Live Review: Good Things Festival Sydney 2024
Good Things has become a wonderful staple of the heavy music festival calendar. Not even the rain and the heat could detract from what was a - for the most part - fun day.
Mastodon at Good Things Sydney. (Peter Dovgan)
Heavy music festivals in Australia will always exist in a parallel universe.
If every other major festival in the country went broke due to high insurance premiums passed onto consumers at the box office (not to mention - whisper it - a lack of talent in the lineups), it wouldn’t matter for heavy music fans; the heavy festival would still draw upwards of 20,000 punters.
Not even a borderline too eclectic line-up, rotten weather forecast, technical shortcomings, and a slightly shown-up headliner could deter the Sydney faithful from lapping up every last sweaty second of the fifth edition of Good Things with unabated (and drunken) joy.
Things certainly didn’t get off to the best start, however.
With the rain caning down, British metalcore-ers Loathe took to the mainstage to open proceedings.
Having developed quite a buzz back home, it would no doubt have been a shock experiencing a dose of good old Aussie tall-poppy syndrome, having to slug it out in 90 per cent humidity, bucketing showers, and about 300 revellers wondering why the hell they didn’t invest in a rain jacket.
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Still, the band put in a solid showing and warmed the stage up.
The metalcore vibes continued through the rainiest part of the day, with both Inerta and budding festival circuit favourites Alpha Wolf having drenched sets. By the time the latter had kicked off though, the festival site was swelling despite the weather, and the crowd responded particularly well to a rousing rendition of A Terrible Day For Rain.
As mentioned above, Good Things is the more versatile of the heavy festivals (if you want “moar metal”, you’ll have to wait for Knotfest in Feb).
The dynamic contrast across the bill certainly didn’t matter though; old punk stalwarts The Living End pulled the first proper bumper crowd of the afternoon on the mainstage, with punters gleefully singing along to their older siblings' favourite jams White Noise and, of course, Aussie national punk anthem Prisoner of Society. The double bass has still never been cooler than when played at a Living End concert.
By the time Northlane arrived, the sun was out and things were beginning to heat up. 15 years into their career it seems criminal that Northlane is still a mid-card draw, but the Sydney quartet didn’t seem to mind their surprisingly low billing, blitzing through a set that leaned heavily on their Mirrors Edge EP.
After a metalcore-heavy first half, Georgian (the American one, not the sort of European one) sludge metallers Mastodon were the perfect pallet cleanser.
The proggily-tinged doom-riffers pulled a surprisingly big crowd, given their style, with latter-career cut Steambreather and guitar hero classic Blood and Thunder drawing huge sing-alongs from the multi-generational crowd. Despite being notoriously unreliable sound-wise at festivals, Good Things ‘24 should be chalked up as a triumph for the quartet.
Over on the dual second stage, riot grrl punk legends L7 had an appreciative throng dancing to their grungy garage-punk anthems before Gaslight Anthem arrived and pulled out one of the day's most surprisingly heartfelt sets; their heartland rock n’ roll just what the doctor ordered as the dusk descended.
Another surprise was Korn undercards The Violent Femmes opening of their set with Blister in the Sun - the one song that probably got them on the bill in the first place. Phones were held aloft, faux-ironic reels and TikToks were created, and then an exodus of neigh on 2000 people promptly departed from the mainstage just 4 minutes into the set. Good thing too - the band's mix was muddy, and they sounded completely uninspired, with Gordon Gano sounding out of tune, and while the addition of a horn section for some songs was cool, the gag quickly wore thin, as did the jangly folk punk tunes that weren’t their main hit. This was a booking with a difference that didn’t feel well thought out.
Central Coast up-and-comers Reliqua meanwhile made the most of their first “top tier” festival billing, drawing a somewhat small but appreciative crowd to the 5th stage, and rewarding both the faithful and the curious with 40 minutes of tightly played (and produced) tech-metal. With tours alongside Periphery and Babymetal already under their belt, these young guns continue to be ones to watch.
Back over on the second dual-stage, Sleeping With Sirens pulled an enormous crowd (no doubt swelled by those fleeing Violent Femmes), who were rewarded with the set of the festival. You’d forgive lead vocalist Kellin Quinn for feeling a bit stiff, with his band somewhat left behind in the rise of pop-infused metalcore. However, they are a live force to be reckoned with and still a huge draw, with a capacity throng losing their minds to the closing one-two of If I’m James Dean, You’re Audrey Hepburn, and If You Can’t Hang. Of the metalcore boom of the 2010s, these boys feel in the best shape of the lot.
Ex-Slayer axeman Kerry King drew a notably smaller crowd on the mirroring stage but produced a world-class display of thrash metal, backed by a stellar backing band that included ex-Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel and Death Angel vocalist Mark Osegueda. Those in attendance politely bopped along to King's solo cuts, but it was Slayer material that the masses wanted, and classics Disciple, Raining Blood and Black Magic rewarded the throng. A cover of Iron Maiden’s Killers - a tribute to the recently deceased ex-singer Paul Di’Anno - was a nice touch, too.
Back over on the main stage, Electric Callboy delivered a rousing set of raving metal bangers that would befit a festival headliner. With a near-capacity crowd, the Germans - with the help of festival-would-be's Sum 41’s drummer - delivered the definition of a party-starting festival set.
Things were funereal by comparison back on the second stage, with Billy Corgan backed by The Delta Riggs proving to be just … boring. Despite the odd Pumpkins classic - Tonight Tonight was appreciated by the dwindling crowd, and closer Today was always going to be a good moment - Corgan's decision to cover the likes of INXS and The Bee Gees, while bleating along to his semi-out-of-tune acoustic on some unknown solo B-sides, was baffling. Things hit a particular low when the entire band began a number in the wrong tuning - an error that Corgan decided to blame on his guitar tech, despite his Riggs backing boys also having to re-tune their instruments. It was no surprise that he had less than half the crowd he started with by the time he finished.
Over on the main stage, Korn closed out proceedings with what frontman Jonathan Davis proclaimed was a “celebration of 30 years of Korn!” In a career-spanning set, the band pulled out all the classics, with Got The Life, Blind, and Shoots and Ladders highlights of the main program, and the three-pronged attack encore Falling Away From Me, Oildale, and Freak On A Leash turning the centennial parklands into a 90s metal party for a glorious 15 minutes.
There was no denying though that despite the production, the nostalgia, and the hunger with which the band still play, the momentum of the evening felt like it’d taken somewhat of a downward turn after the sheer mayhem and fun of Electric Callboy. Korn certainly brought the eyeballs - the mainstage was rammed by the time everyone's favourite karaoke moment arrived in Freak On A Leash - but Korn was upstaged this evening by their younger German contemporaries; perhaps symbolic of the need for a passing of the torch at the headliner level.
None of this mattered in the grand scheme of things, however. Korn closed out Good Things with a successful set that capped off their remarkable late-career resurgence - the last time they toured down under was for Soundwave 2014 where they played a middle-of-the-day slot - and the multi-generational appeal of the Bakersfield Nu Metallers meant that a whole new swathe of Australians were initiated in 90s Adidas-core.
Good Things has become a wonderful staple of the heavy music festival calendar. Not even the rain and the heat could detract from what was a - for the most part - fun day.
With Knotfest to come in a few months, it once again feels like the Australian festival calendar is catering to guitar music.
As they say, Good Things come in threes.
Limp Bizkit last year, Korn this year - Linkin Park in 2025?
One can only dream - but that dream doesn’t seem too farfetched given the dedication of Aussie heavy music fans on display here.
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