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Live Reviews : Soundwave Festival @ RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane 22/02/2014

By on February 23, 2014

Images: Amanda Brenchley
Words: Andrew Kapper

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Despite Brisbane suffering through a Summer of unbearable heat and humidity, the weather gods have taken pity upon the Soundwave festival goers, with the overcast and cooler conditions favouring the black shirt wearing masses gathered today.

Amon Amarth have the undesirable task of being the first band on Stage 6, and despite being on at the stupidly early time of 11am, the Swedish vikings are greeted by a hugely impressive turnout. While another Swedish band bailed on the festival due to their early set, the melodic death metal five piece are in immense form regardless of what time they’re on stage, with the first pits of the day kicking off from the opening song. Big tracks of the most recent album “Deceiver of the Gods” slot in perfectly with older tunes, and your hat has to go off to a band who brings their full production to an overseas festival – with nothing less than half a longboat occupying a fair chunk of the stage. Awesome stuff, and a great way to start the festival.

Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth

Indoors at Stage 4, rap/djent mash-up crew Hacktivist are laying down some seriously heavy breakdowns – even reworking Kayne West and Jay Z’s “Niggas In Paris” into a bouncy moshfest. The idea of 8 string guitars and rapping while either seem like an interesting prospect or a nightmare depending on the punter, but if the UK group keep penning songs like “Cold Shoulders” they might hit the elusive crossover rap/metal market.

Having the fourth stage inside an air-conditioned building is a pretty awesome idea – unless you’re not seeing any bands there, of course – unfortunately though, the large room doesn’t make for the best sound, especially for a technically superior band like August Burns Red. So much of the American’s sound is lost to the cavernous, half-filled hall, with any faster and fancy guitar lines sounding messy and indecipherable. Vocalist Jake Luhrs works hard at keeping the audience’s energy and participation to the max, but a minute long power cut mid song towards the tail end of their slot sums up August Burns Red rough set.

Fortunately the annoying technical issues don’t follow Tesseract, who take to the adjacent stage. Probably the band most suited to playing indoors, the quintet’s atmospheric heavy prog stylings certainly would not lend itself to playing in a field in the middle of the day in the blazing sun. New(ish) frontman Ashe O’Hara is in fantastic vocal form today, with his almost ethereal vocals floating atop the lighter soundscapes and heavier chugging riffs. The one thing that irks this reviewer however is the band’s usage of vocal backing tracks; sure, the new album “Altered State” does feature extensive extensively layered singing and vocal lines, but it does take from the live performance aspect. Other than that, good stuff from the Brits.

After fighting through the masses leaving Five Finger Death Punch, yours truly finally makes it to the Stage 6 annex to witness The Black Dahlia Murder put on a modern death metal masterclass to a small, yet devoted crowd. Trevor Strnad is his usually animated and happy self, double fist pumping and casting spells between every scream and growl, while lead guitarist Ryan Knight is unquestionably one of the best shredders in the game. The heavens briefly open aptly during the anti-god track “Their Beloved Absentee”, which is making it’s live debut, but other than the uncontrollable weather it’s another faultless performance from one of the best death metal bands going around today.

Back at stage 4, San Antonio’s Upon A Burning Body are firmly putting in their application for one of the best live bands in the deathcore scene. Much like August Burns Red before them, they get lumped with an average mix, but the Texans massive energy and swagger makes up for any sound issues. The band’s almost never-ending touring schedule has turned them into a well-oiled machine, and the crowd is eating out of frontman Danny Leal’s hand, obeying his every command – which includes opening up one of the biggest circle pits of the day during the monster ending breakdown of “Mimic”. Awesome stuff, and hopefully they can grace our shores again sooner rather than later.

Testament

Testament

While Upon A Burning Body’s live show is great thanks to the band being a healthy combination of tightness and high energy, Trash Talk’s set is great entertainment purely because of it’s out of control, almost shambolic nature. The Californian hardcore band has made a reputation for themselves for their wild performances, with frontman Lee Spielman spending most of the set in crowd – and then encouraging the first stage invasion of the day. Musically, their sound moves between frantic punk and more sludgy riffs, with most tunes lasting around the one minute mark – which might explain why Trash Talk’s set only lasts for 18 of their allotted 40 minutes, before the band departs, seemingly on their own freewill.

Following them, Melbourne group Deez Nuts just can’t compete with that level of energy – they do pull a much larger audience than Trash Talk, but it seems just a bit too safe in comparison. Not that they are a loose band or anything, with their airtight set seamlessly moving from one track to another, and JJ Peters’ is a likable frontman, but they’re just a bit unexciting compared to the other acts on the bill today.

Probably one of the most talked about sets of the delay belongs to Australia’s own Thy Art Is Murder. Unfortunately, rather than focusing on the bands crushing performance, the band’s performance in Brisbane will be remembered by most for it’s almost calamitous stage invasion during closing song “Reign of Darkness”, and it’s social media blowup afterwards. Regardless of all that, Thy Art Is Murder’s show is a testament of the band’s growing popularity, with a big crowd welcoming the band back to an Australian stage like returning the heroes. CJ McMahon is as fired up as ever, and the ultra tight set is almost faultless – save guitarist Roman Koester’s gear issues. The aforementioned stage invasion gets the band’s sound cut halfway through their final track, but surely this incident and aftermath will only draw more people to their other Soundwave performances.

