[kj] OT: Soundwave 2011

[Brendan]

Two of the undercards, Primus and The Melvins, stole the show for me. Both
bands that I'm going to investigate more, esp Primus, they blew me away.
Les really conjures the Jester character, with other unique tinges and a
hint of Zappa...nothing on the day was anything like them. Was great to
hear some music with a lot of space / nuance / groove in it after several
hours of solid metal noise to be honest. Whole crowd was enthralled, and
then they played a couple of classics inc My Name is Mud and got a great
response.

For some reason The Melvins weren't on either of the main stages, and only
got 50 mins . What a waste. But their set was brilliant, no one on the day
was tighter than the Melvins. I missed half of Iron Maiden to see them,
gladly. The bass player did a mock guitar smash at the end which was a
crack up.

Saw Rob Zombie play that big hit of his, whatever it was. Meh.

QOTSA were impressive as hell, Slash was great. Very strange to see him
play Guns N Roses classics without Axl however. But he really delivered,
played about 3 tracks off his solo album. (The few good ones on it...)

Iron Maiden were Iron Maiden. Never really understood the craze to be
honest. Not big into NWOBHM I suppose. Was nice to see they dedicated a
song, Blood Brothers, to Christchurch.

No Slayer or Kyuss Lives alas. I'm actually expecting more from Kyuss
Lives (in may) than QOTSA, just based on preference of their music and
style and Garcia's vox, then again private shows are generally better than
festivals.

All in all a pretty solid festival, worth it for Primus and the Melvins
alone.