Soundwave - Part II - The Battle
by
, 03-01-12 at 08:42 PM (291 Views)
|
So after an exhaustingly long trip which had taken a day and a half and further waiting time to get in (Which was made more entertaining when a couple of people got busted for carrying drugs) and we had made it past the clearance checks and all, we had finally entered Olympic Park and the Soundwave festival.
I mentioned before that Dean missed out on half of Chimaira's set and he was devastated because they played his favourite songs while he was waiting in line for a bag search. Now me and Josh laughed at him, but i had to eat humble pie when I missed out on The Black Dahlia Murder while waiting in line for the ATM. My only consolation was seeing Haruhi's smiling face on some guys back.
Anyway when we got back and met up once more Times of Grace were on the stage. Aside from some awkward stage banter they were actually pretty good. Now, while we were standing around, studying the timetable and the map, something strange happened. This festival had rides listed on the map. We looked around confused and noticed a retarded monument that looked like...Well...
"Is that one of the rides? Looks like anal beads." Dean said. The strange thing was when a silver-haired guy walking past just froze in his tracks, turned back around and grinned, "Anal beads?" We pointed to the monument and he laughed, then shook our hands and...Well we made a friend out of anal beads. Weird huh?
Anyway we made our way down to the front of an abandoned stage to await Gojira. We stole a perfect spot in the front row and god damn, they were intense! Their riffs were literally crushing and I swear I my insides were turned to pulp from the bass which not only made my skeleton try and leap out of my skin, but made the entire stage tremble as well. After their mighty performance just as the cheering was at it's loudest Dean just had to yell, "You can have me!" at which point the entire crowd had fallen silent. The awkwardness was just too hilarious to even try to describe, especially when as the stares got all too much Dean just shrugged and replied with, "Just sayin..."
So the day was going well, my neck was still fine despite the workout it was getting from so much heavy f***ing metal, but the day had barely even begun and so we headed over to a cramped little hall where Heaven Shall Burn were playing. Inside this cramped, sweaty little room were originally just little indie bands, in fact the line-up for that particular stage was almost entirely indie stuff. That made it all the more hilarious when the indie kids with pink shirts and surfwear were suddenly blindisded by the furious musical assault of Heaven Shall Burn.
As they took to the stage the metalheads in the crowd parted to create room for a wall of death while the indie kids just stood around in the middle of it dazed and confused. They were looking around with no bloody clue what was going on. Then, it began.
Watching them running for their lives, actually fleeing in terror with tears in their eyes made it all just so much better. And so the indie kids were cleared out in an instant paving room for a steady swarm of metalheads to sieze the hall for a solid half hour of unrelenting fury.
By the end of their set it was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and none of had eaten anything all day so we decided to get something to eat, serenaded by Shadows Fall and Messhugah. Things then become less anecdote-worthy as we went and bought some merch and food and stuff so I might as well cut it off here.
And so the first half of the day was past, however the battle was far from over...