Soundwave 2011 Blogs: The Gaslight Anthem

TGA drummer Benny Horowitz on Soundwave 2011 and screaming cockatoos as he revives his Rock Sound blog!

Posted Monday, 28 February 2011 by Benny Horowitz in

Blog

So here we are, back in the Pacific, after two and a half years and we couldn't be more pleased. Back at home the streets are covered in snow drifts and I wouldn't dare leave the house without boots. People here, are literally, barely dressed. Australia is very warm and very sunny, this counts for both it's weather and inhabitants. Except of course for Mel Gibson, but I don't think he lives here anymore.

We arrived a couple days early to try and have some leisure time and recover from jet lag before we played shows. It was a good idea, we saw a lot of what Brisbane had to offer, chasing lizards in the botanical gardens and then took a short drive out to the Koala sanctuary. It was brilliant. I didn't get my picture taken with a sleepy koala, and I immediately regret that decision. But, I fed a bunch of kangaroos, and I'm pretty sure a cockatoo yelled at me, that's something I guess.

First show of Soundwave festival was in Brisbane. There were six stages and a slew of bands. It's almost like adopting 400 rock and roll people into some sort of traveling summer camp. Our stage has a rotating line-up and a very diverse group of bands...everything from Social D, to New Found Glory, to Coheed and Cambria.

We played at three to a great crowd. It was our first proper show in three months and it went off very smoothly considering. A few hiccups, but, what the hell, it's a rock and roll show isn't it? WIth forty minutes to play we did our best in getting songs from all records and not angering the people. I didn't really get to watch any other bands because we had to split shortly after to catch a flight to Sydney.

We got a little sleep and headed right back to Soundwave for a 2.00pm show. Sydney was even better, we played a little tighter, had a great crowd again, and even played a new song, 'Biloxi Parish'. Always curious at how people dig new tunes, and it went over great, I'm happy. For the rest of the evening I saw some great sets by Gang of Four, Social Distortion and Iron Maiden before watching young emo and metal kids take liberal use of the "open bar". Dangerous.

Back downtown I searched with the Alex's for the always desired Turkish Pides of this area. We fell in love with those last trip, and needed to fill our fix. Then to bed, it's gonna be a much longer set tonight for our headlining show, and I wanna be fresh. I'll write again when we get to Melbourne.

Cheers,
Benny Gaslight

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