil this year, with Thornhill and WAAX confirmed as special guests for the band’s Sydney Opera House Forecourt show on Saturday, December 12.
Part of the Opera House’s On The Steps series, the one-off date puts three very different strands of Australian heavy music together against one of Sydney’s most recognisable backdrops.
Melbourne’s Thornhill arrive after another significant period for the band. Their 2025 album ‘Bodies’ has carried them through extensive international and Australian touring, including dates in North America with Sleep Token, their own Australian headline run and a string of European festival appearances.
The ARIA Award-winning group have steadily pushed beyond conventional metalcore boundaries, folding alternative rock and darker, more cinematic textures into a sound that has become increasingly distinctive. Their return to Sydney alongside The Amity Affliction brings together two generations of Australian heavy music that have both found audiences well beyond home.
WAAX offer another shift in direction. The project led by songwriter Maz DeVita returned in 2026 with third album ‘Angel’s Mess’, released independently through Drunk On Power Records.
The record begins another chapter for an act long associated with Brisbane’s punk and alternative scenes, with DeVita’s songwriting remaining at its centre. At the Opera House, WAAX’s punk charge should make for a sharp contrast to the heavier terrain surrounding them on the bill.
At the top sits The Amity Affliction, bringing a year dominated by ninth studio album ‘HOUSE OF CARDS’ and extensive international and Australian touring towards its conclusion.
Few Australian heavy bands have travelled quite as far from their origins while maintaining such a sizeable audience at home, and playing the Opera House Forecourt makes for an unusual setting in which to measure that journey. Metalcore on the steps of one of Australia’s most famous buildings is not exactly business as usual.
With Thornhill and WAAX now joining the bill, the December show becomes more than a standalone Amity Affliction headline date. It is also a compact snapshot of Australian heavy music across different generations and sounds, delivered in a setting rarely associated with riffs this substantial.
THE AMITY AFFLICTION – ON THE STEPS
Saturday, December 12
Sydney Opera House Forecourt, Sydney
Tickets HERE.
