Posted Sunday, 26 February 2012 // by Virenne
So to those of you who really know me, I've always been a metal/gothic/rock person. I listen to almost any genre of music actually, but my most favourite singers or bands are always either metal, gothic, or rock. Legend has it that my epic taste of music came directly from my own mom, who I believe would leave my dad for Bon Jovi (just saying) as she has always been a huge, HUGE fan of the band. She also listens to Guns 'n Roses, that sort of stuff. Ever since I was a kid, I would love to play with my brother's cassettes (yes, I'm a 90s kid, I still play with cassettes), which included his collection of Iron Maiden...and I couldn't remember the rest of his collection. Anyways, my whole life has been totally rocking.
If you know Jakarta, we don't get that many rockers to hold a live concert there. Apparently the number of metal and rock lovers is too little to attract the rockstars. As I moved to Brisbane, one of the most exciting thing I've always been waiting for is: Soundwave Festival. The lineup has always been amazing, and this year especially is very special because Slipknot, System of A Down, Lamb of God, Marilyn Manson, and lots others are playing. Knowing that this event would be huge, I bought the ticket in November last year! Later on, I spent a couple of days to convince my housemate, Mel, to come with me as we have almost the same taste in music. And she's a huge fan of Lamb of God. She finally bought the ticket, and helped me convince my roommate, Carol. Carol decided to buy the ticket the next day just after Mel bought the ticket. Surprise, surprise, it was sold out already. Mel was way beyond lucky and Carol was way beyond unlucky.
Three months passed since I bought the ticket, and finally, TODAY WAS THE DAY. The day Mel and I would see these awesome bands live. However, the festival itself started at around 11 am, but Mel and I decided to go there at 3 pm because that is when the bands we wanted to see started to perform. First band up, Underoath. We know them, but we're not that big of fan. We decided to check them out anyway. They were pretty late, like around 15 minutes, so they end up only singing like 3 songs, but it was fun and their stage performance was great. After that we went to the shops before going to the other stage to see Trivium.
When we were about to see Trivium, we went to the arena in front of the stage, and since we were so excited and still full of energy, we both just kept moving forward, closer to the stage, until at one point we realised that we were the only girls in that part of the arena. We just looked at each other and not long after that, when Trivium showed up, we got pushed by people from the back to form the mosh pit. We were literally thrown back and forth in between those huge Caucasian guys. We're Asians (even though Mel is half and half), we felt so petite compared to these huge guys, so we decided to go a little bit to the side to avoid the mosh pit. It turns out the mosh pit ended up just next to where we stood. This was our very first close-up mosh pit experience, so we were scared yet excited too.
I've always thought moshing is very violent and chaotic, however, after seeing the moshing in real life, it seemed...fun. It looked like a child's play for grown adults, just men pushing their bodies to other men. I still wouldn't think about joining them in the mosh pit, though. During Trivium's performance, lots of people entered and exited the arena, so when Mel and I were listening to Trivium's live performance, there were this group of three guys walking past me trying to exit the arena and one of them actually stopped, looked at me, touched my shoulder, gave me that proud look, and said, "I. Love. Your red hair." And he actually said it with periods in between his words. And he said it three times. I was very surprised I didn't know what to reply, I just gave him a smile with a slightly awkward "thank you".
Now, I still have lots of stories to tell, but I'll save it for tomorrow because it is 3 am now and I really need to sleep. Please stay tuned for the second part of the story!!!
Labels: australia, brisbane, concert, festival, heavy metal, lamb of god, live, marilyn manson, metal, mosh pit, performance, rock, rocker, slipknot, soundwave, system of a down, trivium, under oath