Soundwave 2012

[jonoman89]

Caught a pick from System.

Awesome.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Coal chamber and Enter shakiri equal first place for the worst thing I've seen at a music festival since 1997.

Absolutely horrid.


Awesome day otherwise!

 

[Ninty]

Enter Shikari are ****ing awesome!

I ended up at

11:30AM Saves The Day @ Stage 1
12:40PM Dredg @ Stage 7
12:50PM Unwritten Law @ Stage 3
2:30PM Meshuggah @ Stage 4A
3:10PM Coal Chamber @ Stage 4B
3:50PM In Flames @ Stage 4A
4:55PM Limp Bizkit @ Stage 2
6:10PM Lamb of God @ Stage 4B
7:00PM Slipknot @ Stage 2
8:30PM System Of A Down @ Stage 1

I had a fun day, but wayyyy too many people from Limp Bizkit onwards.

Adelaide today!

 

[00Stinger]

Coal chamber and Enter shakiri equal first place for the worst thing I've seen at a music festival since 1997.

Absolutely horrid.


Awesome day otherwise!

You obviously didn't see Marilyn Mansons show then. Terrible!

Limp Bizkit were awesome as was SOAD.

 

[bombermick]

My first festival and had an awesome day. Lines were crazy and it's WAY too easy to lose people though. I saw the following full sets:

Alter Bridge
Bush
Trivium
Mastodon
Staind
Conditions
Angels and Airwaves

Bummed to miss out on Slipknot, SOAD and Devin, but I was always going to miss out on a few. How did you manage to fit in so many bands Ninty?

Alter Bridge and Mastodon the best for me. Airwaves were really good too, but way too many pushing close to the stage.

 

[krisholio14]

The full sets I got to see....

Hellyeah
Shadows Fall
Turisas
Coal Chamber
Bad Religion
Cathedral
Dillinger Escape Plan
Slipknot
Devin Townsend Project

Also saw some of Limp Biskit and most of Machine Head.

Was very happy to get my fill of Finnish Viking Metal

 

[Peck]

In Flames - very disappointing
Lamb of God - much better
Limp Biskit - surprisingly good
Slipknot - made the day worth going to
System of a Down - very good, but didn't know any of their songs so bailed after Chop Suey
Machine Head - Incredible.

 

[Hawks1523]

I really want to prove them wrong, or at least be able to tell them that if Joe was in the pit, no one else that was there saw him. It just makes no sense to me why he'd finish up his show, and then put himself in the crowd/pit with a bunch of sweating and over-excited 20'somethings, when he could just stand on the side of the stage and watch from there.

I can't say if it was or wasn't him. I'll just say it wouldn't be the first time I've seen it happen. I went to a sideshow last year and saw guys in the pit BEFORE they had to play, watching the other bands. Then saw guys who had played just to the side of the pits enjoying the show.

 

[GhostofJimJess]

Knocked off work and was inside the gates by 4:30, so went on an intensified 5.5 hours of absorbing as many riffs as possible in a non-Matrix suniverse. I'd seen Manson/Slipknot/SOAD a few times before so dodged the main stages for the day, which made transitioning from one end of the venue to the other only a 2 or 3 minute process. Lesson for beginners ... travel by yourself at festivals if you want to ingest maximum riffage.

A quick précis.

4:40-4:41 - Bad Religion - wtf?
4:45-5:00 - Cobra Starship - ever very quickly decide that you're right out of place somewhere? 1/10
5:00-5:15 - Dashboard Confessional - not the day for solo singer/guitarists for me 3/10
5:15-5:35 - Mastodon - pleasant 6/10
5:35-6:05 - Cathedral - kind of hilarious in a late-Spinal Tap kind of way ... was half-expecting a puppet show straight afters 6/10
6:10-6:35 - Lamb of God - pleasant 6/10
6:35-6:45 - Strung Out - by the numbers So-Cal neo-punk 5/10
6:45-7:00 - Dillinger Escape Plan - meh 4/10
7:00-7:10 - food 1/10
7:10-8:00 - ZW's Black Label Society - highlight of the day 8/10
8:00-8:20 - The Used - not for me 3/10
8:20-8:50 - Devon Townsend Project - entertaining 7/10
8:50-9:10 - Watain - admire their effort on stage decor 5/10
9:10-9:40 - Machine Head - monstrous sound 7/10
9:40-10:00 - Sisters of Mercy - quite sad, really 3/10

