[Live Review] GOOD THINGS (Sydney)

Centennial Park, Sydney
Saturday 7 December 2019

Reviewer : Grant Ottley
Photographer : David Youdell

The Good Things Festival for 2019 sees the Sydney show moving from Parramatta to Centennial Park in the City’s Eastern suburbs. Though it’s a fairly substantial trek from any sort of public transport, the site was top notch, spacious enough to avoid any sort of crush, and well appointed as far as bar food & toilet amenities. Although as we all know, the food often gets a bit scarce, dust and / or Mud more plentiful, and the toilets ALWAYS get a bit scary later in the day… Festival Fact!

So the first band I catch upon my arrival was The Veronicas. Taking time out from filming their (always inevitable) reality TV show, the Origliasso twins return to their ‘day job’. It was always going to fairly interesting booking decision, but throwing the crowd a few bones in the form of a Blink 182 cover, seemed to help the ladies go over quite well, as did a run through of the 1996 Tracy Bonham song ‘Mother Mother’, its bellowed chorus a fairly obvious nod to some of the metal core acts to follow. Speaking of which, apparently there was a facebook petition to start a ‘Wall of Death’ at some point in the Veronica’s set, which duly transpired during the last song ‘Untouched’. Some of the press that’s come out since, like “Veronicas gig turns into chaos” is funny given that the Veronicas T-shirts had “I survived the wall of death” across the back.

Skegss’ cartoon surf / garage rock went down a treat with the punters, they managed to give the impression that instead of playing on a big stage at a huge festival, they were playing in someone’s backyard back home in Byron. The hooky pop punk, chirpy chatter and cartoon graphics on the big screens casting a sunbeam through the smoky haze.

After the sun came the Storm, Trivium hit the stage and were immense. Kicking off with ‘Sin and the Sentence’ from the recent album of he same name, they didn’t let up for the whole of their allotted hour. Highlights being ‘Like Light To The Flies’, ‘Until The World Goes Cold’ & ‘Down From The Sky’ and finishing with ‘In Waves’, but the whole set was stellar. There was a point where these guys were anointed the next “heavyweight champions” in the Metal world. If they continue delivering like this, there wont be any contest.

Bad Religion come onstage to Sham 69’s ‘The Kids Are United’, and proceed to run through a ‘greatest hits’ set that drew from the 1982 debut to this year’s release. They remind the younger members of the crowd just who was doing it long before some of the later bands were even thought of.

Simple Plan who were up next gave them a tip of the hat during their set. The Montreal natives bounced through a set of their unmistakable pop punk. It’s pretty amazing that these guys have been around for 20 years, yet still look & sound like they’re 20 years old…

I wander off the main stage area to check out stages 3 & 4 in time to catch Falling in Reverse singer Ronnie Radke engaged in a diatribe directed at the sound man which went on for quite some time. They finished off sounding quite good, but given that they only had 45 minutes, it struck me as fairly self-indulgent. “Your favourite Western Sydney Scumbags” Thy Art is Murder were on next, and no mucking about from the Blacktown boys! Good friendly violent fun all round.

I wander back to the main stage area to catch Violent Soho. These guys are flavour of the moment right now locally, the closest thing that Australia have to a genuinely big mainstream Grungy Rock band. Plugs in SMH and all the local press this week. But while they have a sizable following here tonight, I can’t help thinking that they lack that killer punch that comes with a top notch international act. They’re fine, but that feeling of “Top that!” when they’re finished seems to be missing.

It took me a while to ‘get’ what A Day To Remember were about, their mix of pop-punk & metalcore seemed to jar at first, but the energy that they put into their set brought me around. The Florida natives showed what energy, professionalism, and years of touring the world can bring. To see these guys live definitely wins plenty over to their side.

It was clear that Parkway Drive were here tonight to make a point. From the footage of the band being led to the stage by torch bearing monks , to when they arrived onstage with Winston McCall’s spoken word intro to ‘Wishing Wells’, and into the rest of the set. Parkway Drive are all but ignored by the Australian mainstream press & music industry, but to be honest, it makes no difference to them, nor the masses of fans. If the ‘Quiet Australians’ can’t cope with heavy music, it’s THEIR problem! This band understand staging & spectacle like no other band in this country, and not many others abroad, the light show was likely setting off epileptic fits in Bondi. ‘Carrion’ shook the ground, and ‘Vice Grip’ raised a cloud of dust over Centennial Park that probably hasn’t settled. Anyone that doubted that these guys could not headline a festival here (after playing to 80,000 in the UK) is shuffling quietly to the gate about now.

All went dark after ‘Wild Wyes’ & its massive circle pit, and we wondered, after all the spectacle, was that it? Ah no, spotlight on Drummer Ben Gordon & his own Tommy Lee moment when his Kit started spinning in its frame, but then went a step further when it burst into flames! This heralded ‘Crushed’ and it seemed that the entire stage then caught fire. Good Things lost their collective minds.