Like most punters heading to Soundwave at Brisbane’s RNA Showgrounds this weekend, I made some effort to dress the part. With my carefully-groomed beard and thick-rimmed glasses, I’m neither a metalhead nor a punk, but the combination of a black Refused T-shirt, contact lenses and a relatively unkempt beard served as concession to the hard…
I’ve recently come to realise that my taste in live music is closely aligned to my taste in cuisines. You see, when it comes to a meal out, I’d much prefer a feast with friends at an Indian restaurant or a tapas spread at a Spanish joint – or if I’m feeling lavish, a degustation…
This isn’t going to be a review of the Big Day Out. Unless you have a press pass with VIP access and the like, I don’t think it’s really possible to review a music festival. Even that hypothetical journalist isn’t really covering the whole festival, with four or five groups playing simultaneously across the venue…
My thought process upon hearing the BDO lineup announcement: 1) Blur! Blur! Ever since their reunion in 2008, I’ve been desperately hoping for these guys to come to our shores. Their name alone has me buying a ticket. 2) The Herald Sun “leak” that wasn’t …actually was! Arcade Fire, Pearl Jam and Snoop Dogg/Lion all…
There’s a certain smell to Splendour in the Grass. There’s that earthy bush smell – part grass, part manure, a distant hint of the sea, the scent of fresh mud baking in the late afternoon sun. There’s that people smell – that warm sweat pong that’s so overwhelming it’s almost pleasant, the shared burden of…
It’s that time of the year again, when the rumour mongering comes to an end and all is revealed. Yes, the Splendour in the Grass lineup has been announced. First impressions: there’s no real, spectacular drawcard here. Certainly, Frank Ocean is exciting, but where’s, I dunno, Blur? When your top headliner is … eh ……
Music festivals are usually a carefully planned calendar event: I decide very quickly whether I’m going to attend, then pick up tickets pre-sale. The 2013 Soundwave festival didn’t grab my attention when the lineup was announced: a handful of bands I liked but too few to justify forking out $200. Fast forward six months to…
The first band of the day (well, after hearing a couple songs from Mindless Self Indulgence, who I knew nothing about) was The Vandals, one of the first punk bands I listened to back when I got into the genre in my teens. Early in the day, the moshpit was sparsely attended, which meant that…
The next band was Gallows: I’ve seen them live twice before – at Taste of Chaos in 2008, when I knew nothing about them and was impressed by their combative energy, and at Soundwave in 2010, (now a fan) where I spent their ferocious, uncompromising set in the eddies of a turbulent moshpit. However, those…
I found my way to Sleeping with Sirens next, purely because a student had recommended them. They were pretty much what you’d expect for a band recommended by a teenage girl – emo popcore, with members more interested in their hair than playing their instruments. That said, their song “Trophy Father’s Trophy Son” was a…
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