If I appear somewhat cynical, it's because there was no-one really on the bill that I was busting to see. Unlike previous years which had featured QOTSA, Jane's, Faith No More, Monster Magnet, Clutch, Primus etc. I was there yesterday almost purely as a punter.

 

[Faizza]

Saw
Lostprophets - were pretty good
Dangerous Summer - every song sounded the same
Bad Religion - Great! until the stage decided to collapse a bit and they had to stop
Limp Bizkit - Great performance!
Marilyn Manson - Underwhelming, music was great but vocals off/missing. OK performance though
Slipknot - Not a big fan but great show (clown creeped me out!!)
System of a down - 11/10!! 1.5 hour medley of their songs. Right in the mosh, radio/video dance circle and big circle at the end! Best perfmorance by any band ive seen in a long while

 

[cramdogs]

In melb saw:

S4 Gojira
Awesome start to the day up front, played 'Love', but only downer was the vocals were too low, hard to hear. 8.5/10

S4 Hellyeah
Was OK, just standing up the back, probably 20min songs, 10min talking shit = 30min set. 5/10

S2 Alterbridge (part)
Was decent, was singing along like a moron up the back to the songs I knew. 6/10

S4 Meshuggah (part)
Plenty of people, "Bleed" was cool. Solid set. 7/10

S4 Coal Chamber
Again OK. 6/10

S6 Biohazard
Lively, instant circle pit formed, some w***er smashed my mates sunnies. Also they didn't play the songs I wanted to hear. so 6/10

S2 Limp Bizkit
LOL, awful. Was in the mid to back area, people everywhere. Sound was terrible, bassed out and too soft. Durst was not interested, no energy. Also going from being sentimental to Jessica, then encouraging **** out, come on.. 1/10 Left early to prepare for..

S4 Lamb of God
Cracking! Awesome set, got smashed up the front. Huge circle pit behind me at times. "Laid to rest" to highlight. 9/10

S2 Slipknot (part)
Was OK, just watched from the otherside preparing for system. Felt like I was back in high school. 6/10

S1 System of a Down
Initially annoyed, the enterance to the D-barrier was closed. BS! Had crap view from mid/back. But slowly made my way forward getting crunched on the way. Then one thing lead to another, and all of a sudden I'm 2nd row to at the barrier with a clear unobstructed view. System's set was amazing. 25 songs, played most things I'd want to hear. Sound was clear, Serge knew how to play to a crowd, no bs taking, just set straight up song after song. If I was going to be extremly picky, I'd replace songs from Hypnotize/Mezmerize with "Soil, IEAIAIO, Inner vision". Was highlight of soundwave. 9.5/10

 

[cramdogs]

Also anyone see:
- Devin (after seeing them at the Forum, really annoyed he clashed with system!)
- Staind
- Manson, lol, heard he was terrible.
- Hatebreed
- Paradise Lost
- Machine Head (last time I saw them at Festival Hall they were shit)

 

[ajdude]

dillinger was probably the best thing i have ever seen, just so much energy, as soon as greg puciato climbed into the crowd before the first song i knew it'd be ****ing nuts, weinman falling off a box onto his arse and then continuing to play was a highlight

 

[jonoman89]

Coal chamber and Enter shakiri equal first place for the worst thing I've seen at a music festival since 1997.

Absolutely horrid.


Awesome day otherwise!

I thought they were both pretty good...

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

I can't say if it was or wasn't him. I'll just say it wouldn't be the first time I've seen it happen. I went to a sideshow last year and saw guys in the pit BEFORE they had to play, watching the other bands. Then saw guys who had played just to the side of the pits enjoying the show.

