necrosis

Soundwave was amazing. This was compounded further by the fact that I was able to get a free ticket hours before the festival from none other than Poison the Well, but maybe I should rewind a little bit here.

I interviewed Chris from Poison the Well for the magazine, it ended up being in the lobby of the hotel where I can only guess a large amount of the bands were staying - an easy conclusion to come to when the majority of people are either carrying gear (roadies), heavily tattooed (musicians), or fixing their hair (Silverstein). While sitting in this immaculately clean and decorated lobby in an ill-fitting To The North shirt I did the interview, which went great, and had a decent chat about Versions and the recent 7" singles with the dude as well. After Chris and I finished up, Ryan, also of Poison the Well comes up with none other than Greg Puciato. They all talk for a while, then Chris and Greg take off, leaving me with Ryan and we start talking, it was something like this:

Ryan: How was the interview? Chris can be pretty quiet.
Me: Yeah, he was reserved to begin with but opened up a bit later. He's quiet, but still a nice guy.
Ryan: Hey are you coming today?
Me: No, would love to but the magazine's got someone else covering it and I can't afford it.
Ryan: Do you want a ticket?
Me: Um, are you serious?
Ryan: Yeah - gimme a few minutes, we've got tickets in the hotel room, wait here.

And a few minutes later I had my ticket. The show itself was great: Jaguar Love put on an unexpectedly entertaining show seeing as the band consisted of the two ex-Blood Brothers dudes (I later came to the realisation that Johnny Whitney is Cedric Bixler's female doppleganger) and a keyboard, Poison the Well were amazing and played PURPLE FUCKING SABBATH, two or three Versions tracks and some mawsh-tastic early stuff that was fun as hell, Dillinger Escape Plan were brilliant as always and are still one of the best live bands on earth, and HORSE the band could power a small city with their energy and between-song gibberish.

And now for the flops: In Flames played ONE sweet song (The Hive, off Whoracle), Alkaline Trio were boretastic for the short time I saw them, Nine Inch Nails are the complete opposite of HORSE the Band despite the fact that the energy for a small city went into powering their bullshit light show and smoke machines, and Say Anything made me want to punch things because their music rules but their lyrics and the singer's preening mannerisms suck. Still, the good vastly outweighed the bad.

Friday night I went to a screening of John Carpenter's Halloween at the Gallery of Modern Art. The 35mm print of Halloween was sourced from a private collection in the US and was made in 1979; grainy as hell and with a bit of discolouration and it only added to the effect, it easily eclipsed the first time I saw the film. I urge all my Brisbane friends to take a look at the program they're running: Be Afraid: Fear in North American Cinema. It's running until March 22nd and it's full of screenings of horror classics, usually on their original 35mm film. I'm definitely going back to sample more classics in their natural habitat sooner rather than later.

Saturday was spent working in the morning and then going to New Farm Park to celebrate a birthday - had lots of fun meeting people and getting to know some others better. I think the days of me clutching to the familiar safety of social hermitude are coming to an end.

If you're so inclined, click the spoiler to read an updated mission statement/stream of consciousness.

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