Patton is god

Soundwave 2010.

I've always been jealous of the variety of festivals Australia has and the wide range of genres and bands that they attract. So when I heard that Faith no more were headlining Soundwave 2010, it was an opportunity I couldn't miss.

After an awkward plane ride over the ditch (including a sexual abuse disclosure by a teary American), I arrived in Sydney to 25 degree heat, sunshine and 3 million Sydneysiders.

Soundwave took about an hour to get to via trains from the central city. There was then a bus ride from the train station to the festival which was situated out in a race course far away from any civilisation (or at least it felt like it). There was a large presence of police and sniffer dogs, something you never see in New Zealand, yet i didn't manage to see anyone getting tackled down, or bitten by the dogs (or the police for that matter). disappointing!

The festival itself included four stage areas spread out around the race course. problems i had with the festival were:

Little shade (esp for my pasty skin!)
No one was selling sunscreen
Tokens to buy your alcohol, what the truck! this just made things far too confusing!
A high number of southern cross and Australia pride tattoos

However, there were a lot more awesome things about soundwave than there were bad.
I really liked that the stages were quite far apart, meaning that 1) i didn't have to interact with the large number of emos at the festival and 2) the sound from one stage didn't interfere too much with the next. which meant that you could easily sit at the bar and listen to a band, without having to half listen to one playing on a nearby stage (thanks bdo).

Anyway, now to the music!

First band we saw was the gallows. A hardcore band from the UK. Cant say hardcore is really my thing anymore, but it sure brought back a lot of memories. I liked that the singer got a bunch of kids to make a pyramid in the middle of the moshpit. however, other than that they weren't particularly memorable.

then off to the beer tent to get confused with tokens. Isis were the next band. i was very excited about them after watching them at San Fran earlier in the week. their set at soundwave was far too short. however they played a lot of their new stuff, and their melodic metal was inspiring and the crowd were loving it, invisible oranges were seen all around.

After Isis we managed to see the end of eagles of death metal. A band I don't mind to listen to on occasion. However, this band was truly terrible! The singer, sporting pedo facial hair, shouted out many a pun involving the lyrics of the song they were about to play. But the crowd seemed to enjoy it. Just like they enjoyed paramore, a equally awful band.

Luckily about this time we headed over to see MESUGGAH! Epic. as. fuck. thoroughly enjoyed this set however i was falling asleep by this stage (too much beer and sun), so don't actually remember so much the specifics of their set.

After nabbing a bit of shade under a sole tree (managed to give shade to like 20 people, go tree!), it was finally starting to get a bit cooler and we went down to Janes addiction. I was quite interested to see these guys, after only really knowing a couple of songs, and hating Dave Navarro (esp after rockstar supernova). These guys were very unimpressive. The singer was a pretentious arsehole, telling the crowd how much they like to party, the bassist looked extremely out of place, and old dave looking like a complete tool.

After Janes, the excitement started to build for faith no more. pity there was one more band to watch. possibly, the worst band of all time. well no, previously my chemical romance was supposed to play in this slot, thankfully they cancelled. unfortunately, jimmy eat world then got the gig. it was awful! like honestly, cheesy shit! and they played for agggggesss! saying how this was their best gig ever (really? the whole crowd was booing you off).

ten hours later, it was finally time for faith no more. i was SO excited, Mike Patton is the greatest vocalist in the world. the crowd was cheering, the joints were lit, i was jumping in anticipation. And they arrived on stage, to a hiss and a roar, singing reunited.
It was so fantastic to finally see these guys live, and they put on a great performance. Again, Mike had such amazing stage presence. Ive seen a lot of bands, but never before have i seen someone own the stage as much as he does (with Karen O coming in second).
Cup of sorrow, epic, ashes to ashes and easy had to be my highlights.

So yes, Patton is god and I would also like him to be my boyfriend, because that man is delicious!