The two mates in question got a good look at Joe yesterday, and they had to concede, it was not him on Monday night. Idiots.

 

[MelbourneCrow]

Had a sensational day too.
The first 2 hours were at the Metal Stage. Chimeira were excellent, and Times of Grace even better, while Black Dahlia Murder and Gojira were both very good. So a cracking start.
In fact, up until 7.30 I only made two excursions from the Metal Stages - to see 15 minutes of each of Turisas and Heaven Shall Burn - preferred the latter, although Turisas were great entertainers.
During the afternoon, the crowds were building at the Metal Stage and actually peaked for In Flames and Trivium. After that there was an exodus to the Main Stage to see Limp Bizkit and later Slipknot, which meant that bigger bands like Mastodon and Lamb of God had smaller crowds - I imagine the Machine Head crowd was affected by having SOAD on at the same time too.
I wasn't a big rap for Meshuggah or Shadows Fall, and I agree with Echols that Coal Chamber were average at best.
In Flames and Trivium were excellent, with Mastodon topping them IMO. I was up close for them and my best experiences of the day were when I was right by the barrier for bands (Chimeira, Times of Grace), so I am probably a bit harsh on bands who I watched from the distant seating area or from the side when chatting with a mate.
Then came Lamb of God. I loved them, but if I were to write their set list with my favourite songs, it would be about 80% different to what they played.
Had a sit down and watched a bit of Zakk Wylde putting in a polished performance, then off to the Main Stage for the first time to catch the last half hour of Slipknot. I am not familiar with them, but enjoyed what I saw. They had a huge crowd too.
Then finally SOAD, who in my mind were sensational. Played everything I wanted to hear and the crowd loved it. So glad I saw them at last.

Finally the facilities:
Food - Plenty of outlets, so not much queuing
Drink - Long queues, gave up as soon as I saw them
Toilets, water - Good once you found them for the first time, but not enough IMO
Seating - great for me at my age to have a couple 'rest sessions' in preparation for hours on end standing watching sensational music
Sound quality - very good all day
Train – choccas both ways, but easy in and not too bad a queue going out considering several thousand people were leaving at 10pm.

 

[Macca19]

Adelaide was excellent. Will expand tomorrow. Will say though a lot of bands seemed to have issues with their mixing, and limp bizkit was all kinds of ****ed up with the worst sound of any band ive ever seen live

 

[mickelboy182]

Was at Melbourne, highlights were Steel Panther, Turisas, Hatebreed and of course Devin.

I'm dismayed at the amount of people who went to (and enjoyed!) Limp Bizkit, lift your game BigFooty!
I walked past, took about 10 minutes because of the crowd, and all they got out of that 10 minutes was **** talking and Break Stuff.

Biggest sour note for me was the sound, was truly ****ing woeful at most stages. Stage 6 in particular was disgraceful.

 

[Ninty]

Man am I ****ed after a week of Soundwave, but one of the best festival lineups I've ever been to.

I ended up seeing ten bands in Adelaide. Saves the Day (full set), dredg (full set), Unwritten Law (full set), Bush (end of), Bad Religion (full set), Limp Bizkit (full set), Slipknot (start of), Devin Townsend Project (start of), Enter Shikari (full set), System of a Down (end of).

Limp Bizkit in the D was so ****ing good. such a good day, better than Melbourne with less people and a short walk around the stages.

 

[exit]

Very enjoyable day.

Chimaira sounded great. Cherri Bomb rocked out decent enough for a bunch of chicks. Hyro da Hero were ok. Gojira were great. Cro-mags and Paradise Lost were decent. Heaven Shall Burn was probably my pick for the day. What an awesome sound. Hatebreed did a good job. Actually didn't mind Coal Chamber and Enter Shikari, thought they both sounded good. Cathedral were ok. Meshuggah were good. Raised Fist were great. Devin's a complete nutter but an enjoyable experience. In Flames and Mastodon sounded good. Lamb of God were really good. Was really looking forward to Machine Head but the mix was screwed. Loud but base was silly loud. Just a basey mess. Disappointed. Massive crowd for Slipknot and SOAD, and if you're not up somewhere near the front the sound is shit. Plenty of other decent bands on at the same time. Lots of clashes so lots of moving from stage to stage checking out half gigs. Great day all round.

