With a career that has spanned both generations and genres, Shihad finally released a best of album in Australia this year and to celebrate are taking their Meanest Hits tour to stages across Australia.

The Snowdroppers hyped the crowd up with their drug addled sleazy rock at The Metro, with front man Johnny Wishbone gyrating and kicking all over the stage, while the band backed him with perfection and the crowd lapped it up.

Though the moment Shihad hit the stage, the crowd size doubled, the atmosphere started to sizzle and it was clear that everyone was excited to see Shihad play through a retrospective of their 24 year career.

Honouring every phase they've been to, from their early metal years of "It", which the band found difficult to learn, but nailed on the night, with Shihad vocalist Johnny Toogood saying; "They were really speedy little numbers that had about 50 million riffs per song and lyrics that were based on the Stephen King Novels I was reading at the time, because I didn't have any real life experience to draw from. It was fun, but it was also really challenging, both physically and mentally, a lot of work went in to those songs and the only way to get them right live is to be super tight and to do that you have to rehearse a lot. Which is all we did as 17 and 18 year old virgins, it was really all we did, we played metal and we wanted to be the tightest band on the planet, which is what we set out to do. So it's really interesting revisiting it as a 40 year old man. By the end of that tour in New Zealand we were really nailing it though, so that was great".

And though the band have certainly grown as both men and musicians in their careers, they took to the stage with the energy of teenage boys, with Toogood leaping atop the speakers for solos as he beamed to the crowd and they screamed at him for more.

Crowd favourites "Coming Home" and "The General Electric" saw the crowd reach their peak, as they jumped and screamed and sang along to the songs they have known for so long. While newer hits like "Lead or Follow" and "Sleepeater" were greeted with almost as much excitement.

As the retrospective went on, everybody got to hear their favourite song while being reminded of the history of this great band, who provided a great show from beginning to end and showed us all why they have survived this long and will continue to survive in an industry that spew's out so many.