Words and photos by Max Lavergne.
Look, I understand that musical appreciation is very subjective and personal taste is personal taste and there should be no caveats or statutes of limitation on that. People have experiences that add emotional weight to songs, or whatever, and there should not be a line past which everything must be considered “bad”, or even “good”, no matter how much they seem weird or stupid to us. We are all the result of our experiences or something. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I am just an open-minded bro who happened to go to the Soundwave music festival!
First of all, this is a gig review, so: Olympic Park was an OK venue, as far as public transport goes, but as usual there was zero “vibe”; the sound was a bit soft at times but pretty good; what is the fucking deal with selling mid-strength piss for like $9; punk and metal fans fall somewhere between Big Day Out and Laneway crowds as far as politeness/general collegiality goes, but probably closer to a Laneway crowd but with different clothes, I guess. 7/10 for that stuff, Soundwave!
ANYWAY: the music. Wow. Going in, I felt like not completely a fraud, since I used to listen to a bunch of punk and ska-punk as a teen, but make no mistake: I was way out my depth for most of the bands on this bill. I know nothing about metal, except that metal bands are almost always great to watch. I know nothing about emo, except that it has nothing to do with the “original” emo, which I also know almost nothing about. I know almost nothing about hardcore except not to go near the front.
So in the spirit of experimentation and adventure I went and watched The Sword, which, as I did not know at the time, is a doom/stoner metal band from Austin, Texas. They were really excellent and very entertaining and the guitarist did a bunch of shredding and put his pasty leg up on the foldback. I might have felt the spirit of metal course through my veins, maybe. I might have “thrown the horns up”. It was an excellent start! Great job, The Sword!
Next, I stood next to this fifty-year-old dude at the Gaslight Anthem who was wearing trainers and a polo shirt and a bumbag and waving his arms and singing along to every song, because it was really fucking great: totally anthemic, totally gaslighty. Unfortunately, the vibe was brought down by some emo teens who imitated the old dude’s dancing from behind. Harsh. Creepily, I tailed them to their next choice of band, which was Asking Alexandria from York, England!
I don’t want to come across as a “complainer” or a 90-year-old man, but I will say this: Asking Alexandria were terrible! Obviously it is really easy to heap shit on bands like this: their hair looked like they were wearing those ridiculous 19th century American coonskin hats backward so the tail fell in their eyes; the three guitarists jumped up and down in unison like they were Human Nature in 1998; and the singer put one finger in his ear when he screamed so he hit the notes properly, or something. Whatever. It was a ridiculous spectacle, which I kind of feel richer for witnessing, but also a bit grosser: the bit where I left was the bit where the singer announced, “I’ve been all over the world, but let me tell you, Australian girls have crackin’ tits”, and everyone cheered. Yep. Great banter, Asking Alexandria. I would never wish that someone would have an accident where their vocal cords are destroyed and they were unable to ever speak or sing again, but!
Here is the next few hours of Soundwave: pop-punk fans are suckers for nostalgia, even though Sum 41 and Millencolin are terrible (yeah, I used to like them and hindsight is 20-20). Monster Magnet drew a crowd of around 15 people, which was sad for them. :-(. Soundwave attendees do not care about Gang Of Four which, after watching their set, I did not blame them for. The guy from Stone Sour, who apparently used to be in Slipknot? is super impressed by how handsome and charismatic he is. I watched their set on the big screen and I’m pretty certain he did not stop posing once. Look down pensively; pause. Look up triumphantly; pause. Race around the stage; grin at the crowd. Hope your bandmates are able to hold back their vomit; say something like “WE cannot do THIS without YOU” (NB: this is technically inaccurate, as Monster Magnet proved earlier when they did IT without ANYBODY). Ugh. I hope he gets cast in Zoolander 2! High On Fire were excellent. Murderdolls literally introduced a song by saying “This song is about going to hell… ON DRUGS!” Slash played Gunners songs and Slayer trolled everyone by not showing up.
Eventually, it was nearly time to watch Queens Of The Stone Age! It’s kind of nice that despite all the various subcultures and sub-subcultures that were present at Soundwave, there was one band who could tie the room together. And so it was a massive crowd who waited patiently for One Day As A Lion to finally fuck off. Here is their description in the official Soundwave program:
“One Day As A Lion is both a warning delivered and a promise kept; a defiant affirmation of the possibilities that exist in the space between the kick and the snare.”
LOL, Zack De La Rocha. LOL. Do not affirm too many possibilities there or there will be no room for your drummer’s foot! Also, fusing Rage Against the Machine with John Butler Trio is not enough of a musical progression over the last 20 years. K thx!
Anyway, Queens Of The Stone Age: Josh Homme dedicated their set to his “sweetsy” before playing pretty much the best set of the day: super tight, super hits-laden, super excellent. There was a selection of jams from all of their albums, which was great, and Josh Homme strutted around like a boss drinking vodka from the bottle, which sounds irresponsible in theory but actually demonstrated perfectly how much swagger that man has. And it’s HEAPS.
I saw a bunch of great bands after that: the Melvins were sweet and tender, The Bronx could have been more energetic and Less Than Jake definitely did not sully any of my fond teenage memories.
It was a pretty excellent festival, actually. Not being sarcastic: people who love punk and metal are, in general, much more positive and supporting of their communities than fans of other genres, and I think it’s fair to say that played a big part in how fun the whole day was? No brawls, no bad vibes (except for the Slayer fans, which, you know, fair enough), just heaps of sweaty people singing and screaming along to stuff. Wow. Sorry to oversimplify everything, but it seemed weird to go to Olympic Park for a festival where people enjoyed music. And as far as the music went, the bands that were good were good and the bands that were bad were at least hilariously terrible, so that is a pretty good outcome?
The only thing I would say was missing from the festival was a big closing band. As I walked away from The Bronx, I couldn’t help feeling the absence of… someone. I don’t know who. A classic British metal band, maybe. Someone big. Someone like Iron Maiden? Maybe next year they can book Iron Maiden. That one’s a freebie, Soundwave!
Max Lavergne is a writer from Sydney. He tweets here, writes about music at Rose Quartz and writes about everything else at Really Really Really Trying. He emanates gr8 vibes.