 

[Macca19]

Adelaide was great. The best music festival ive been to by far. The way the stages were set out was really well done, didnt take any longer than 2-3 minutes to get to any stage and there was minimal sound bleeding. Despite the fact it was packed, i've never seen it so easy to get beer before. Even with some long lines that made you think 'ill be here for 20 minutes' I reckon it took no more than 2 1/2 minutes to get beer the whole day.

Most of the bands I saw put on great shows, really got the crowd going, though you kind of get sick of hearing every band say 'You guys are the best crowd yet, much better than Melbourne blah blah'.

There seemed to be a lot of issues with the sound for most of the day. Only Systems and Slipknot got their mixes right. All the others either had too much bass, or the vocals were too low or it sounded muffled. Maybe the sound system they had wasnt good enough, or maybe they had work experience people doing the mixing but most of the bands I saw couldnt get it right. It didnt detract from the enjoyment except for Limp Bizkit.

The bands I saw:
Chimaria - I used to like them going back 8-10 years ago but hadnt really listened to them for a long time. Put on a good show, really tight set. Great start to the day 8/10

Then made my way to Turisas who got changed into Black Tides time slot. They were 15 minutes late from the advertised time slot and only played 5 songs, but thought they were just about the set of the day. Only 250 or so watching them but they killed it. Great humour in between songs and they finished with Rasputin, Stand Up & Fight and Battle Metal which was great. 10/10....just wished they'd played for a bit longer. 9/10

Then ran to Steel Panther who were good fun. Very Blink 182ish in terms of for every 5 minutes of song there'd be 5 minutes of talking. Probably too much talking but the songs they played sounded good...maybe a little too good, not a lot of differentiation from the albums. Songs I heard were Fat Girl, Community Property, Eye of the Panther, 17 girls in a row, Tiger Woods, Death to all but Metal & Asian Hooker. 8/10

Got to hear the first song of Lostprophets and the last song of Gojira before HellYeah came on. Vinnie is the king and the drums were promonent in the sound. Thought the vocals were too muffled and wishy washy, didnt come through enough. 9/10 for the set, 4/10 for the mixing

Shadows Fall were ok, again I thought the mixing was poor, had too much bass, not enough guitar and the vocals didnt come though well enough 5/10

Messugah killed it. They were ****ing great, they got their mix just about right and put on a great show. One of my favourites of the day 10/10

Got near the front for everybodys favourite nu-metal band Coal Chamber and thought they were good. Not great, but good. Loco was good. The guitars fully dropped out at one stage so they stopped playing until it was fixed (about 2 mintues). Good stage presence and the drummer was going nuts (with 3 broken fingers apparently...icing them between songs). I loved them when I was an angsty 16 year old but their songs really are pretty simple and droll. Still, was a good show 8/10

Watched the first 20 minutes of In Flames who were good as expected, though again, thought the mix wasnt right...drums were getting muffled out and too bassy.

Then made our way to get in position for Limp and got to see the last half hour or so of Bad Religion. They rocked it. Got everyone going 7/10.

Then for Limp Bizkit. We were just outside the D about 3 people back directly in front of the stage. I dunno what the **** happened with their sound but it wasnt loud enough, the drums, guitars and vocals were all drowned out by distorted bass and it is categorially the worst sound ive ever heard from a band live before - pub, club, stadium, festival, anything. Was all sorts of ****ed up. Heaps of people around us were shouting 'turn it up'. Durst complained after every song that the sound was ****ed and really it was pretty tricky to identify what songs were being played. You could barely hear lyrics. Was like you could only hear 2 of vocals, guitar, bass, drums at any one time. As soon as a song kicked in, all you could hear was bass bass bass. Was the equivalent of walking past a nightclub with the doors closed.

