Rock On!!

Colleen and I are old, we have both decided. We went to the Big Day Out Sideshowarama featuring Rise Against, The Butterfly Effect, and headliner System of A Down.

First, VB sucks ass. I don't care who tells me otherwise, Victoria Bitter beer sucks ass. That's definitely the Pabst Blue Ribbon of Australia. It is made by Fosters Brewing Company (Fosters, Australian for tourist) and is far more prevalent in Australia than the better known brand in the US. Anyway, that was all the venue served for beer, and Colleen and I managed to consume our fair share of it. The second thing was the notion of General Admission versus Reserve Seating. The price was the same, so I assumed General Admission would be the better choice. What I learned was that meant we'd be standing on the floor the whole damned time. UGH! At least we managed to avoid the mosh pit. :-) So, with a cheap beer buzz in hand, we settled in to watch the show.

Rise Against. I swear I have heard that name before. I really want to say they were one of the bands on the Osbourne reality show battle for Ozzfest, but so many of those bands sucked, I can't remember them all. Rise Against, however, showed a glimmer of promise. There were a couple of tunes that Colleen and I enjoyed, and they are definitely worth a further listen. Of course, like so many disaffected youth bands, they had some tirade against Bush, which was met with a chorus of cheers and profanity against the current administration. I'll leave the politics alone, I just found it an amazingly cheap pop, and it reminded me of the things Pro Wrasslers do to get the crowd pumped up.

The Butterfly Effect. Derivative, that's the best word for it. I was reminded of Korn, though without any of the real talent. A 7 string drop tuned bass, breathy soulful lyrics, and frenetic guitars. All that was really missing was a bagpipe, and a strained "ARE YOU READY?" They have a shot, I suppose, but I somehow doubt it. They needed something else. They were a Melbourne local band, and still didn't even have the Melbourne audience captured. That tells me they are likely going to be unable to get beyond the local club scene, and "Guests" on tickets across the country. Maybe I am being hard, but I call 'em like I see 'em.

System of a Down definitely didn't disappoint. It was everything I had hoped for from them. They were tight, and well engineered. The music fllowed from one tune to another, and they didn't spend a lot of time trying to play up to the audience. The set was crisp. I have to be honest, though, it ended rather abruptly. I am not sure, but I think there are some noise ordinances that the venue forced upon the bands, because there weren't even any encores, and no indication that the show was going to end until they brought up the house lights, and opened the doors. Even then, I thought surely there would be one encore, but then the roadies started disassembling the stage, and I knew it was time to wrap it up.

Colleen and I got our T-shirts. No telling if we will be able to wear them again, once they are washed. They were tight to begin with, and that means any shrinkage will limit their wear to lounging around the house. Still, it was awesome, because the shirts only had tour dates for Australia on them. No chance of confusing where we saw them play. :-)

I'd like to also thank Rock and Roll for bringing us to meet two Aussies, one from Perth, the other from Brisbane. Two brothers that came to Melbourne to see the concert, and we met in the beer line. They were very nice, and for some odd reason, like all Aussies, they loved our accents. :-) I don't remember either name, of course, but they were both very cool guys. They offered to let us follow them to party all night in St. Kilda, but we were both tired, broke, and hungry. So, we simply turned left when they turned right at one intersection, and we never saw them again. Sorry guys!!

It's Colleen! Wow! We're a lot older than we act! That concert put the hurting on our ears and bodies. That VB beer was the absolute kicker of the night. It left us with some serious hangovers the next day. The concert was great. Rise against was loud, but good. We've decided to purchase a cd when we get back(since we think they screamed that they were from Chicago)! System of a Down was awesome, with my only complaint being they weren't on long enough! Cut some time from Butterfly Effect-they sucked!! Oh, and I did smoke half a fag(cigarette) and wanted lots more! The guy that we met graciously shared half of his next to last fag with me! G'Day!!!

Well, Colleen has added her part, and that means I am going to sign off again. We're on our way to try our hand at driving today, and that should make for some interesting stuff. :-)

Cheers