Soundwave Festival - A photo diary

Well Folks,

The dust has settled on yet another great Soundwave Festival. A day-long festival catering solely for the metal and punk fans out there. I have to admit that it is my favourite festival Down Under and I look forward to it every year.

Yes, OK, Megadeth, Stone Temple Pilots and Newsted all cancelled but there were still plenty of other highlights to be had along the way. I started to take a photo of each band that I went to see but then one of two things happened:

I got drunk
The battery in my phone went dead

Both of which means you are all saved gratuitous close ups of Alice in Chains, Rob Zombie, Devildriver, Ill Nino and Greenday.

Than your lucky stars!

MUSHROOMHEAD

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH 

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER

DEFILED

UPON A BURNING BODY

VIDEO CLIP OF UPON A BURNING BODY

TESTAMENT

THE LIVING END

AFI

GWAR

MY NEW FAVOURITE BAND, VOLBEAT

 CLUTCH

PENNYWISE 

A GREAT BAND FROM BACK HOME, STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

THIS PHOTO DIARY WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE THREE STOOGES

PEACE OUT

“MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE? The night I went into Rapture with Eminem.”

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further, shall we? I LOVE black people. In fact, some of my family are Blacks.

Now, considering this is supposed to be an anonymous blog, I realise that that last statement could be misconstrued as the musing of some patronising middle-class, middle-aged white man from somewhere like Northern Ireland where black people are very few and far between and where racism can sit easily alongside all the bigotry.

Then again, considering that the only people that know about this blog are friends and family, you will all be acutely aware that both those sentences work on so many levels. What can I say? It’s how I roll.

I do also realise however, that there is an (admittedly very slight) chance that you could have stumbled across this corner of cyberspace all on your own. In which case, welcome Dear Anonymous Reader, I congratulate you on your powers of fortitude and perseverance that saw you squirrel your way into this corner of the interweb, when we both know that there is so much more you could be doing with your precious online time.

Having said all this, strap yourselves in for a wee story about how it came to pass, that I, a middle-class, middle-aged white man with the surname Black from Northern Ireland (let all the frikkin’ cats out of the bag there, didn’t I?) ended up at an Eminem gig last night.

But before I do, let’s go back in time for a moment. Mid-1990, to be exact.

“Roads, Marty? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” (Yep, gratuitous and completely unnecessary Back to the Future reference there)

In mid-1990 many things were happening in my life. For a start, I had just turned 18, a landmark event in anyone’s life. I was studying at a college in Belfast for a year and I was also working part-time. All incredibly adult pursuits, I’m sure you’d agree.

Musically, however, I was a mere child. Being the eldest of three meant that a lot of my musical taste was forged all on my own. A fact made all the more startlingly obvious by sharing with all three of you Readers that my first ever gig was Norwegian pop beat combo, Aha, at the Kings Hall, Belfast.

Moving swiftly on.

As swiftly, it has to be said, as my taste in music moved on. The next gig I went to less than a year after finding myself in joining in the cacophony of Northern Irish adolescents screaming “We want Aha! We want Aha! We want Aha!” was the gobfest that was New York thrash metal combo, Anthrax, performing in Bangor Leisure Centre.

Time stands still for no man, Marty. (Not even sure if that is a quote from Back to the Future but it feels like it should be, so let’s keep it in, shall we?)

Independently of my own forays into the Pandora’s Box of music that the world has to offer, I naturally had the musical tastes of my parents to influence me. And for them, I have to thank for the likes of The Beatles, Jethro Tull and Marc Bolan (mother) and Rolling Stones, The Animals, Bob Dylan (father) being on my musical radar from a very early age.

But music is a never-ending journey. Trends come and go. Indeed, the very first album that I bought was “Prince Charming” by Adam and the Ants and wherethe eff is he, these days?

So, like a human sponge, I started devouring all kinds of music and, upon reflection, I guess it was only a matter of time before this naïve, wee country boy from Northern Ireland made the progression from New York thrash metal to New York hip hop, in the form of Public Enemy.