Durst ended up running into the crowd halfway through a song and standing on the D barrier right in front of us. As soon as the song finished he said 'man, you guys are getting ripped off, this is shit'. He then stayed there for 2 more songs before going back on stage.

In terms of the show I think they tried their best and it ended up being the most pumped up crowd of the day regardless of the crap sound. They pulled about 300 girls on stage for Rollin'. Didnt play anything off Gold Cobra which was a surprise. From what I remember they played Hot Dog, My Generation, My Way, Rollin, Mission Impossible theme, Faith and Break Stuff. No Nookie. Thought the Jessica stuff was over done. 8/10 for the show, 0/10 for the sound.

Missed Mastodon & Trivium unfortunately, but made it back to the Metal Stage for Lamb of God. Great show. Sound was better than many on that stage.

Caught the last couple of songs of Manson who finished 15 minutes early. Seemed a lot more interested than the YouTube clips of the earlier shows I saw.

Got in the Systems D for Slipknot and pretty lucky I got in. Slipknot had a clinical sound, was mixed perfectly. Clinical performance as well. My criticism of Slipknot is that I reckon the last couple of times ive seen them theyve played the same songs in the same order with the same tricks and the same stage antics at the same times. Its all very orderly. Still loved it though. They played sic, Eyeless, Wait and Bleed, People=Shit, Heretic Anthem, Spit it Out, Surfacing, Before I Forget, Duality, Liberate and a few others. 9/10 for them.

Then Systems who had the best sound of the day by far. I was a bit worried about seeing them after they got back together and after not releasing anything for so long but they were perfect. Great stage presence, great sound, great songs. 10/10

Made the decision to leave Systems after an hour to catch the end of Machine Head and Im glad I did. Got to hear Unto The Locust, Aesthetics of Hate, Old, Halo and Davidian. Again, the sound wasnt quite right, with the vocals muffled out quite a bit but it didnt matter. 9/10

Wish I could have seen Hatebreed, Dillinger, Mastodon, Gojira etc. but there were too many bands to see.

So yeah, great day. Great setup, great bands but dissapointing sound for much of the day. Cant wait till next years!

 

[mickelboy182]

Then made my way to Turisas who got changed into Black Tides time slot. They were 15 minutes late from the advertised time slot and only played 5 songs, but thought they were just about the set of the day. Only 250 or so watching them but they killed it. Great humour in between songs and they finished with Rasputin, Stand Up & Fight and Battle Metal which was great. 10/10....just wished they'd played for a bit longer. 9/10

You guys got Stand Up and Fight!? They haven't played that at any of the previous shows, including sideshows....

I went to the sideshow at the Espy and their set at Soundwave, setlist was:
The March of the Varangian Guard
The Great Escape
To Holmgard and Beyond
Rasputin
Battle Metal

 

[bombermick]

Forgot to mention I also saw Lost Prophet's set, but they really struggled to get the crowd involved.

Major props to the chick who got her boobs out during Mastodon's set. It was very welcome in the sausage-fest that is a Mastodon crowd.

 

[Macca19]

They did a spiel about how we've been the most receptive crowd so far and that we deserved an extra song so they threw that in after Rasputin. Got a great reception as well. Hope they come back sometime soon and can play a larger set.

 

[bombermick]

Also anyone see:
- Devin (after seeing them at the Forum, really annoyed he clashed with system!)
- Staind
- Manson, lol, heard he was terrible.
- Hatebreed
- Paradise Lost
- Machine Head (last time I saw them at Festival Hall they were shit)

I saw Staind -although it sucked to miss Slipknot. Aaron's vocals were top-notch, although there were some minor sound issues. The other band members don't give a lot, but Lewis was fantastic, giving a flawless version of "Something to Remind You" to close out their too-short set.