Overcranked Festival @ RNAShowgrounds, Brisbane(18/03/06)

Wed 22nd Mar, 2006 in Gig Reviews

Before I start this review, I have to say – I wear black purely for slimming reasons, Queen Street mall is not my regular hang-out, I listen to Dolly Parton and when I hear the word “bloodduster” I don’t put my hands in the air and scream… I wonder what the hell the band was thinking? Although approaching this festival I wanted to do the metal fans some justice as best I could.

I started my day off with a blast of distorted screaming in a gigantic tin room. My little sister’s dream had come true as I ran outside to roll a cigarette. The bands outside seemed to get a lot better deal when it came to sound tech. Crisis Therapy was playing, ruled by a bald fat man screaming something, I don’t know what it was, but I know he was angry. Crisis Therapy had very good musical dynamics and seemed to be a very tight band.

On a more “emo” side of the festival, Avalon Drive occupied the tin house next. Dressed in lots of colour, they like to use the space given to them. Swinging their guitars everywhere, I like to refer to it as “interpretive guitar playing,” Avalon Drive are very good at it. AD’s lead singer has a strong voice, but tends to get a little whiney at times. Little boy with “emo sucks” t-shirt walks in, as I walk out.

Wish For Wings comes storming onto the stage like they own the joint and aren’t they popular. They blast on out into the audience, making some 800 fans present roar into a mosh-pit circle of emo-metal fun and games. Black hair here and Slayer t-shirt there now cut to Giants of Science. Seems the band before them were tearing their hair out and screaming “DIE!” Ben Salter has never looked so meek. Never they mind, on they are with their half covers and half originals set. Giant’s cover of Sisters is a great re-arrangement of the Aretha Franklin classic. They rock as hard as they can, but they definitely are the black sheep of the festival. Live relief for me though.

The Disables hop up later on and these boys are true, “we hate you! We’re gonna shout it out loud! Punch your best mate in the face” punk-rock. Reminiscing the Sex Pistols and with a lead singer that prides himself on looking like Leonardo DiCaprio. They play a solid punk set and one of my favourites of the day. Behind Crimson Eyes pop up for a visit from Melbourne. In a recent interview they claimed their sound has changed significantly since the departure of their old drummer and in with a new. I saw this band last October, and I can’t tell a real significant sound alteration. Maybe a true fan could, and they weren’t short of fans crowding around to catch a glimpse of them. They told me to go and see IKTPQ [I Killed The Prom Queen, if you didn’t catch on], so I totally did that.

Now this IKTPQ were the cherry on top of a delicious mud, beer and deep fried sausage cake. What seemed like six members occupying the stage, at times two singing [by singing I mean yelling obscenities at the devil]. They packed out the tin house shed and did emo-metal proud. Just in case you don’t know how emo-metal goes down; Scream, bang, bang, distortion, bang, scream. After 10 hours at this festival I’m an expert on the shit.

So to round off the entire day we’ll say it was a complete cock forest [not one chick on any of the stages I looked at], screaming and distortion plus a lot of black hair dye. Would you really want the Overcranked festival to be any other way? What a day!