Actually, thanks to “Bring the Noise”, a musical collaborationbetween the two bands, the leap from thrash to hip hop wasn’t as big as you might think.

And, so it came to pass that I found myself on a bus home from Belfast one day, nursing a vinyl (Google it, younger Readers) copy of the seminal Public Enemy album, “Fearof a Black Planet,” a brilliant choice for a first-time dip into the magical world of American Hip Hop, if ever there was.

To say I loved the album would be a rather bland description of how I felt about this piece of modern musical art and for weeks, I played the album to absolute death. Even now, as I type these words whilst listening to it for aul’ time’s sake, I have to say it is a timeless classic.

But, along with death and taxes, another thing that is certain is that the never-ending soundtrack of your life will grow and evolve as you follow on its journey and it wasn’t long before I was spending my hard-earned cash on the likes of Metallica, Megadeth and Sepultura, the last of which I am now listening to. Crunching Brazilian speed metal? Yes please.

As an interesting side-note to this indulgent Trip Down Memory Lane, my younger brother whole-heartedly embraced the world of rap, thanks in no small part to the aforementioned Fear of a Black Planet and I can safely say that he is now the whitest black man I know, to the point of wanting to name his first-born Tupac.

Seriously.

But I digress.

Let’s jump back into the DeLorean, Marty, and head Back to the Future to the year 2014 – a world that is sadly bereft of hoverboards, flying cars and self-tying laces. Although it seems that in the year 2015, we’ll all be able to enjoy at leastone of those innovations. What times we live in, eh?

And, to follow on in a similar vein, what times we live in when one of the biggest rap stars the world has ever seen is the poster boy for white trailer trash itself, none other than Marshal “Eminem” Mathers III.

Bet you never saw that one coming, Marty.

Yesterday evening, Eminem brought his Rapture Road Show juggernaut to my doorstep and it seemed only polite of me to go and join in the fun. Now normally Suncorp Stadium, or “The Colosseum” as I like to refer to it, is where I go to indulge in my other great love, watching sport, and it holds very many special memories for me.

On a slight tangent, a girl I was seeing briefly last year dumped me because of my love of sport saying, and I quote, “How can you waste so much of your life watching sport? There’s a whole big world out there with many experiences to enjoy, instead of wasting it watching sport.”

Well, excuse me!

Some of my finest experiences in life have been thanks to my passion for sport and in my recent history, Suncorp Stadium has played host to many of them. Grand Final wins, State of Origin wins, British and Irish Lions wins have all been born in this iconic stadium and I wouldn’t change it for the world. And all this in a stadium that is less than 3kms from where I live.

Every year Suncorp Stadium also plays host to some of the world’s largest music acts and in my time in Brisbane, the list includes Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Robbie Williams, Bon Jovi, Andre Rieu and, erm, Taylor Swift.

But, until last night, I had never been to a gig in the place. It seems strange to be saying that, considering how much time I have spent there over the past few years but it came to pass last night,  that I stood wide-eyed on the Hallowed Turf, staring around me in wonder at how my second home had been transformed into Eminem’s personal fiefdom.

It was a fantastic sight to behold.

There were several acts on the bill: M-Phazes, 360, Action Bronson, J Cole, Kendrick Lamar and finally, the main man himself but, considering the show started at 4pm on a school day and we all have to earn a crust to be able to pay for these nights out, my friends and I missed everyone else on the bill, opting for the more comfortable confines of The Paddo Tavern’s smoking section.

Reasonably priced, full strength drinks, an awesome smoking section, conversing in the company of good friends whilst sitting on comfortable seats are a hard thing to compete with for our attention and, with the exception of Kendrick Lamar, there wasn’t much desire from my friends and I to leave for Suncorp, just a few short minutes’ walk down the road.

To be fair, we did try and see Kendrick Lamar but considering the whole “herding cats” thing, trying to co-ordinate a group of pleasantly pissed, excited adults proved a task too much and, as we arrived into the stadium we heard the last couple of his songs as we were queuing for our drinks.

