There have been countless magical moments at Soundwave festivals over the years; some personal, some shared with tens of thousands of our heavy music loving brethren, but most of them utterly unforgettable.
As the 2014 line up will be upon us in a mere couple of days, we've put our heads together to reflect on five moments from Soundwave past that we won't forget.
2007: THE BRONX DOMINATE
The Bronx are always ridiculously good live, we all know that. But when they made their way to Australia for Soundwave in 2007 it seemed like they were running on a higher level than we had ever seen before. Matt Caughthran's crowdsurfing antics were at an all-time peak and the band simply slayed.
2008: A GOOD YEAR FOR THE QUIET GUYS
A guy called Jim Ward, who played in bands called At The Drive-In and Sparta, and another guy called City And Colour, who we knew from Alexisonfire, both played incredible sets and proved to us that it was okay if our little punk rock hearts were won over by the spirit of good quality indie music. It also proved that Soundwave wasn't scared of showing off a wide variety of musical styles.
2009: SOUNDWAVE REACHES THE NEXT LEVEL
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We're not sure whether it was amongst the electroshock strobes of Nine Inch Nails or the countless nostalgic moments through Alice In Chains, but in 2009 it felt as if Soundwave had taken a giant leap towards becoming the biggest music festival in the country. The bill was dense, the names were big and the festival has seemingly never looked back since.
2010: MIKE PATTON'S COCK
An incredible Faith No More set in Brisbane ended with Mike Patton showing his dick to the whole crowd. Above you can see the safe for work version. It was a really special moment.
2011: IRON MAIDEN HEADLINE AN AUSTRALIAN FESTIVAL
It's not something we had considered would ever happen, but the mighty Iron Maiden sat atop the bill of an Australian rock festival, proving the power of true metal despite many promoters in the past being a little shy of embracing it on their festival bills. That year also saw names like Social Distortion, Primus, Gang Of Four and One Day As A Lion on the bill – acts that many of us thought we'd never see on a festival bill in this country.
2013: A PERFECT STORM
Metallica, one of the biggest bands in history, are locked in. Blink-182 are set to make their first visit to their beloved Australia since reforming (though this was, of course, met with great controversy), the likes of Linkin Park, A Perfect Circle, Anthrax, Paramore, Garbage, Slayer, Bring Me The Horizon… look, we'll stop there, but we could easily go on. AJ Maddah has said that they won't top that line up in 2014 – we're not sure if anyone ever could. And yes, that's a challenge.
