Saturday February 22, 2014 - RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
The lead up to this year's Soundwave Festival was plagued with bands pulling out at late notice, and not just small bands either. What started as an amazing lineup we were super excited for, seemed to change to just "great" and then "good" as the big day approached. We lost Stone Temple Pilots first (recording commitments), followed by Megadeth (no reason given - possibly they wanted more money?), Whitechapel (death of a family member), Desperaceidaros (illness or death of a family member), Hardcore Superstar (thought they deserved a later timespot and when rejected, strangely decided that playing to nobody - not even your fans - is better than playing to 1000 people who turn up early) and finally Newsted (reason not given). The organisers were able to grab some pretty good replacements at first but the real last minute dropouts meant juggling set times and adding local bands was the only option. So the timetable only ever firmed up the day before, meaning I didn't have a lot of excitement built up.
As is becoming the norm as the festival grows larger, there were some very tough choices to make when timetable clashes were apparent. I didn't even really know how to choose until B pointed out I should see the bands I haven't seen before. Good idea I said. Then somehow on the day I ended up choosing mostly bands I've seen before and love which was partially laziness due to the impracticalities of running between widespread stages, and partially due to the realisation that you can watch a band you love playing all your fave songs start to finish, or you can run around watching 15 minutes of several bands you think you might like based on knowing 1 or 2 songs. What makes me happy right now is familiarity so I went with mainly the old favourites. This means that it ended up being quite the punk festival for me this year rather than rock or metal fest.
The list this year for me went: The Porkers, Nancy Vandal, Less than Jake, bit of Alkaline Trio, bit of Richie Sambora, The Living End, bit of Gwar since they ran over time, Volbeat, half of Pennywise, Alice in Chains, bit of Stiff Little Fingers, most of Rocket from the Crypt, Green Day.
One of the best, probably unintentional, themes of the day was AC/DC covers! The Living End did Jailbreak, Green Day did Highway to Hell and Pennywise also did a few bars of Highway to Hell too if I recall correctly. Great recognition of a band celebrating 40 years together and also heaps of fun. However, here are my Top 5 Moments:
1. Volbeat's entire set. I have liked this band for a few years now and it was the first time getting to see them and they did NOT disappoint. They are great performers who really get the crowd into it, sound pretty close to the CD and put on a great set. Michael's vocals were so good live. I enjoyed the circle pit during "Still Counting" a lot. Best song was probably Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood. Come back to Australia really soon as that set was too short!
2. Green Day doing "Wake me up when September ends" under a leaden early evening sky as I sat with a newish friend who has also lost her Dad. This song about losing dads and time passing was almost a dambuster for me! The song's relevance to my recent situation was not something I'd realised so I had some unexpected emotions on what was a day that I otherwise wasn't thinking about that sad situation.
3. Less than Jake - so much fun and I had a bit of a run in the circle pit too! The circle pits looked worse from the outside than they actually were on the inside.
4. Alice in Chains' beautiful tribute song to Layne Staley and Mike Starr. Shivers! Their set was a great piece of down tempo (but still heavy) peace in my day. William singing up to the sky will stay with me.
5. Billie-Joe Armstrong letting the crowd sing a verse of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", which was done at full volume, and then falling to his knees, arms out in front. He then bowed to the crowd in the "we're not worthy" style of Wayne and Garth in front of Alice Cooper in "Wayne's World". It actually seemed genuine rather than staged. His rant on what is happening in the world and how we should enjoy this moment right here was also pretty cool and since we are the first gig of the tour, also seemed genuine and random rather than rehearsed.
Another great day all wrapped up under some of the best weather we've ever had for Soundwave. Despite the early misgivings about a lack of bands to be excited about, all my old favourites came through and gave me the joy of just enjoying the music I really really love. And a new live experience cemented a new favourite band's place in my heart. Volbeat rule!
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