Sorry about that one, Kendrick.

And so, with enough alcohol in our systems to loosen up limbs and tongues, we picked our spot in amongst the Baggy Shorted Flat Brim Capped Brigade and settled in for the Main Event itself.

Now, rappers as a rule don’t do modesty. We all know that. And once you make it as one of the biggest fish in this Sea of Bling, all bets are off. The stage show itself had everything you would expect: dazzling lights, massive screens, bucket loads of energy. And fire, lots of fire.

The one thing that it did not have, however, was a decent sound set-up. Suffice to say, from where we were stood, the sound was shit, which is all the more strange, given that we were less than ten metres away from a massive speaker tower; although upon reflection, it was behind us blasting out towards the back of the stadium, which might account for the somewhat muffled tunes that we experienced. Still a surprise though, considering that Eminem’s style has always been based on his clear, crisp machine-gun delivery.

That whinge aside, Eminem delivered all that you could possibly want in his 90-minute, 26-song set including new songs ‘Survival’ and ‘Bezerk’, older anthems like ‘White America’ and ‘Stan,’ as well as a medley of his three biggest hits ‘My Name Is’, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ and ‘Without Me’.

Suffice to say, I still managed to get my wigger on with the rest of the crowd and everyone enjoyed the whole spectacle. I did note, however, that Eminem’s back-up rapper (no idea who he was) seemed to do a lot of the work. A regular thing in the world of rap, I was reliably informed by a mate.

Highlight of the evening for me – and for many others it seemed – was “Lose Yourself.” Top tune and to see the capacity crowd at Suncorp bouncing along to that epic track was a sight that will live long in the memory.

So, a big shout goes out to my man Eminem for coming to ma hood and rapping the shit out of it for me and my mates and about 45,000 others. A top night out!

Now, I hope you’ll all excuse me as I go off to shop for a flat brimmed cap.

Peace out.

February 2014, Brisbane.

If Carlsberg Did Weekends…. (Part 1)

Recently, a few mates and I were fortunate enough to spend a weekend away in Sydney. I use the word fortunate because – as it transpired – the weekend turned out to be one of the best short breaks that any of us had experienced in our lives and I feel suitably motivated to give a little summary of events as they transpired, if only for my own gratification and posterity. But if you’re that way inclined, then I invite you to sit back, relax and read my wee story from the trip. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: “If Carlsberg Did Weekends….” – Part 1

A few months ago, a couple of Aussie mates decided they were going to go to watch our local football team, Brisbane Roar, play against Western Sydney Wanders, in Sydney, on a Friday night and were going to make a weekend of it, taking in another game on the Saturday evening, Sydney FC versus Adelaide United, returning to Brisbane on the Sunday evening. Was anyone else interested?

Now, anyone who knows me will realise just how interested in a trip like this I would be, so I, along with another mate, signed up for a weekend that promised plenty of beer, banter and football.

It didn’t disappoint.

Going to an away match in Australia can be quite the daunting experience, considering the distances involved. Indeed, according to Google maps, a little under 1000 kms separates the two stadiums, so driving certainly wasn’t an option for such a short getaway. Flights were organised pronto, to take advantage of the $75 flights being offered by Virgin Australia.

Unfortunately, in my haste to book the flights, I made a rookie error and booked the wrong outbound flight, ensuring that I had to get up at 04:30 in the morning to catch the 06:00 flight. The rest of the boys had the relative lie-in of only having to make it to the airport for the 07:00 flight. I did enquire about rearranging the flights but the 280 dollars quoted to do so ensured that I didn’t do so. I love the guys but I don’t love them 280 dollars worth.

And anyway, with access to the business lounge, waiting for an hour in Sydney airport was certainly no great hardship to endure.

Both flights were uneventful and arrived on time. And no - I am not on commission.

