mitchables
02-26-2009, 10:32 PM
Okay so I went to Soundwave last weekend, and it was a total blast. This is a bit belated but I've had a ludicrously busy week with my new job and having my friend and girlfriend staying with me so I've been a bit preoccupied and unable to sit down and pour my thoughts out on an internet forum. Anyway, it was awesome. Saw some excellent music, some bands for nostalgia's sake, and some truly awful shit. Also, so many weird and wonderful people. Like the guy in the banana costume, or the viking ladies, or the dude with the "I COULD FUCKING CARE LESS" tattoo down his back which I thought was sort of unnecessary since I saw people in band shirts with that same slogan on them so he could have really just bought one of those and saved himself the trouble of getting a ridiculous tagline "inked" into his back.
We got there at around 11am and the line to get in was out of control. So many people there. Some guys standing in front of us found discarded but unopened plastic bags of premixes and other assorted alcoholia, which had obviously been left there by someone earlier in the line, so they just started distributing it amongst the people close to them, who were all kind of loud and obnoxious. Especially this one lady who was rocking out the mutton/lamb look and flashing her distorted and slightly oversized lower back tattoo for all to see.
So we get through the main gates only to find another giant line to get past the security check, which I assumed the original line was for, but apparently not. When we passed this, we got our maps and timetables, and began our tour of the offerings Soundwave had to... offer.
Saves the Day
Holy shit, what happened to Chris Conley's voice? He sounds less manly now than he did on all their records. When we approached Stage 3 to check out the first semi-decent band playing for the day, we legitimately thought it was a girl singing. Even after like 5 minutes of watching them, we were still trying to determine if it was actually Chris Conley or just a very manly but very female Chris Conley impersonator. Also, for a band that has had as long as Saves the Day to perfect relatively simple songs such as the teen-angst classics "Holly Hox Forget Me Nots" and "At Your Funeral", you would think they might have tightened up their sound a little bit more than they have. But they were pretty good, otherwise. 3/5
After watching Saves the Day we needed a drink, so we lined up again to get into the over-18s area which in hindsight we should've just done to begin with. We got in, went to the bar, and discovered that they accepted not cash but DRINK TICKETS which, yes, we had to LINE UP FOR AGAIN. Only this time there was this huge line leading to the drink ticket booth and we stood stationary for like a good 15 minutes before we gave into rumours we were too fearful of losing our spot to believe about a short line in the distance. We left the line and found there was, down the end of this place, a ridiculously small line that nobody seemed to know about because it was hidden by the monstrous size of the other two lines. So after we discovered this, we got our tickets pretty quickly and went and bought up some drinks to watch the next band...
Finch
They definitely play better live than they used to. Pity that I was surrounded by wankers in the crowd who pretty much were familiar only with "Letters To You" and felt the need to sing in large packs as if the guy on stage was not sufficient. Also I saw R2K just walking around later on, which was pretty cool. But I dunno. The songs just weren't as good as I used to think they were. Maybe I just outgrew them. 2.5/5
After Finch, we headed out of this particular over-18s enclosure to head over to the other side of the showgrounds to some other side stages. Come to think of it, I did not watch one headlining band. All the acts I was interested in were on smaller stages scattered throughout the place. We took shelter under some shade as it was getting pretty hot by now and settled in to watch...
Jaguar Love
Is the singer for this band gay? It's not a big deal, I just think he seems pretty gay. Ridiculous vocals though. Sure, cutting your teeth in the Blood Brothers will probably give you pretty good control over when you sing and when you wail but yeah, he was excellent live. Majorly disappointed their drummer wasn't there though, since I love that guy and he was a good portion of the reason I wanted to watch Jaguar Love in the first place. But instead it was a Blood Brother, a guitarist and a drum machine. It was alright, I guess. 3/5
We didn't move after this for a while, because immediately following JL was another band who was missing their hottest (and thus most important) member.