GWAR

GWAR

Over at the main stage, A Day To Remember have a huge crowd, but it’s a tad disappointing to see the noticeably smaller amount of punters for the following act, Seattle legends Alice In Chains. Playing in front of a stripped back stage production – no backdrop, and only “LSMS” on the kickdrum in tribute for Layne Staley and Mike Starr – the band simply let their back catalogue of amazing songs do all the work. Armed with the best guitar tone of the day, the hammering “Them Bones” is a perfect set opener, and over the course of an hour the four piece put on a greatest hits style set, from new tracks “Stone” and “Hollow”, or songs like “Man In The Box” and “We Die Young” off their debut album “Facelift”. Acoustic guitars come out for the highly emotive “Nutshell” and “No Excuses”, with the pitch perfect vocal harmonies of William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell enough to make the hardest metal head weep. The amazing “Rooster” closes proceedings, and all though they deserved a larger crowd, Alice In Chains have easily proved why they are one of the greatest rock bands of the last two decades.

Despite having a slightly reduced performance time, French metal geniuses Gojira make the most of their abridged 35 minutes by delivering a powerhouse set of both new and old, kicking off with awesome one-two attack of “Explosia” and “The Axe”. For a band that uses six string guitars, it is insane how heavy they can sound, pushed along by the pummeling attack of drummer Mario Duplantier, who has a pair of seriously fast hands on him. “Backbone” is an bombardment of galloping riffs and blast beats, while the the lurching closer “Toxic Garbage Island” is impossible to not move along with. Seven songs are all that Gojira have time to smash out, but in this brief time they have easily made themselves one of the stand out bands of the day.

It’s almost a given that every two or so years DevilDriver will make an appearance on a Soundwave bill, and pull out a blinder of a set in every city. Tonight is no difference, with the groove monsters once again putting down a punishing set, from the opening strains of “End of the Line”, to the closing monstrous riffing of “Clouds Over California”. Frontman Dez Fafara is almost like a general on stage, commanding the masses to open up huge pits and forcing them to expel as much energy as humanly possible. A couple of tunes from new album “Winter Kills” are chucked into the set, and DevilDriver’s performance is simply about keeping things heavy and groovy, which the well versed band do with ease.

Playing in front of a massive banner of the original King Kong, as well as other horror movie icons, Rob Zombie, much like DevilDriver, someone who you can always safely say will always put on a world class performance day in, day out. Zombie’s long time guitarist John 5 is just as much of a focal point as the frontman, as he pulls out every move in the guitar hero manual – playing with his teeth, behind his head, on his back, etc. Setlist wise, Zombie plays it wise and puts on a hour long of his biggest tracks, and of course White Zombie’s big tunes like “More Human Than Human” and “Thunder Kiss ’65”.

Probably one the most insane live bands this planet has seen, The Dillinger Escape Plan have a lot of expectation riding on them to put on a performance to remember. To be completely honest, their show isn’t quite up to the same ‘holy shit’ standards as the ones this reviewer has witnessed in the past, but the positive that has come out of this is that musically the band are in immense form, as vocalist Greg Puciato sounds better than ever. But that’s not to say that there isn’t any sort of chaos happening during their set – with guitarist Ben Weinman standing on the crowd whilst playing, while Puciato spends a fair amount of time exploring the Stage 5 scaffolding. “43% Burnt” is notably absent from the setlist, but newer tracks off “One Of Us Is The Killer” such as “Nothing’s Funny”, “When I Lost My Bet” and the fantastic title track makes up for it.

The Dillinger Escape Plan

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Closing out this epic day is none other than the mighty Mastodon over at Stage 6. While it was highly rumoured that this slot was originally planned to be Megadeth’s before they pulled out, you can’t imagine Dave Mustaine and co. pulling a crowd bigger crowd than this, with a more than respectable amount of punters out to watch the Atlantan four piece. Crowd energy levels are a little on the low side – no doubt thanks to a long day of moshing/beer, but Mastodon themselves are on fire. “The Hunter” is a little too strongly featured, with a couple of the lesser tracks could have been subbed out for “Blood and Thunder” and “Sleeping Giant”, but other than that the ‘Don are in great form this evening. They don’t really ‘do’ stage banter, instead they rather let their ever deepening collection of songs and amazing musicianship do all the talking. Fittingly they probably get the best mix from the bands heard today, with the trio of vocalists all slotting in well with each other across the set, while the sprawling lead guitar work of Brent Hinds cuts through like a knife. Closing with the classic combo of “Iron Tust” and “March of the Fire Ants”, Mastodon take their bows and it’s curtains on Soundwave.

Today has without a doubt been a roaring success for Soundwave. Sure, timetable clashes are always a pain – this reviewer would have loved to witnessed Suicide Silence and Devil You Know – but that’s the nature of the festival beast. What can’t be controlled is the weather, and although it was certainly bleak and grim today, the temperature was on the cool side and their was very little bright pink skin on display come sundown. May Soundwave long rule over the Australian music festival scene.