Maiden Australian Tour.

Maiden's Melb Soundwave performance last night absolutely smoked their show last week. Probably due to the crowd being more enthusiastic and the sound being a little tighter, but there was certainly an atmosphere that their side show lacked. Seems a bit backwards really...
 
Yeah it was fantastic. The Maiden show was brilliant. I also thought there was a lot more atmosphere. I got within 5m of the front and was surrounded by people who new all their stuff. 'twas great fun. Last week Bruce was obviously very much looking forward to Soundwave and he enjoyed himself last night.

I got there for the last couple of songs of The Sword, which sounded pretty good, before heading over to the main stage to see Monster Magnet. They were good, and Dave Weindorf has put on a bit of weight since the 1990s. I just googled images of him, and blimey he's put on more weight than I thought!

I then headed back to the metal stage, but caught a few Bullet For My Valentine songs on the way over. I don't quite get them. Are they a metal band or a pop band? Anyway on to DevilDriver it was, who were good but suffered from bad sound. I couldn't hear much in the way of guitars, with the wind not helping. They're an entertaining band though, and are what a band like BFMV should be like. I'm not sure why Dez has facial tatts, but hey it's his life and he doesn't have to work as a public servant like I do. Far out, I just found this image. He's covered in them: http://www.moratphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Dez_07.jpg

Then saw All That Remains, who were pretty good but annoyed me whenever they strayed into clean vocals. Why do so many bands do that now? It works for Fear Factory and a few others, but mostly pisses me off.

I'd been looking forward to Dimmu Borgir, but technical problems meant that their set was delayed by 20 minutes or so, which is not great at a festival. That meant that they only played for 25 minutes, which was disappointing. They said they're looking at touring next year though.

High on Fire were up next. I'd not heard them before, which shows my ignorance, but they were like a rocky Entombed. Sludgy heaviness. After that I saw most of the Murderdolls' set. They were pretty entertaining, but the songs didn't seem interesting and varied enough to be enjoyable for a lengthy show. Towards the end of them I moved back to the main stage to see Slash, along with half a million other people. I started off a fair way off, and felt rather detached as a result, but managed to make my way a fair way forward. It was a fun show, with Myles really seeming to enjoy himself. It's a pretty good gig he's got.

Unfortunately Slash clashed with Slayer, which meant that I missed half of the latter. That was rather disappointing, for Slayer were in good form. The best bit was seeing a middle aged guy and his 12 year old son go nuts when Raining Blood kicked in.

The Slayer crowd up and left upon completion of their set, which left a much smaller crowd to watch Kylesa, who were really good. It was weird/interesting seeing two drummers playing together like that. The girl in the band had a Meanies t-shirt on, which was cool. Anyway, they impressed me.

After that I saw half of Rob Zombie's set, which was really cool. I'd like to see one of his side shows one day. Great stage show, as you'd expect. I left half way through though so I could get a good spot for Maiden, seeing a couple of Queens of the Stone Age songs from afar. They sounded good actually.

So yeah, Maiden. They were great. No need to say which songs they played! Now I just hope they come back on a 7th Son era tour.
 
I saw exactly the same bands as you Winmar, from Dimmu on. Checked out Sevendust first up, they were great but the mix was a little bottom heavy, something a lot of bands on the day suffered from in my opinion. Maiden's crew got it exactly right - punchy and powerful but retaining all the definition as well. I'm guessing they have so much experience working festival PA systems around the world they could get a great sound in their sleep. It was awesome, really matched and enhanced the on stage energy and flawless performances. I took a bunch of photos but the Maiden guys move around so much and so often it was tricky getting decent shots! I was about 10-15 rows back on the side of the barrier, very good view and surprisingly not too crowded.

I wasn't even planning on going originally, but I am very happy I did, one of the best days I've had at a festival and so many great bands :D
 
Amazing show last night. Bruce nailed anything and everything.

A few people enjoyed my mates videos from Hisense, so here's 4 more we grabbed from Adelaide Soundwave:

Winmar, you did bloody well to catch half of Zombie and still get so close to the stage. Would have liked to have done the same thing, but couldn't risk it so sat through 1/2 of the Lion King, and QOTSA. In the end it was probably a waste of time as we got thrown back a few metres, but at least it was better for filming!

WTWWB:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3xgIAlXr84&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

Fear Of The Dark:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrQcNNE1lB0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

Dance of Death:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf-KA8cfNoQ&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

Hallowed Be Thy Name:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z7Vbu4dV4U&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]
 
Adelaide Soundwave was fantastic and my first ever festival experience. 27 degrees was our estimated temperature but I gotta say it was hot in the sun, I would've have struggled to enjoy it if it was any hotter. I went armed with sunscreen but neglected my hairline on top which is now rather raw, my best laid plan of taking a bandana was dashed after a merciless week at work and 5 year lad who was far from his best behaviour on the morning of the fest. Jammed some pizza down my throat at 11am then dashed out the door, slammed a few beers down at a mates place and was at the park by about 1.15pm. When we arrived we checked out maps & timetables & saw Dickinsons son was about to go onstage so we headed to the closest beer tent but were refused entry due to lack of wrist band. A little nervous started to creep through my mind as I had no valid photo ID due to losing my wallet two weeks prior but showing my temp license satisfied the security guy and a wrist band was slapped on :) Off to the beer tent!

With the wrist band tent being far from Bruce's sons stage it was now a case of knocking back a few in shade inside the secure area. Could see Monster Magnet on the big screen & then Pimple for My Valentine, finally ventured out to check out Primus a bit closer, then it was off to the other side of the park to see Dimmu Borgir who were pretty kick ass; opening with Spellbound was always gonna be a good idea! By this time I had progressed from beers to vodka and very soon after Slayer was ripping my head with a brutal assault fronted with Araya's voice at the height of his game, resulting in him hitting the scream for Angel of Death flawlessly, incredible at his age! I got right up the cusp of the circle pit & was banging away but ended up on my back when the pit when nuts! Thanks to whoever the cool people were who picked me up. Black Magic & Postmortem were my highlights and Americon the lowlight.

Soon Rob Zombie was on stage and on fire and I was saddened to have to ditch him to gain a good vantage point for Maiden, as it turned out I couldn’t gain access to the front rows/D-pit and ended up a few heads behind the second barrier. The sun went down and Maiden went off, loved the set but my neck couldn’t make the distance after the work out it got during Slayer. By the time of the encore I had lost a lot of enthusiasm and become very thirsty after singing as many lyrics as possible. When the Wind Blows & Blood Brothers were my favs. Poor judgement on my part marred a good day/night by not eating all day and soon my head was pounding when we hit the next hotel, starting a chain of events in the final hours that threatened to ruin a great day and come to conclude with me wandering around aimlessly in the city trying to get home after bailing on my mates to find food.

Maiden's WickerMan shirt design is amazing but they had no Mediums in anything which sucked & apart from a few minor issues I'd say the promoters did a pretty good job but I don't know how they can top this SWave artist wise next year.
 
Yeah, Blitz, thats about the only thing that can top it. Metal wise this, I cant see how they can top this bill at all...
 
Translated means I dont think they can top this as a metal show but I guess that was never what Soundwave was honestly about...
 
I wondered how they were going to get close to matching Faith No More last year and Maiden this year. Soundgarden would be a good start....
 
i can't think of ANYONE big enough.

Faith No More is a pretty massive semi-mainstream band who were on a reunion tour... Maiden is Maiden...

You've really only got Metallica *vomit* who are on that level of popularity unless I'm forgetting something obvious? Maybe Ozzy I guess...