Thrash, death metal, hard rock, metalcore, hardcore, djent, prog, stoner – if you’re anything like me Soundwave is like your music collection coming to life in front of your eyes. It also means you’re faced with some tough choices. Who do you see? Who do you miss? Who do you catch a few songs of before going to see a few from someone else? Which Sidewaves do you hit up in the preceding days so that you can free your calendar and eliminate some otherwise tough clashes?
Anthrax were down two members, with drummer Charlie Benante sitting out due to personal stuff back in the States, and Rob Caggiano replaced by Shadows Fall’s Jon Donais (who seemed a little restrained). Drummer Jon Dette kicked arse with an aggressive style that tied together the old and new. But the three guys who did make it – Scott Ian, Frank Bello and Joey Belladonna – put on a killer show with old-school thrash riffage and a real sense of oneness with the audience. The setlist included a balance of old and new cuts, an AC/DC cover and a stirring version of Worship Music’s In The End dedicated to Dimebag Darrell and Ronnie James Dio.
Midway through Anthrax I caught a few tracks by Fozzy, where the stage presence of Chris Jericho and Rich Ward was particularly arena-sized despite the smaller Stage 5. They’ve long outgrown any ‘they’re just a side project for a wrestler’ stigma: Fozzy are a serious, capable, pro-level band with serious performance and songwriting chops.
Next up, Stone Sour, featuring Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and James Root. With a setlist leaning on material from their two most recent (and very aggressive) albums and a preview of a track from the forthcoming The House Of Gold And Bones Part 2, their set was part rock showmanship, part metal power. It’s always fun to see Taylor outside of the context of Slipknot, smiling and joking rather than playing up the aggro.
Next: Periphery. Their Monday Sidewave at The Espy was intense and powerful but they kicked it up a notch at Soundwave with more crowd interaction, more energy and more excitement. They’re all virtuosos but vocalist Spencer Sotelo deserves a special word for his killer performance.
Tomahawk performed a wildly diverse set which played as much on the rhythmic interaction of Trevor Dunn and John Stanier as it did the angular riffage of Duane Denison or the vocal textures of Mike Patton. A non-musical highlight was Patton’s stern rebuke of a fan who had the stupidity to call out ‘Do something!’ during a longer-than-he-wanted break between songs. “This guy just said ‘do something,'” Patton snapped. “What would that something be, my friend? Hey? Hippy? What is it? What would you have us do, fuckhead? So you’re unhappy? You’re unhappy but you’re still sitting here yelling at me? Get the fuck outta town.”
Kyuss Lives! offered a surprisingly powerful set of classics, and were placed at what was probably the ideal slot for them: heading into mid afternoon, the hot sun belting down and playing up their desert stoner rock atmosphere. These guys are about to change their name to Vista Chino, so keep an eye out for them.
Dragonforce put in a typically energetic show with lots of guitar fireworks and the very impressive vocals of new singer Mark Hudson. The audience response was killer too, furthering Periphery’s case that guitar virtuosity – when combined with real stagecraft instead of just standing there – is a hell of a crowd pleaser.
A Slayer crowd is always an intense thing, and after a brief wait the thunderous attack of Slayer was unmistakable, even with Jon Dette on drums and Gary Holt taking Jeff Hannemann’s place on guitar alongside original members Kerry King and Tom Araya. Although Hannemann and Dave Lombardo were definitely missed, it still felt like a Slayer gig, in intensity if not in overall sound, with a huge response to crowd favourites like Dead Skin Mask, War Ensemble, Angel Of Death and South Of Heaven.
A Perfect Circle turned in an oddly paced set which was high on atmospherics but lacking in fire. It read as a performance of songs you liked on their albums, rather than a vital, living musical experience. Glad to see ’em, but not blown away. The Dear Hunter, on the other hand, turned in a charged set of occasionally bluesy, occasionally jangly, often atmospheric progressive indie rock. Any Dear Hunter first-timers who stumbled upon that set walked away with a ‘Whoa… I’ll be iTunes-ing that when I get home’ look on their face.
Duff McKagan’s Loaded performed a gutsy set of bluesy, punky, timeless hard rock, including a few Guns N’ Roses songs (So Fine, You’re Crazy and It’s So Easy), tracks from the band’s two albums and Misfits classic Attitude. Danko Jones joined in for a couple of tracks, and Duff even jumped into the crowd for an extended surfing session. Rock.
Blink-182 were another band stricken by the Soundwave ‘drummer curse’. For a large chunk of the crowd Blink are the music of their late teens or early 20s, and they turned in a crowd-pleasing set with few surprises. Their particular brand of dick jokes has lost some of its thrust in a post-Steel Panther world, but it didn’t really matter. After so long away, the crowd were happy to welcome them back, and whether you like them or not there’s something undeniably fun about Blink.
Ghost are the best thing to happen to Satan since the Middle Ages, performing a creepy but undeniably ’70s-metal-vibed set of evilness. Theatrics and Satanic allegiance aside, Ghost tap into the true spirit of metal and deserve their own headlining tour. Maybe in abandoned churches or something.
Linkin Park are very slick from a performance standpoint, and like Blink-182 they embody a certain time in a certain age group’s life, but unlike Blink’s long hiatus, Linkin Park still continue to push themselves musically. Their set was a good overview of their career in both sound and vibe, exploring the electronic atmospherics of recent works as well as the nu-metal crunch of their earlier stuff.
The mighty Metallica didn’t play any Sidewaves during this tour: instead they put all their energy into their headlining sets, and did so with a fire and energy that surpassed any of the other times I’ve seen them, even if James Hetfield’s stage banter was much the same as it was last time the band was out. The only real surprise in the set was the first Australian performance ever of My Friend Of Misery, and the almost complete absence of anything post-1991 with the exception of All Nightmare Long from 2008’s Death Magnetic.
With a setlist otherwise comprised of tracks from the first five albums, Metallica’s Soundwave run represents the most ‘classic Metallica’ set they’ve ever played in this country. And it did what all good metal does: it brought people together. Two particular events summed up Metallica’s appeal and Soundwave’s in general: a hyperactive and sweaty dude put his arm around me to jointly bellow the chorus to Sad But True, and after the show I chatted with a very stylish, classy girl who you never would have identified as a metal fan, yet she was a Metallica die hard. And that’s why Soundwave is so great; it brings together all of the heavy music-loving community in the name of a single passion, united by their shared love of music that makes you want to pump your fist, floor the accelerator and wear a shitload of black.
BY PETER HODGSON
Photo credit: Rebecca Houlden
LOVED: Duff McKagan’s crowd surf, Periphery’s sense of fun, Metallica’s brutals.
HATED: Not liking A Perfect Circle as much as I wanted to.
DRANK: Water. C’mon, it’s a long fuckin’ day.
