for those unaware, down here in the australasia region every summer we have a big day out musical festival. they do, usually, kick the ass. day of local bands with several big headliners. lots of sunburn, moshpits, and people with really terrible haircuts. this year was tool, muse, killers, kasabian, the jets, and my chemical romance (lol!) as well as an assload of local acts. also lily allen and the streets which thankfully i managed to completely avoid.
festivities started the day before. by 1pm we had left on the 3 hour roadtrip. by 2pm my shirt was nowhere to be found. by 3pm i was laying the slick moves on the fine women next to us in the crawling auckland traffic. i dont know what they thought of the half naked guy hanging out the window of a beaten piece of shit starlet packed with teenagers, with a can of 8% woodstock in one hand and a westside symbol on the other. except of course, “damn! what a hottie”
i dont remember a whole lot of that night except watching cars the animated film, smashing a melon all over my mates bedroom, drinking a lot and STEAK SANDWICHES
woke up at 7 the next day to prepare. by prepare i mean kicking everyone else who was lying on the floor until they got up, then kicking them until they made me breakfast. it was good. i got all of one of my lady friends bacon.
got to the stadium at about 11. watched some bad fuckin ass NZ techno (minuit) in what is known as the “boiler room”. the boiler room is basically for all the hard dance, techno, alternative music, laser light shows, water being sprayed almost constantly. inside a big ass tent. fucking awesome, i was soaked after an hour. again, i had lost my shirt around this stage.
ate. laughed at the emos who had turned up for MCR. laughed even harder when i saw that blindspott, a pretty good NZ metal band, was going to be on right before MCR. blindspott fans are the same people who listen to pantera etc- big, unshaven, steel capped boots, leather. for the main acts they have two huge stages (one stage is setting up for a band while the other is playing so theres not much time in between acts) with a shared moshpit, “the D”
you can probably guess what happens here. blindspott ends, MCR starts, blindspott fans surge to the other side of the D and people (namely emos) start getting fucked up. that shit almost made my cry with joy. i only stayed to see a couple of MCR songs before i left in search of better music (there is about 5 main stages spread around)
saw kasabian, fucking awesome. one of the few recent bands i actually like, their new album is full of great songs. awesome mosh pit too, plenty of times when my feet were no longer touching ground. went nuts when they played club foot.
watched some death metal but guys groaning and growling into a mic isnt my cup of tea. saw the jets- very good. after that the big guns opened up- scribe, the killers, muse, tool. im not a killers fan but they have a great live event. muse was incredible, bellamy is just fucking captivating. guy is all over the shit like some insane maestro. did incredible things with the guitar.
Tool was my big drawcard for the event and definitely worth it. seen them live before but it was a lot more of a chilled out concert than this. laser light show was also cool but damn, tool are just so good. although i hate the fans.
the final act was the violent femmes. they played a couple of good uns then said “ok were gonna go bluegrass now” and started singing yokel songs about jesus. this was basically the cue for everyone to leave.
anyone in aussie (or NZ even) going/gone? some really excellent bands this year although im yet to see a live act that was as intense as when rammstein came. that was just fucking nuts.
