Good Things Festival, you had me at The Violent Femmes and L7. Add to the fact my daughter was beyond excited that she was finally old enough to attend a 15+ festival and I was in. There was a feeling of excitement on the train to Flemington, I noticed lots of other mums and dads with their teens. There’s something really special about being able to go to a festival with your kid and share the music you love now that they have discovered it and also love it. It felt like the train was almost the mosh pit to come with people crammed in and ready to rock.
We arrived and although the line to get in was epic, we didn’t care. It was too exciting with the sun shining and music already coming from the grounds. Bowling For Soup (Texas) was up first and opened up with 2 in a row, they were reminiscent of tenacios D with a lot of high energy and comedic interactions with the crowd. A great start! Meanwhile, Butterfly Effect were killing it on stage 3 in front of a very enthusiastic pit.
We decided to check out Stage 666 with a live DJ and all your favorite hardcore bangers. Rob Zombie, Foo Fighters, No Doubt, Freak On A Leash, plus you could request any song you liked and get up and sing with a live backing band too! My daughter wanted me to get up and sing and I almost did. Almost. Kind of wish I had!
The line for the slushy truck was #epic but worth the wait. Stage 1 and we checked out the
Living End, a pretty good and nice set including Roll On, An awesome rendition of End Of The World which prompted crowd surfing, complete with stop and talk in between refrains and went for around 10 minutes. They played their greatest hits including All Torn Down which prompted one woman in the crowd to rip her top up! There was some eyebrow-raising by the parents in the crowd with minors of site. A highight was Chris Cherey playing slide guitar with an open VB stubbie which he then sculled! This necessitated a change in guitar after “drowning” his Gretsch, he then broke into a rising rendition of the riff from TNT, AC/DC.
The sun was shining and the festival was well and truly underway. My daughter was starting to find her feet and wanting to get a good spot for L7 who I couldn’t wait to see. I first saw L7 in a small venue in Brixton, London and it rocked pretty hard. The girls didn’t let me (or my daughter down), how cool is it to see an all-female rock band rocking out. Fuel My Fire had the crowd really fired up. Pretend We’re Dead went off as expected, Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago was topical and a crowd-pleaser. For the finale. My favourite. S**t list. It went off and I sang all the words (loudly and proudly). Short and sweet. 42 minutes on stage and brilliant. That’s what you get when you’ve been doing it for decades.
We headed over to see Jet and caught Are You Gonna Be My Girl. Which sounded awesome live. This was followed by Hey DJ. The crowd For Jet was immense and went almost as far as you could see for the local Melbourne boys.
Next it was the main attraction for me. The band of my youth. Violent Femmes. They played basically the entire first album and it was perfection. Everyone young and old knew the words to Blister In The Sun. Kiss Off had an epic bass solo. Followed by great renditions of Please Do Not Go and Day After Day. They delivered a haunting rendition of Confessions with brass accompaniment. The crowd was getting hot with water being passed to the pit. More great songs with Prove My Love, Promise, To The Kill, Gone Daddy Gone, Good Feeling. Then, epic – Dance Motherf**ker Dance! Yeah! Followed by Black Girls with a drum solo including on a BBQ! To finish we had I’m Nothing, Held Her In My Arms and American music. The Femmes set was super popular and had all the age groups given the resurgence in popularity by the kids. It felt like everyone knew the words and this was one set where everybody regardless of age could really rock out together.
Korn was definitely the highlight of the night which was unexpected for me, my daughter felt brave enough to head to the front while I stayed back a bit. Korn were sensational live, they had the tightest rhythm section I’ve seen and celebrated 30 years of playing music in style. There was even three in a nod to Metallica with a section from One. For the encore, we had Bring Me Down which did anything but.
What can I say Good Things delivered Good Things and more. If you’re looking for a family festival to take your teenagers too, this is it. I can’t wait to head along again next year with my daughter and introduce my other children as they hit 15 too.
Good Things heads to Sydney Saturday and Brisbane Sunday. If you missed out, you can check out the lineup on Spotify.
