You certainly know you’re down with the kids at No Sleep ‘Til festival, with roughly 50% of its attendees being angsty underagers. When you get past the swarms of attention seeking kids, it has all the makings of a great festival. With only two stages, you don’t run the risk of having any timetable clashes, and really get the chance to check out every band playing, and with a large overage drinking area, it isn’t too hard to get a little bit of adult time.
The first band this reviewer checked out was pop punk group Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. A punk supergroup playing all covers, while they do what they do well, you wonder that most local bands with similar efforts wouldn’t get past a Wednesday night residency at the local pub.
Meanwhile, on the other stage, A Day To Remember was just setting up for what was actually a fairly interesting set. Judging by the crowd, these guys are a definite favourite of the genre. A bit of a mixture of metalcore and pop punk, the contrast between their verses and choruses was pretty cool, and it was a definite surprise hearing singer Jeremy McKinnon so seamlessly switch between blood-curdling screams and a poppy/nasally singing voice.
It’s a bit hard to remember what exactly GWAR even sounded like, their on-stage antics are so entertaining you can easily lose track of the music. Certainly one of the most fun sets to watch, it was a bit of a guilty pleasure seeing the audience being doused in blood and vomit, as a headless man convulsed on stage like a rabid dog. The Lady GaGa of their genre, this band proves that even if their sound isn’t for everyone, the onstage antics are wildly entertaining.
Dropkick Murphys were a nice change of pace after the seemingly neverending heavy metal of GWAR. Celtic punk tunes got the crowd up and dancing to their impressive array of instruments, including bagpipes, accordion and banjo. They finished off with AFL theme ‘I’m Shipping Up To Boston’, which saw thousands of people running to the stage to join in the crowd.
Parkway Drive are what you would call a really good metalcore band. It’s no doubt that these guys truly love what they’re doing, and it’s nice to see an Australian band achieve such success. They really got the crowd going, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they’re probably one of the best bands of the genre out there today. What is really likeable about these guys is that they don’t try too hard to be part of the ‘scene’ – they don’t have ridiculous piercings, stupid looking hair, and they don’t continue to scream and swear at the audience in between songs. Anthem ‘Carrion’ saw the end of their set and seemed to draw in bigger crowds than either of the headliners.
Back at the punk stage, NOFX were just settling into their set, their ska-influenced skate punk providing another welcome contrast from the metal in the previous set. They come across as really nice guys, chatting to the audience in between songs, and to say that the audience was getting in to it would be an underestimate.
Having both headliners play at the same time made it tricky for those who wanted to see them both, but having the stages so close together, it wasn’t too hard to dash madly between the two. Megadeth’s performance of the classic Rust In Peace was going to be an inevitable highlight, with the screeching guitars and manic vocals of the 20 year old classic delivering a lesson to the crowd in how to rawk!. The diehard fans and headbangers alike at the front of the mosh were definitely getting into it, although curiously the majority of the crowd weren’t raising their devil’s horns aloft. Possibly it’s because the majority of the crowd weren’t even born when the seminal record came out.
Punk rock icons The Descendants gathered a very different audience at the other stage. Again a band that has been around longer than most of the crowd, a lot of the younger people in the audience started be going home at this point, missing the opportunity to see an epic set from one of the most important punk bands of all time. Having a fairly inconspicuous stage set up, they let their music speak for them. Their up-tempo music and singer Milo Aukerman’s intense vocals were an awesome way to end the night.
All in all No Sleep Til is a great festival. It was extremely well run and went smoothly from start to finish. Pulling some big names in both the punk and metal genres, it will be very interesting to see the lineup they come up with next year, and fans will no doubt be hanging out for next year’s event.
– Ella Jackson
Photo galleries from No Sleep Til
Megadeth at No Sleep Til in Melbourne
Descendents at No Sleep Til Melbourne
