Soundwave Festival
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Saturday 26 February 2011

2011 marks Soundwave Festival's fifth year as a national touring entity; five years old, and already rivaling the Big Day Out in terms of sheer artistic firepower. The most recent BDO was headlined by Tool. This year's Soundwave features Iron Maiden - one of the biggest bands in the world - closing each night with a two-hour set. What a coup.

Besides that classic British metal act, nearly 70 other acts - mostly internationals - fill out a line-up pregnant with talent. The bookers are clearly doing something right, as several Soundwaves have sold out, Brisbane included (though curiously, today they were still selling tickets at the gate, for $180). Judging by the maps being handed out inside, the festival grounds have nearly doubled compared to last year. For the first time, organisers have placed two stages outside of the RNA Showgrounds, thereby using some of the space that an expanded Laneway Festival trialled last month. More space means more people. Maybe it's the urban environment messing with my perceptions, but it feels like there could well be more people here than at the Gold Coast Big Day Out. At least on sight, it's a major achievement for a festival solely focused on rock, metal, punk and hardcore.

Pathways to the new stages - numbered 3 and 6, which makes very little sense - become natural bottlenecks early in the day, as many thousands attempt to see Swedish act Millencolin on stage 3 at 12.30pm. There's not a skerrick of space anywhere within eyeshot of the band, who're celebrating the 10th anniversary of their most popular album, Pennybridge Pioneers, by playing it in full today. It's a winning decision: tracks like 'No Cigar' (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, anyone?), 'Fox' and 'Penguins & Polarbears' are all classics.

Walking through the main arena - where stages 1 and 2 are positioned adjacent to each other - presents a strange sight: very, very few people watching Welsh rock band Feeder. Poor dudes. Apparently MxPx/The Ataris brought a big crowd immediately beforehand. Outside the arena and across the train tracks that split the venue in two, Sevendust are playing the same heavy, down-tuned breed of metal I remember from high school on stage 4. (Stage 4a is right next to it. Soundwave don't try too hard with naming stages, clearly.) It appears not much has changed in the interim. They add in a couple of metal cred-seeking song snippets, including 'Master of Puppets' and Pantera's 'Walk'; a decision which was always going to work in their favour in front of a crowd like this. Singer Lajon Witherspoon makes some strange comments toward the end of the set: "Thank you for making our dreams come true!", and "Sevendust has arrived!". Huh? They've been around for 17 years. Weird. Still, they're playing to several thousand people, so... good for them. Monster Magnet are playing over on stage one. The vocals are really high in the mix. The singer's voice sounds shot. Or maybe he always sounds like that. I sit and idly watch them from the shade of the grandstands for a while - they don't seem to mean much to many people.

Devildriver, on the other hand, clearly do. Over on stage 4, they're playing to a field full of young dudes thrashing away in the sun. I opt to explore the wide range of food outlets positioned between stages 4 and 5. The organisers have allowed some non-traditional food stalls to operate in the venue: 'Punk Rock Burgers' is doing a roaring trade, and the Iceberg (slushie/slurpee) fan is working in overdrive. $5 for a 600ml Coke is a bit rough, though.

Of all the tactics bands use to get an Australian festival crowd on their side, Bullet For My Valentine have found the ultimate winner. Toward the end of their set, the Welsh band's lead guitarist begins eking out a very credible cover of 'Advance Australia Fair'. Immediately, the entire arena is singing along. It is a beautiful moment, and everyone evidently loves them for it. I set up camp in the grandstand directly in front of stage two for the next couple of hours. I write "Stone Sour have songs" in my notebook, and underline 'songs'. All I really knew of them before today was that they're the Slipknot singer Corey Taylor's other band. I didn't realise that they have two modes: the fast, downtuned, nu-metally kind of stuff, which is so-so, and the stadium rock-sounding ballads. The first time Taylor et al whip out one of the latter, it's a bit cringe-worthy; redolent of Nickelback-like nastiness. But after a couple more, I'm convinced. They should ditch the heavy stuff and just book stadiums, as it seems to be where they're pitching their sound. Taylor has a great voice when he's not screaming "ARE YOU READY!!!!!!!" et cetera. It makes me want to listen to Slipknot's quieter, more melodic stuff. I am glad that I watched Stone Sour.

Most bands on this tour have enormous printed backdrops that display the band's name in bold, aggressive fonts. In either red, black or white. Usually with some violent imagery to boot. This is heavy music, damn it! Grrr! Primus, on the other hand, have two six metre-high inflatable astronauts. Les Claypool, Larry LaLonde and Jay Lane are so chill amongst the leather and facepaint that they're immediately the coolest band on the bill. It also helps that they're musical geniuses. That's not a word to be used lightly, but to look upon the prodigal talents of Claypool is to witness something rare and special. The bassist goose-steps in circles while playing, and at one stage temporarily dons a pig mask for no discernible reason. They do 'Jerry Was a Race Car Driver' and 'John The Fisherman' and 'Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers', and a new song about salmon farming in California, according to Claypool.

Before 'Jerry', Claypool changes guitars and tells us how he acquired this particular "six-string piece of furniture" some years ago. "I don't know why. It's a pain in the fuckin' ass to play," he says, before shredding away. I think about how most bands write songs about feelings and emotions and love and loss, and all that shit. Claypool seems to write whatever comes into his mind; it's as far removed from autobiographical songwriting as you could get. LaLonde and Lane are skilled players in their own right; combined, the three men give us the day's best set, seemingly without trying too hard. Primus are weird and awesome.

What exactly does Slash represent in 2011? He is one of the festival's biggest drawcards, sure, but watching his set, such attention feels unwarranted. Yes, the man has written some great rock guitar lines in his time. His image is instantly recognisable across the world. Top hat, curly dark locks, sunglasses, unbuttoned shirt, Converse, etc. (No cigarette dangling from his lips anymore, though: he quit in mid-2010 after a pneumonia scare.) He's released some solo projects, including last year's Slash, but just about everyone likes his Guns N' Roses material more. Palpable boredom hangs in their air whenever he and his band - fronted by singer Myles Kennedy, of Alter Bridge "fame" - play anything that was written less than 20 years ago. Kennedy introduces 'Night Train' by yelling "You ready to ride the night train? I said, are you ready to ride the fuckin' night train?". I pause for a few moments to process the ridiculousness of these two questions. The biggest surprise of the set is when local resident, Wolfmother's Andrew Stockdale, doesn't provide guest vocals for 'By The Sword', a song he co-wrote with Slash. 'Sweet Child O' Mine' gets an airing, of course, yet the crowd response is strangely muted. By this stage I've had enough. I discover that New Found Glory are running way over time on stage 3, which means I don't get to see Gang Of Four. Instead I eat a 'kick in the face burger' from Punk Rock Burgers, apparently named due to the barely-there presence of chili. Right. $10 well-spent.

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