Straylight Run
No Michelle. What? Did she leave the band or something? Did her and John Nolan have some kind of sibling rivalry based falling out? Or is she just too good to come to Australia? They played pretty well but it was definitely lacking something. Not sure if it was completely the result of being down a member but yeah, three piece action sounded a little bit empty, especially as Nolan pretty much alternated between piano and guitar the whole time, so there was never any particularly nice layering that I'd grown so used to on the albums. 3.5/5
It was about now that I started getting really excited because next was the band that I'd essentially bought the ticket to see. All other acts were merely bonus points for me. This was who I came to see. This was...
Minus the Bear
Fucking amazing. So tight. So well put together. They all looked homeless for some reason but they still made me swoon in a totally non-gay way. It was pretty cloudy for most of the day, and when MtB took the stage a little bit of sun started to peek through the clouds and Jake Snider was like, "hey... we brought a little sunshine for you guys." Smoothest bastard on the planet. They played so well. I even got a special treat in the form of them playing "Hooray", which they didn't the last time I saw them (which I was gutted about at the time because I love that song, but they totally made up for it this time around). My friend Lady K got some excellent shots:
http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142464_8644.jpg
http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142465_8882.jpg
http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142467_9349.jpg
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142466_9098.jpg
http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142486_6665.jpg
Act of the day. Worth the admission price alone. 5/5
We took a bit of a food break after this since there weren't any super interesting bands playing for an hour or so on any of the stages. I thought about watching the Bloodhound Gang but I was hungry and I could hear them from the foodarium anyway so it was all good. I just chilled on the grass with my lady near one of the small stages for a while. I think I heard (but did not see) Valencia and Houston Calling, who may be two of the most generic sounding bands on the planet. After these guys though, it was with great interest that I approached Stage Five and, after what was one of the longest soundchecks in history, got to check out the excellence that is...
Say Anything
Max Bemis is a showboater. I love him, but he was ridiculously flamboyant. Although it totally added a lot to their show. I guess since he does not play guitar anymore he feels like he needs to do more than just stand around and sing, so he totally got into it. There was Mercury-esque grace and style to his moves, but he also reminded me a lot of the vocalist from Bad Religion in terms of his OTT gestures and stuff. Whatever though. This was, atmospherically, one of the best acts of the day. Fairly decent sized crowd, jammed in, everyone singing along to all the songs, the band seeming legitimately surprised and appreciative of the support. They were easily my second-favourite act at the festival. There were trees near the edges of the pit, and people were sitting in the trees dancing and singing along. It was so much fun. Bemis name-dropped Saves the Day because they are his favourite band, but seriously, he and his merry crew completely outshone them. They played mostly ...Is a Real Boy songs (I think maybe two were from In Defense of the Genre), which was especially awesome. The soundcheck time was a bit of a drag though, since it was really crowded in the audience and people were getting restless and sweaty and it had been a long day and so forth. Still. Excellent. 4.5/5
After this we caught up with some friends who had been watching Alice in Chains and headed back to the stage where we saw Saves the Day and Finch to check out...
Alkaline Trio
They were pretty good, I guess. I don't know if it was just the sound mix, the fact I haven't listened to them regularly in about 4 years, or what, but I couldn't watch them after about the fourth song. It all seemed to bleed into one. They opened with "Private Eye" though, which was a total bonus. But yeah. Didn't watch the whole set. But what I did see was good. Not great, but decent enough. 3/5
Finally, we trudged back to where we'd watched Minus the Bear for what we thought was the last decent act of the day...
Bayside
They played really well. Note perfect and the vocalist carried it off very nicely. I was pretty impressed with their live performance actually. But again, we left maybe one or two songs before they finished because our friend Rush Daddy was in the massive pit at a different stage watching Lamb of God and we wanted to try and find him before everybody tried to leave and it became a big bottleneck to get out of there. 3.5/5
So, all in all, a pretty damn good day. Two stand out acts, a lot of pretty good stuff, friends, fun, food, tunes, riot cops... it was awesome. While we were waiting at the edge of the pit for Rush Daddy we saw one of the SWAT cops rockin' out to Lamb of God. It was hilarious. Also I saw this guy who looked like he'd been mangled in the pit. His t-shirt was gone. Like, all that was left was a collar hanging around his neck, and shreds of t-shirt around his waist. Tonnes of people were absolutely covered in mud too, since they put the heavy stage right in front of like this mud pit, so anyone who spent the majority of the day watching Lamb of God, In Flames, All That Remains, etc. basically left looking like they'd been in a combat zone.