So, it came to pass, that a little before 10am Sydney time, we were in a taxi making our way to our accommodation for the weekend – a lovely 2-bedroom serviced apartment in the Sydney suburb of Waterloo. This had been recommended to us by a friend from Northern Ireland who lives in the neighbourhood. I have to say that the accommodation was dead on, to use the Norn Iron vernacular. 

Modern, spacious and with great service thrown in for good measure. We were pleasantly surprised to be able to check-in when we arrived at 10:30 and, to be honest, over the course of the weekend, the staff made sure that everything we wanted, which admittedly wasn't too much, was catered for. I'd recommend them to anyone. And no - I am not on commission.

Despite our spacious and luxurious surrounds, it wasn’t long before we were getting the train, in the manner of excited teenagers, to Circular Quay, the world-iconic location of Sydney Harbour. 

Sitting there, in the Splendid Sydney Summer Sun (TM), sipping on cold beers whilst also drinking in the spectacular backdrop of Sydney Harbour, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, all was good in our world. Indeed, we spent so long in this wonderful environment that we all ended up with a bit of a roasting from the sun that day. We should have known better, of course, but boys will be boys.

Later that afternoon, with game-time fast approaching, we made our way to our home for the weekend to freshen up before taking ourselves off to the Western Sydney suburb of Parramatta, where, naturally enough, the Western Sydney Wanderers play their football. Two of the guys had already been to a game in Western Sydney and the game plan, according to them, was to go to a Bavarian Bier Café which was only a short walk from Pirtek Stadium. So that’s what we did.

The 10-minute walk from Parramatta Station was a memorable one. It seemed that everyone in Parramatta was wearing their red and blackstriped Wanderers shirt and – considering that Brisbane Roar play in a rather noticeable orange shirt – we stuck out like the proverbial thumb as we made our way to the café. 

In the past few weeks, there have been a few unsavoury incidents involving supporters associated with the Wanderers. There have been running battles with other teams’ supporters, including stabbing and beatings dealt out with baseball bats. Whilst well aware of the hyperbole that the Australian media perpetrates when it comes to "soccer hooliganism," it was hard not to think of these stories as we walked through the Parramatta heartland in our seemingly fluorescent Roar shirts. 

This was nothing, however, compared with what lay in wait for us at the Bavarian Bier Café. And no - I am not on commission.

As we approached the bar, it was evident that this was a popular pre-match pub with the Wanderers as we could see a few dozen of them wearing their shirts sitting in the bier garden at the front of the pub. There were also half a dozen police cars parked outside, which was a little disconcerting but reassuring at the same time. Always a good idea to drink in a pub near the local police station in times of uncertainty.

Walking into the pub, however, we were greeted with a narrow walkway down to the back of the pub where it opened up into another bier garden. Lined all along this walkway were dozens more Wanderers supporters. The four of us steeled ourselves for comment and ridicule but as we walked through the throng of red and black and, whilst many heads turned, nothing was said. 

I guess we didn’t look intimidating enough to even warrant a bit of sledging.

After running this 'gauntlet', we reached the bier garden at the back of the pub and noticed our first Roar shirts of the evening. A couple of young fellas sitting rather nervously in the corner trying their best to look like they belonged. Or invisible. Biers procured, we joined them to swell our numbers to a massive 6. 

A while later, a couple from Toowoomba who had decided to take in the game as part of a romantic break to Sydney (who says romance is dead?), joined us. Our numbers now stood at 8 but the Wanderers kept streaming in and the bar was soon a torrent of red and black, with a small island of orange stuck in the corner.

But then, a strange thing happened - well - perhaps not that strange, seeing as it had been pre-arranged.

A coachload of Roar supporters arrived at the bar and joined us in the bier garden. My mates knew some of them and I even knew one of them as well. (You know you've been in Australia for quite the time when you bump into someone you know, a thousand kilometres from where you live.)

All of a sudden, this meant that there were 20 - 30 Roar supporters in the bar. The banter was almost as plentiful as the drinks, leaving only the football itself and, with kick-off fast approaching, it was soon time to make the last leg of our journey from Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane to Pirtek Stadium, Parramatta – just a mere 5-minute walk.

