Soundwave Festival 2011

Written by Leah Chiera

30 Seconds to Mars playing at Soundwave Festival 2011. Photo by Sarah Male

You may picture a crowd of angry looking, black cladded and stereotype heavy metal or so called “emo” looking people attending this music festival, but the reality is, you wouldn’t even be half right.

Soundwave, highly recognised as a heavy metal, rock, punk, and even “emo” music event, attracts a vast audience of all ages and music lovers of specifically rock orientated genres. This nationwide music festival (sorry Northern Territory and Tasmania) has local, national and international artists that perform to thousands of people on eight different stages throughout one jam-packed caffeine-necessary day.

Headliners for this year included rock legends Iron Maiden and Queens of the Stone Age, with international heavy metal band Bullet For My Valentine and rock punk bands Murderdolls and 30 Seconds To Mars, just to name a few. The headliners were not the only highlights of the day, smaller and lesser-known artists such as We The Kings and Mayday Parade successfully held their own in the standout lineup.

Running in between acts, the top performances for me were Slash and one of my favourite bands, 30 Seconds To Mars. Slash, the legendary former guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, and his touring band sang both songs from his solo work and Guns N’ Roses hits such as Sweet Child of Mine and Paradise City, much to the enjoyment of the crowd. 30 Seconds To Mars performed next, and created one chaotic and aggressive mosh that a friend and I were lucky to survive. Despite struggling to keep afloat in the mosh, I was still able to enjoy their energised performance.

As with most music festivals, be prepared to have your feet trodden on (possibly from losing your shoes in one hectic mosh-pit), run into someone you know or just plain be run over by a drunken random, lose your friends and swear at the bad phone service that does not aid this issue, and lastly leave the event exhausted with hearing loss, bad tan lines and be a totally different colour to what you arrived, thanks to the great amount of sunlight and dirt exposure.

Residents of Bonython, you will hear us again next year.