Thread: Soundwave, Sydney 2012

This'll be a brief one since I've only slept like 2 hours after the whole damn festival.

I didn't intend to drink, got on the bus with 49 other folks and a couple of my good friends whipped out a bottle of coke and some overproof rum. I didn't even have a sip till we were on the outskirts of Sydney about 20 minutes away from the venue. I stupidly drank about 5 beers and rum in that 20 minutes somehow. But it gave me a good buzz and made my anxiety about entering a place with tens of thousands of normal people.

First up for me was Steel Panther (as we got there a little late and missed Turisas and BDM), put on a good show considering and they were a fair bit of fun. I missed a chunk of their set lining up for drinks which took 20 fucking minutes.

I *think* we saw Meshuggah after that, or maybe it was Coal Chamber? I seriously can't remember what order it happened in but Meshuggah were pretty Meshuggah, so it was quite enjoyable.

Pretty sure after that we wandered around for a while and checked out a mishmash of random shit. It'll all come back to me at some point. I think we saw some Trivium (I missed Paradise Lost) and a couple of other things. BUT ANYWAY ALL OF THIS IS INCONSEQUENTIAL.

At 5:00 I pretty much herded any of my friends who were keen to go see Cathedral. Got there in time to stand at the barrier and they put on a damn awesome show. Pretty much all of my friends were instantly converted. From what I can remember of the setlist they played Cosmic Funeral, Utopian Blaster and Witchfinder. I know the others I just need a refresher. In any case it was a fucking awesome show, the bros and shebros whom accompanied me have all been checking out more of their material since they enjoyed it so much. The odd thing was, not many people showed up it seemed and a lot of the people who did show up didn't really know them very well. About me and one other guy who I know and who loves em were like "FUCKING YEAH" when they introduced Utopian Blaster and etc getting weird looks from the crowd. So that was odd, but it was fucking top notch doom.

Saw one Slipknow song, felt like shit so me and my buddy went to find somewhere quiet for a smoke and a quick feed. Everyone else raved about Slipknot and said they put on a good show. Meh.

From there, we took it easy and chilled for a while then got up to the barrier again for Watain, and Watain were fucking awesome. It still makes me feel somewhat odd that Watain were on the same lineup as Limp Bizkit and Slipknot, but whatever. They put on a fucking killer show, had a ridiculous stage setup with Satanic anti-kosmic shit everywhere, goat looking skulls, candles, flaming inverted crucifixes or whatnot everywhere and all that business. But yeah, everyone here knows Watain and their best tracks and they put on a top notch show and were second to Cathedral for me. A few of my other mates rocked up to see Machine Head and caught the last couple of Watain tracks and they were impressed also.

By this stage I was drinking for something like 12 hours, standing in the sun all day, brutalized by some good musics and I was basically fucked. So we listened to some Machine Head and I have to admit they sounded very fucking good, after that was the roughest bus trip of my life. I seriously couldn't stand it and felt like if I didn't cry from being stuck on it for two hours I was just going to jump out and dive under a truck. Vomited when I got back to Swansea, slept for 2 hours, went to Uni now I'm fucked.

The end.

PS. It was a really good day, but not as good as last year. There weren't a lot of bands I wanted to see, so a bit of it was hanging, checking shit out, meeting new people and having fun + seeing a few bands I really wanted to see. Not drinking next festival, $10 for a 3.5% drink. Spent $280. Bullshit and I just felt awful by 9PM. It may sound sorta negative, but I did have a great day.

Mine is this weekend. My body is not ready. I need to study up before Sat.

I don't even touch the sauce at festivals. I think I spent only like 40 bucks all up last time on beverages and feed. I pretty much steer clear from the merch tent as well, I'm on the mailing list for their leftover stock and I check online for shit I want anyway. I probably seem like a square dipshit for bringing earplugs and sunscreen and staying sober and all that shit. I did wear an Indian headdress one year to Soundwave however.

Great story, Dane, waiting for the Wigg-one...

Do you think you would have had a much better time without the drinking?

Well, it was good through the day to relax me more and help me get in the mood. I mean there were really shitloads of people, I honestly don't know how many but it was a LOT. But it made the end of the day quite rough indeed. In future I might just pop a xanax or something

Also, Wigg, I took fucking Nivea moisturising sun block. One of those blue little tubs. Haha.

Sounds awesome Dane, glad Cathedral were up to standard