It’s taken me a while to get around to posting this, although I wrote it up not long after the event. Soundwave festival in Brisbane in February was awesome. Here’s my write-up:
Soundwave 11
Got there halfway through Nonpoint. Sounded good, but small crowd and I likely missed the songs I wanted to hear (Rabia, Done It Anyway), if they played them at all.
I went for a wander at that point as the next band was called Taking Dawn. The name put me off, but I caught the end of their act and they were actually pretty good – there’s a lesson for me there. I’ll check them out further I think.
First band I got to hear the whole set was The Sword from Texas. These guys are in the heavy rock bordering on doom genre (roughly – I don’t really do genres, that’s just to give you an idea. Heavy riffage instrumental to open then straight into Freya, my fave tune of theirs. They also played Maiden, Mother and Crone, another of my fave tunes of theirs. Great stuff, rocking Orange amps, Gibson V and BC Rich Mockingbird guitars.
The Sword were followed immediately on the stage next door by Sevendust, and old favourite of mine. It’s been a while since I’d listened to them, so I didn’t have expectations about the set list. I recognised a few of the tunes, plus they did a nifty medley of Metallica’s Master of Puppets and Pantera’s Walk. I noticed Peavey 5150 amps and Dean and PRS guitars.
Next I sauntered over to the main stage to see Monster Magnet. It may be that it was a bit early in the day, but they seemed a little disappointed with the crowd reaction. To be honest, they’re kind of drone-y, and this might have made it difficult to get the crowd going. As you might expect, they were Marshall and Gibson all the way.
I nipped back to the 4th stage for Devildriver. They had a decent crowd and didn’t accept any slouching in the pit. I was hoping for I Dreamed I Died or Bear Witness Onto, which unfortunately I didn’t get. They had a new album out and played a few tracks from it. I think I saw Blackstar amps up there, and ESP guitars, with guitarists Jeff Kendrick and Mike Spreitzer recently getting a signature model each.
Back to the main stage again for Stone Sour. Say what you like about Slipknot, but Corey Taylor has an awesome voice and the frontman routine down pat. Again I thought I saw Blackstar amps alongside Orange, and I was surprised to see Fender guitars alongside a Gibson V and what I took to be Ibanez superstrats.
Following Stone Sour the main stage crowd were treated to Primus, one of the bands I was most keen to see. They were pretty polarising, with as many people in the audience scratching their heads and wondering what they were witnessing as those of us that were grooving to it. Les Claypool was in fine form, laying down the classic grooves for (GUITARIST) to noodle over. (Guitarist) was playing Fender, while Claypool played a string of custom basses, including a six string that he wondered aloud why he still played. Fantastic to hear Those Damn Blue Collar Tweakers and John The Fisherman live after thinking I’d never get the opportunity.
Next up on the main stage was Slash, a far more crowd-pleasing act. He opened with Ghost from his solo album, and also played By The Sword, and my favourite track Back From Cali. The rest of the set was some Guns and Roses classics, including Night Train and Rocket Queen. The obligatory Sweet Child O Mine saw the crowd erupt in cheers, and Paradise City went down well too. Myles Kennedy is a fantastic singer, and I almost wished he hadn’t been trying to mimic the vocal sounds of the various singers on the songs that weren’t his. Unsurprisingly, Slash played Gibson through Marshall, while the other guitarist played a BC Rich Mockingbird.
After Slash I made my way back to the 4th stage for Slayer. By that time the crowd had really grown in that area and I could barely move around. As usual, Slayer were balls out aggression, and may well have been the loudest band there. I couldn’t get a decent position to see them from, so I chose to look for some food from the nearby stalls – I could still hear Slayer plenty well! This was also about the time I swapped my jandals for shoes. I couldn’t see what stand-in guitarist Gary Holt of Exodus was playing, but Kerry King was up to his usual BC Rich through a Marshall tricks. In fact, the Slayer wall of Marshall was definitely in evidence!
I had planned to stick around the 4th stage to see Rob Zombie and his touring guitarist John 5, but there was no way I was going to get a decent spot to watch from, and I made the decision to head back to the main stage and secure a decent spot for Iron Maiden. When I saw them in Auckland I was in the crowd, and being a short guy, I decided this time I’d sit in the stands and take it all in.
I took up a spot in the stands directly in front of the main stage that Iron Maiden would be playing on. I caught the tail end of One Day As A Lion, but I didn’t find them all that exciting. There was a definite Rage-ish vibe, which I guess is unavoidable with Zac De La Roche being the frontman and seeming driving force behind the project, but with only a drummer and keyboard player on the stage with him, he struggled to fill the space the way RATM would have. The keys were going through Orange amps.
I was mildly disappointed not to be seeing Rob Zombie, although I could hear some of his set from where I was in the stand. Making up for it though was the fact that I could now see Queens Of The Stone Age. They played a great rock’n'roll set, Josh Homme is a great frontman and they had a cool stage set-up, which they filled with lots of energy. I saw a Gibson Les Paul and Homme was rocking a Gretsch, best I could tell. It was cool to hear Burn The Witch, The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret and of course, No One Knows. They had some minor sound issues, which is the second time that’s happened when I’ve seen them. I wonder if it’s something in their set-up?
Finally to the main event: Iron Maiden. I waited 20 years to see them, which I did in Auckland in early 2009 on the Somewhere Back In Time tour. I was pleased that I saw them then, because they played a classic setlist full of all the tracks I’d wanted to hear live. At Soundwave they were essentially touring their recently released The Final Frontier album, and the set list had a more recent flavour. They opened with the Satellite 15… The Final Frontier compound track from that album, with the Satellite 15 part playing over the opening video montage before the band burst onto the stage to fire into the Final Frontier part. They also played Coming Home, El Dorado, The Talisman and When The Wild Wind Blows from the album. They also played Dance of Death from the album of the same name, and Blood Brothers and Wicker Man from Brave New World. Blood Brothers was particularly poignant as they dedicated it to “our mates in New Zealand” in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, which happened the day they arrived in Melbourne. As such, they’d been dedicating that song each night.
They managed to throw in a bunch of classic faves as well: Two Minutes To Midnight, The Evil That Men Do, Running Free, The Number Of The Beast, The Trooper, Fear Of The Dark, Hallowed Be Thy Name and of course, Iron Maiden.
These guys are still amazing. There was a minor irritation for me in that it seemed like whenever Bruce Dickinson had the mic anywhere other than pressedup against his lips, his voice just dropped away. With someone as energetic on stage as Bruce, this was quite a bit!
Guitar-wise, they’ve mainly been strat guys, with Adrian branching into Explorers and superstrats, but on this tour those two are both rocking Les Pauls for a good chunk of the set as well as their more traditional axes. Janick though is sticking with his beaten up strat, which seems to fit with his personality.
This trip would have been worth it for Iron Maiden alone, so to see so many great bands and be introduced to some cool new ones was an awesome experience. Like a lot of festivals, the heat, crowd and cost of eating were all issues, but minor ones given the quality of the event, including the marshalling of people to keep things moving freely and the free water and crowd safety patrols with water sprayers. Consider me impressed.