Thanks to the crrrrrrazy idea of daylight saving, a concept which my adopted home state of Queensland steadfastly refuses to grasp, the conditions were glorious as we walked to the stadium for the seven thirty kick-off.

Along the way, we got chatting to some of the home supporters and I am happy to report that everyone – and I mean everyone – was very friendly to us. A far cry from the demons that the Australian press would have you believe support the Wanderers. Now, of course, I am not naïve enough to think that these demons don’t exist but my experience of the average Wanderers supporter that evening was that they were both passionate and knowledgeable about the Beautiful Game and their team. Which makes them alright by me.

A bizarre footnote to add at this stage was that when we arrived at the stadium, a single security guard, upon noticing our arrival, said to me "Shit - why didn't you guys phone ahead?" before proceeding to take us on a walk around pretty much the whole of the stadium through all the Wanderers supporters, so that we could go into another gate, which was basically almost the whole way 'round the stadium to where we had first arrived. At the time, I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it – and now, in the cold light of day and with the benefit of hindsight, I STILL can’t understand the reasoning behind it.

The atmosphere generated by the WSW supporters is widely regarded as the best in the A-League competition. A combination of a compact stadium and a loyal and passionate fan base ensures that the vast majority of the supporters in the stadium join in to make for a great atmosphere. The capacity of the stadium is a shade under 25,000 and that evening, there were (if memory serves me well, which is highly unlikely) 16,403 supporters at the game.

I have to be honest, these numbers were a little less than I expected, thanks to the stories that perpetuate in Australia about how the number of season ticket holders were capped to allow for a small fraction tickets to be made available for "at the gate" supporters, as well as away supporters, so I was a little disappointed when I saw the empty seats but, credit where credit is due, the ones that were there gave it a great go, as this wee video clip proves:

(Apologies for the gratuitous language and the even more gratuitous close-up of myself around 39 seconds into the clip)

Needless to say, our pocket of away support made as much noise as we could and I woke up on Saturday morning with the sore throat and hoarse voice to prove it.

Oh - and we got on the telly!

The match itself was a tight enough affair, with Brisbane Roar scoring half-way through the first-half and then Western Sydney Wanderers applying a lot of pressure after the break which eventually resulted in them equalising in the 84^th minute. The game went on to finish 1-1 and upon reflection, it was probably a fair result and, considering we were top of the league, leading WSW in second place by 7 points going into the game, we were none too disappointed when the final whistle went and, judging by the way that our players and manager came to celebrate the result with us, it showed how much the draw meant to us all.

Leaving the stadium, once again the conversations I had with the WSW supporters were enjoyable. There were compliments from both sets of supporters as to how well the other team played and most agreed that the draw was a fair result. All very pleasant and all very amicable. 

Still – we weren’t naïve enough to think that a pub-crawl ‘round Parramatta would have been a sensible thing to do, so we made our way back to the train station and made our way back to our adopted home for the evening.

It’s worth noting at this stage, however, that it wasn’t all plain sailing though...

Whilst at the train station, waiting on our train, we did meet a loud, obnoxious supporter and I am a little embarrassed to report that it was a Roar-supporting female who 'won' that award from the evening. And then, upon disembarking at the other end, events took a rather surreal twist, when one of my mates had his Roar scarf stolen out of his back pocket by a little street-rat kid who had followed us off the train, nicked the scarf, and then ferreted his way back onto the train as the doors closed shut again. It was all over in a flash and there was nothing we could do about it, apart from learn from the experience. It served as a timely reminder that we shouldn’t let our guard down too much. Country bumpkins from Queensland that we were.

When we got back to our apartment, one by one the guys went to bed, suitably happy with our lot in life and it wasn’t long before I did the same. After all – at least one of us had been up since the crack of dawn and we had another big day ahead of us. 

But, as I went to  bed that evening, I was oblivious as to just how big things were to turn out.

TO BE CONTINUED...