Excellent day though. Mogwai on Tuesday. Can't wait. Life is good.
We got there at around 11am and the line to get in was out of control. So many people there. Some guys standing in front of us found discarded but unopened plastic bags of premixes and other assorted alcoholia, which had obviously been left there by someone earlier in the line, so they just started distributing it amongst the people close to them, who were all kind of loud and obnoxious. Especially this one lady who was rocking out the mutton/lamb look and flashing her distorted and slightly oversized lower back tattoo for all to see.
So we get through the main gates only to find another giant line to get past the security check, which I assumed the original line was for, but apparently not. When we passed this, we got our maps and timetables, and began our tour of the offerings Soundwave had to... offer.
Saves the Day
Holy shit, what happened to Chris Conley's voice? He sounds less manly now than he did on all their records. When we approached Stage 3 to check out the first semi-decent band playing for the day, we legitimately thought it was a girl singing. Even after like 5 minutes of watching them, we were still trying to determine if it was actually Chris Conley or just a very manly but very female Chris Conley impersonator. Also, for a band that has had as long as Saves the Day to perfect relatively simple songs such as the teen-angst classics "Holly Hox Forget Me Nots" and "At Your Funeral", you would think they might have tightened up their sound a little bit more than they have. But they were pretty good, otherwise. 3/5
After watching Saves the Day we needed a drink, so we lined up again to get into the over-18s area which in hindsight we should've just done to begin with. We got in, went to the bar, and discovered that they accepted not cash but DRINK TICKETS which, yes, we had to LINE UP FOR AGAIN. Only this time there was this huge line leading to the drink ticket booth and we stood stationary for like a good 15 minutes before we gave into rumours we were too fearful of losing our spot to believe about a short line in the distance. We left the line and found there was, down the end of this place, a ridiculously small line that nobody seemed to know about because it was hidden by the monstrous size of the other two lines. So after we discovered this, we got our tickets pretty quickly and went and bought up some drinks to watch the next band...
Finch
They definitely play better live than they used to. Pity that I was surrounded by wankers in the crowd who pretty much were familiar only with "Letters To You" and felt the need to sing in large packs as if the guy on stage was not sufficient. Also I saw R2K just walking around later on, which was pretty cool. But I dunno. The songs just weren't as good as I used to think they were. Maybe I just outgrew them. 2.5/5
After Finch, we headed out of this particular over-18s enclosure to head over to the other side of the showgrounds to some other side stages. Come to think of it, I did not watch one headlining band. All the acts I was interested in were on smaller stages scattered throughout the place. We took shelter under some shade as it was getting pretty hot by now and settled in to watch...
Jaguar Love
Is the singer for this band gay? It's not a big deal, I just think he seems pretty gay. Ridiculous vocals though. Sure, cutting your teeth in the Blood Brothers will probably give you pretty good control over when you sing and when you wail but yeah, he was excellent live. Majorly disappointed their drummer wasn't there though, since I love that guy and he was a good portion of the reason I wanted to watch Jaguar Love in the first place. But instead it was a Blood Brother, a guitarist and a drum machine. It was alright, I guess. 3/5
We didn't move after this for a while, because immediately following JL was another band who was missing their hottest (and thus most important) member.
Straylight Run
No Michelle. What? Did she leave the band or something? Did her and John Nolan have some kind of sibling rivalry based falling out? Or is she just too good to come to Australia? They played pretty well but it was definitely lacking something. Not sure if it was completely the result of being down a member but yeah, three piece action sounded a little bit empty, especially as Nolan pretty much alternated between piano and guitar the whole time, so there was never any particularly nice layering that I'd grown so used to on the albums. 3.5/5
It was about now that I started getting really excited because next was the band that I'd essentially bought the ticket to see. All other acts were merely bonus points for me. This was who I came to see. This was...
