So where I last left you was hanging around in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in New South Wales. Now we’re hanging around in the middle of bumfuck Sydney in New South Wales. (That’s really kind of harsh, but I just don’t really like Sydney. Being, essentially, from Melbourne, I think it’s kind of expected of me, but Sydney’s kind of bleh, personally.)
The next morning was absolutely amazing for one reason in particular: breakfast. Oh my god. I am not a morning person, I am certainly not a breakfast person, but after nearly three days without real food I was actually starting to fantasize about a cooked breakfast. We went to this little café that we rocked up to when we saw Lagwagon in Sydney earlier on in the year and had massive bitchin breakfasts that kept us painfully full until… lunch. We were going to two Sidewave shows in Sydney, tonight’s was innerpartysystem/Less Than Jake/Bloodhound Gang. Weird fucking lineup. I figured it must have been an East Coast thing or something. That, or the Soundwave promoters suck. (More on this later.)
It was probably around 11am and there were already a couple chicks hanging out. For the Bloodhound Gang. We were freaked. Turns out they’d been there since 6. Seriously. And one of them, like, cried when they met the band at the signing tent the day before. Um… there’s nothing wrong with being that devoted to a band, but really, the BHG? I don’t get it, but, whatever. People from Sydney are kind of weird. I got a quick tour of the nicer parts of the city, some sushi and cupcakes (from two places right next to each other on Pitt St and pretty much the best things there) and trundled back, chatted to Daniel Carter (ex-A bassist, lovely man) for a bit, and then spent a while remembering why I didn’t like Sydney (mostly just down to idiot teenagers who think getting trashed on cruisers at 4pm is the most hardcore thing ever, et cetera ad nauseum.)
Boring boring boring waiting, oh hey it’s innerpartysystem! They played really, really well and it was great seeing them without hearing death metal doof-doof-doof-doof in the background. I freaking love this band. (I just realised I think I’m writing in a different tense to the previous article. Oh well. Roll with the punches.) They were not insanely received, sadly, but the lineup’s so weird that people there for LJT/BHG really didn’t understand it. Boo hiss. Less Than Jake made up for the slightly soured audience by far. I forgot how much I loved seeing LTJ. (Maybe because this was the first time since the start of Soundwave that I’d actually been able to see them.) BHG are pretty rad, again, Jared does a Jägermeister bong, holds it down, I’m not exactly impressed but more slightly fearful that he’s partially made of asbestos or something.
After the show was kind of hilarious, LTJ disappeared fast into the night but we got to meet Jesse, Jared and Kris from IPS (and watch Kris very drunkenly slide down a stair railing). They’re really sweet dudes. We fucked off back to our hotel, I got to have a shower, slept like the dead. Yay.
OMG FACE TO FACE TODAY, OMG was pretty much what ran through our minds for most of the day, because holy crap, Face To Face. (Although, technically ‘face to face’, they don’t capitalise. I’m not going to capitalise from here on in because I don’t like capitalisation either.) We rocked up a little early to see if there was anyone there already and… there were, and we were like, wow, and then we remembered it was in fact Billy Talent headlining. But most of the kids hanging out there were really nice people, a couple Californians and a girl from Melbourne were especially cool. We had sushi and cupcakes again (actually, I had katsu curry because they do amazing katsu curry at the Sakura on Pitt) and went for occasional strolls to pass the time. We got to say hey to Trever and Danny from f2f (f2f is an acceptable abbreviation) and oh my god I totally got a bro-hug from Trev, pretty much the manliest moment of my entire life right there. Apparently we were cool to the other kids for not freaking out in front of the band. I think it’s just really weird freaking out in front of the band. (I did have a bit of a squeal of joy later though.) Trev and their tour manager dude gave us tickets even though we had them, which was cool because one of our friends didn’t. They’re such nice guys. Man, all the bands I like are nice.
So Emery suck and their fans are all emo bogan douchebags. Just so you know. (Sorry if any of you actually like Emery. But they sucked.) face to face were kind of ridiculously good. Roger was absolutely owning, again. Wicked shit. However, then kicks in the bad voodoo again. I have anxiety (as I have written about before) and one of the triggers is, well, getting kicked in the head by crowdsurfers. And it kind of happened, again. I was out of it for nearly the entire time but I got told by my girlfriend that security was utter shit and I was left curled up on the stage side of the barrier for a good while before she got out and pulled me off to the side herself, they started to kind-of help when I was actually out of the way. Good going, guys. Nice to see your first aid skills are top notch. Blah.
We watched Billy Talent from up in the seats, I really hope BT don’t have epileptic fans because wow, strobe lights. I really want to like BT but maybe it’s just because I was in a shit mood from having an anxiety attack but I couldn’t get into them in the slightest, and I was really fucking angry at a dude that broke one of my friends glasses and was, I think, the dude that set off my attack. I don’t fucking like crowdsurfers. He had the misfortune of trying to surf over a dozen girls who let him drop to the ground and proceeded to kick the shit out of him though. This is what happens when you kick people in the head. They will kick you in the head right back given half the chance.
Afterwards, we waited around so one of our friends could meet BT (cue many jokes about what a nice boy Billy was from Naja and I, we’re great people)- she was staying in a hotel a block away from us with her dad, and he really wanted to go and get some sleep so we offered to hang around and chaperone her back to her hotel. BT are nice guys, stoked to have played with f2f, we ended up accidentally getting a picture with their drummer. Kind of awkward for us but not a bad night I guess. f2f had flown the coop like bats out of hell so we missed saying thanx which sucked, but eh, always a next time, we live for next times. We notoriously have bad luck at f2f shows so it wasn’t that big a deal.
next up- Melbourne Sidewave/Melbourne Soundwave/(R)adelaide Soundwave!