enter the Goatlady

Got my tickets to Soundwave 2011 (Perth show). It’s not until March, but there’s plenty to be excited about.

I’m going to take a look at each of the bands I want to see. The list is far too long for one post, so let’s look at the first few (skipping the punk, emo and wtf bands that is)…

Iron Maiden

I’ve not kept my general “meh” attitude toward Iron Maiden a secret. But in fact, a large, very popular headliner that I don’t particularly want to see is a very good thing at a festival – it means that more than likely, I won’t have any annoying clashes and there’s a chance I can sneak away early and beat the rush back home. Win all round.

Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age are going to be a little hit and miss, I think. I saw them at the Big Day Out a few years back and they were good, but I’m more a fan of their older material and even then, they had an album or two that I wasn’t crazy about. Now they have a whole bunch of albums I’m not really crazy about. So whether I see them or not will come down to timing, I suspect.

Slayer

What will be surprising to some is that I’m not all that excited about seeing Slayer either. Yes, they’re awesome. Their live set is always brutal and uncompromising – I’ve seen them a couple of times already so I already know that as a fact.

The problem with Slayer is that their fans tend to be fanatical and often, prone to idiotic behaviour, especially when you get them in groups. At Wacken 2010, one of my mates started making fun of the people screaming "SLAYER!” at every opportunity by yelling it out in a “special” voice with flailing spastic arm movements. Not very politically correct, but very funny under the circumstances, and I don’t think I’ll be able to not think of that next time I hear someone starting “the call”.

The upshot is that when Slayer are playing, I want to stay well back. So if I miss their set as well, I’m not exactly going to cry about it.

Primus

Primus? Now this is interesting. I will most definitely be making an effort to see Primus. Where’d they dig them up from anyway? I haven’t heard of Primus doing anything for ages. Years even… time to do some googling I think.

Slash

Slash’s recent solo album is on the office-friendly rotation list – it’s good old-fashioned rock and roll and hey, this is Slash. The coolest of the cool. Highly recommended – although it will be interesting to see how the songs will sound given that every single track on the album has a guest musician on it and he won’t have he entire entourage in tow.

Rob Zombie

I’ve never had the privilege of seeing the venerable Mr Robert Zombie live, and also, I never thought he’d make it out to Australia. His live sets have an awesome reputation though, and I love the last album, so this is something to really look forward to. One of the sets on my absolutely, positively must-see list.

Avenged Sevenfold

This is not a band I like. Like many in the metal world, I’m flummoxed at what Mike Portnoy, drummer extraordinaire and Dream Theatre mastermind, is doing playing with them (replacing James “The Rev” Sullivan, who passed away in late 2009). Does Mike know something no one else does? Is he attempting to be hipster and ironic? Has the whole world gone mad?

Having said that, whether I make an effort to see them or not will depend on scheduling.

Until next time…

I’ll go through more bands in another instalment – for now, I’m exhausted! What are you hanging out to see?

~ by goat_admin on September 8, 2010.

Posted in metal festivals
Tags: soundwave