There’s heat, ludicrous heat, and evil heat.
On a baking hot day that will live long in the memories for everyone who experienced it, Brisbane turned it up for the third and final leg of Good Things Festival 2024.
From the opening mainstage act, Britain’s Loathe, a group this year celebrating its 10th anniversary, the mercury was cranked. Frontman Kadeem France paid thanks to the crowd, shared the love, and reminded us that it was just their second visit to the land Down Under.
France corralled the first of the day’s many circle pits and warmed up the crowd with a round of waving. No one needed warming up; the mercury at RNA Showgrounds was already north of 36-degrees celsius, in the shade.
Bowling for Soup rolled out on stage one. Their frontman Jaret Reddick, hoarse and clearly under the weather, confidently informed the heaving early crowd that, yes, the Texas rockers are the “greatest band that ever lived.” Reddick and Bowling for Soup never take themselves too seriously, proof of which came when the audience got rickrolled midway through the set.
Veteran US rockers 311 powered through the heat. Frontman Nick Hexum, in his tighty whitie singlet and, at 54, looking healthier than most gym-rats, informed the gathered masses that they were catching the band’s first tour of these parts in 26 years.
Homegrown festival heavyweights The Living End and Northlane took turns delivering the goods from stages 1 and 2, respectively. “Holy fuck, that’s a lot of people,” Northlane guitarist Josh Smith roared as the heavy-as-a-hill specialists hit ‘Bloodline’. He wasn’t wrong. More than 33,000 were expected to fill out the grounds on Sunday, December 8th. Many arrived on site early.
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Mastodon is a highlight everywhere, every time they play. Good Things Festival 2024 was no different, as guitarist and vocalist Brent Hinds and his band of road-toughened rock beasts punished the stadium’s speakers with “Black Tongue”, “Megalodon”, “Blood and Thunder”, and more. If you weren’t already a fan, you were by the time the next act plugged in.
A spot survey of licensed t-shirts in the crowd would have headliners Korn at No. 1, followed by Mastodon, and Violent Soho, the much-loved Brisbane band on indefinite hiatus – and definitely not on the bill.
Jet landed on stage 2 for a late afternoon set, the 2023 ARIA Hall of Fame inductees blazing through their hits, including “Look What You’ve Done”, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”, and “Cold Hard Bitch”. A year on from the 20th anniversary tour for Get Born, Jet doesn’t muck about with on-stage chitter chat or shout-outs.
Violent Femmes also don’t muck about. In the sunset slot, the US folk punk band opened with “Blister in the Sun”, their signature song which has managed somehow to stay relevant at house parties for multiple generations. The Femmes too has a strong Aussie connection: bass player Brian Richie has called Tasmania home for 16 years, where he has served as Artistic Musical Director at MONA and the MONA FOMA festival, which, earlier this year, called time.
Festival organisers perpetually live in The Twilight Zone. When you least expect it, expect it. This year’s nightmare was the late cancellation of Sum 41, whose frontman Deryck Whibley was unable to play due to pneumonia. Aussie fans missed out back in 2011, too, when Sum 41 scrapped their spot on the now-defunct Soundwave music festival tour when Whibley was hospitalised, also with pneumonia. The head of touring for Good Things fest was the general manager of Soundwave all those years ago, hosted in the same venue. The Twilight Zone indeed.
Where one door closed, another opened for Germany’s Electric Callboy, who took the Sum 41 spot. The rave-rock act also took Sum 41’s drummer Frank Zummo, when their own drummer David Friedrich fell sick. Zummo apparently learned the entire set in a few hours.
Electric Callboy proved that Germans do have a funny bone by parading a series of silly wigs, including some fresh mullets, and donned ‘Ratatata’-era disco-ball helmets. The Europeans had bounce in their step and rave in their hearts (and emblazoned on their chests), as confetti cannons sprayed the moshpit.
“This is our third time in Australia,” co-frontman Sebastian Biesler remarked. “Playing this stadium is a dream come true for us.” The Germans, one of the chattiest acts of the day, would “love to come back with new music and new production.”
Queenslanders know something about balance. The hotter the day, the fiercer the storm that follows. A storm warning lit up the big screens, and threatening skies to the west suggested the pyrotechnics wouldn’t be limited to the Good Things stage.
When Korn took the stage at 8.30pm, a loud, blistering hot day reached its crescendo.
“It’s a very special night. Celebrating 30 fucken years,” blurted Jonathan Davis in his all-red Korn tracksuit and matching red mic. Korn were last here to play Download festival in 2018. The singer even apologised for the long wait.
The niceties out of the way, Korn would punch through 90 minutes of heavy music medicine. All these years later having “this many people stick around to listen to you,” he announced, well, it’s a good thing.
Introducing “Blind”, Davis suggested that “most of you kids weren’t fucking born when this song came out.” Maybe not. “Blind” arrived in 1994. Korn ripped out a few rounds of Metallica’s “One”, released back in 1988, a song every other fan in the audience seemed to know the lyrics to.
Somehow the storms missed the festival. Some luck from above. And Korn left their biggest number to the very last, “Freak on a Leash”. Luck for everyone on site.
An absent headliner and brutal conditions couldn’t mute Good Things, which launched in 2018 and is now tattooed to the early summer calendar. Other performers included Billy Corgan, Kerry King, LZ and Dragon. Independent concert promoter Destroy All Lines produced the tour, with ticketing by Oztix.
See Tone Deaf’s exclusive photos from the Sydney leg of Good Things Festival 2024.