Minus the Bear
Fucking amazing. So tight. So well put together. They all looked homeless for some reason but they still made me swoon in a totally non-gay way. It was pretty cloudy for most of the day, and when MtB took the stage a little bit of sun started to peek through the clouds and Jake Snider was like, "hey... we brought a little sunshine for you guys." Smoothest bastard on the planet. They played so well. I even got a special treat in the form of them playing "Hooray", which they didn't the last time I saw them (which I was gutted about at the time because I love that song, but they totally made up for it this time around). My friend Lady K got some excellent shots:
http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142464_8644.jpg
http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142465_8882.jpg
http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142467_9349.jpg
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142466_9098.jpg
http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2395/53/32/815874991/n815874991_2142486_6665.jpg
Act of the day. Worth the admission price alone. 5/5
We took a bit of a food break after this since there weren't any super interesting bands playing for an hour or so on any of the stages. I thought about watching the Bloodhound Gang but I was hungry and I could hear them from the foodarium anyway so it was all good. I just chilled on the grass with my lady near one of the small stages for a while. I think I heard (but did not see) Valencia and Houston Calling, who may be two of the most generic sounding bands on the planet. After these guys though, it was with great interest that I approached Stage Five and, after what was one of the longest soundchecks in history, got to check out the excellence that is...
Say Anything
Max Bemis is a showboater. I love him, but he was ridiculously flamboyant. Although it totally added a lot to their show. I guess since he does not play guitar anymore he feels like he needs to do more than just stand around and sing, so he totally got into it. There was Mercury-esque grace and style to his moves, but he also reminded me a lot of the vocalist from Bad Religion in terms of his OTT gestures and stuff. Whatever though. This was, atmospherically, one of the best acts of the day. Fairly decent sized crowd, jammed in, everyone singing along to all the songs, the band seeming legitimately surprised and appreciative of the support. They were easily my second-favourite act at the festival. There were trees near the edges of the pit, and people were sitting in the trees dancing and singing along. It was so much fun. Bemis name-dropped Saves the Day because they are his favourite band, but seriously, he and his merry crew completely outshone them. They played mostly ...Is a Real Boy songs (I think maybe two were from In Defense of the Genre), which was especially awesome. The soundcheck time was a bit of a drag though, since it was really crowded in the audience and people were getting restless and sweaty and it had been a long day and so forth. Still. Excellent. 4.5/5
After this we caught up with some friends who had been watching Alice in Chains and headed back to the stage where we saw Saves the Day and Finch to check out...
Alkaline Trio
They were pretty good, I guess. I don't know if it was just the sound mix, the fact I haven't listened to them regularly in about 4 years, or what, but I couldn't watch them after about the fourth song. It all seemed to bleed into one. They opened with "Private Eye" though, which was a total bonus. But yeah. Didn't watch the whole set. But what I did see was good. Not great, but decent enough. 3/5
Finally, we trudged back to where we'd watched Minus the Bear for what we thought was the last decent act of the day...
Bayside
They played really well. Note perfect and the vocalist carried it off very nicely. I was pretty impressed with their live performance actually. But again, we left maybe one or two songs before they finished because our friend Rush Daddy was in the massive pit at a different stage watching Lamb of God and we wanted to try and find him before everybody tried to leave and it became a big bottleneck to get out of there. 3.5/5
So, all in all, a pretty damn good day. Two stand out acts, a lot of pretty good stuff, friends, fun, food, tunes, riot cops... it was awesome. While we were waiting at the edge of the pit for Rush Daddy we saw one of the SWAT cops rockin' out to Lamb of God. It was hilarious. Also I saw this guy who looked like he'd been mangled in the pit. His t-shirt was gone. Like, all that was left was a collar hanging around his neck, and shreds of t-shirt around his waist. Tonnes of people were absolutely covered in mud too, since they put the heavy stage right in front of like this mud pit, so anyone who spent the majority of the day watching Lamb of God, In Flames, All That Remains, etc. basically left looking like they'd been in a combat zone.
Excellent day though. Mogwai on Tuesday. Can't wait. Life is good.