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Sum 41

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FeaturedNews
August 22, 2024
Megan Milner

Good Things Festival 2024 Line-Up Announcement

HAVE WE GONE MAD?
GOOD THINGS IS BACK, AND IT’S ENTIRELY BONKERS!

Are you ready for the madcap chaos of Australia’s largest travelling music festival? Good Things season returns with a head-spinning lineup fit for a fever dream. Across three East Coast dates, this year’s Good Things Festival will deliver a trip down the rabbit hole with a stacked bill of international heavyweights, old favourites, hungry up-and-comers, and Aussie staples. And in a boon for younger attendees, Sydney’s Centennial Park festival date will be a 16+ event for the first time!

No one has cultivated a cult of personality quite like KORN. As the coveted headliners for Good Things Festival 2024, the Californian nu-metal pioneers will be celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their landmark self-titled debut album and a career trajectory that speak volumes: two GRAMMY® Award wins, multi-platinum album certifications, and over 40 million records sold worldwide. Continually pushing the limits of the alternative, metal, and rock across their back catalogue, KORN’s unwavering sonic vision incorporates everything from dubstep and hip-hop to the bagpipe sections of frontman Jonathan Davis. Forever for the freaks, KORN’s Good Things appearance will find them in fine form and off the leash.

Seeing SUM 41 will be a bittersweet occasion for dedicated Aussie fans, as the Good Things Festival acts as the band’s last-ever ‘Tour of the setting Sum’ tour Down Under. Pulling from their formative album trinity—All Killer No Filler (2001), Does This Look Infected? (2002), and Chuck (2004)—along with their recent Heaven :x: Hell double-LP, the Canadian rockers are determined to go out with a bang, one befitting their status as a beacon of millennial domination. Come for the high-energy pop punk, and stay for the heavy metal anthems.

Speaking of anthems, it’s hard to deny the impact VIOLENT FEMMES have had on the broad history of alternative music. The Milwaukee outfit have been festival mainstays throughout their awe-inspiring 40-year career, and direct influences on Pink, John Cusack, Mark Morris, The Pixies, and more. German heavy arena sensation ELECTRIC CALLBOY known for their viral hits like Hypa Hypa, We Got The Moves, RATATATA and their pulsing cover of Cascada’s Everytime We Touch have proven that the group’s blend of retro pop synths, arena rock, and metalcore is both a recipe for chart-topping success and captivating audiences worldwide.

After bringing their own curated The World Is A Vampire Festival to Australia last year, and the recent release of the band’s thirteenth studio album, Aghori Mhori Mei, The Smashing Pumpkins frontman BILLY CORGAN will wow the Good Things Festival crowd with a spirited set supported by The Delta Riggs as his backing band. Festival punters will be treated to tracks from CORGAN’s expansive solo catalogue as well as songs he’s written for The Smashing Pumpkins. MASTODON have racked up numerous accolades that transcend their sludge metal origins. Alongside collaborations with Game of Thrones, Adult Swim, and DC Comics, the Atlanta quartet finally took home a GRAMMY® Award after six career nods. 2021’s Hushed & Grim double-LP took meditations on grief and transformed them into moments of melodic mourning and raging bursts of energy. Guitarist/songwriter KERRY KING will bring a taste of his trademark fury to the Good Things Festival for 2024. With KING’s first solo LP outside of thrash titans Slayer, From Hell I Rise, unleashed on the world, expect a dose of blunt-force riffage and pointed lyrical themes with some Slayer classics thrown in as the kicker.

The long-awaited return of THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM to Australian shores has been almost a decade in the making. With the release of their highly anticipated comeback album, History Books, in October last year, it’s now Australia’s turn to be a part of the band’s rebirth. Newfound ARIA Hall of Famers JET will also get their shine on as they take to the stage to celebrate the recent twentieth anniversary of their multi-platinum debut album, 2003’s Get Born. Fans can expect to hear radio rock hits like Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Rollover DJ, and more. With their reputation as seasoned pros and one of the country’s most incredible live acts, punk rockers THE LIVING END will get the crowd pumping with iconic anthems like Second Solution and Prisoner of Society, making their only live shows for 2024 ones to remember. After playing their seminal Bricks Are Heavy LP on the road last year, 90s punk icons L7 return to give audiences another taste of Californian riot grrrl history including favourites like Pretend We’re Dead, Shitlist, Wargasm and more.

Sydney futurists NORTHLANE are global ambassadors for Australian metal, known for their exhilarating live show and unrivalled creative expression. With consecutive ARIA Award wins and #1 chart debuts already in the bag, the band’s latest Mirrors Edge EP is their most daring effort yet. Fans will also see BOWLING FOR SOUP on their first trip Down Under in over fifteen years. The Texan pop punkers are fresh off a pair of 2024 Download Festival performances, and celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their fan-favourite A Hangover You Don’t Deserve LP. While 2024 already belongs to ALPHA WOLF, their Good Things appearance is set to cap off the metalcore crew’s most successful year to date. The Melbourne quintet just wrapped up a completely sold-out Australian headline tour following the release of their acclaimed third full-length, Half Living Things.

For the alternative rockers, Orlando emo sensation SLEEPING WITH SIRENS are no strangers to devoted Australian crowds, and their Good Things Festival set will deliver on stratospheric hooks and huge sing-a-longs. Not to be outdone, Brisbane’s THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT will bring their emotionally charged performance to the festival stage, anchored by frontman Clint Boge’s powerful croon. 90s flagbearers 311 were last in the country in 1998 and have since maintained their standing as one of the genre’s most entertaining outfits with a groove-laden sound dipping into rap, reggae, and funk.

Award-winning songwriter, artist, and novelist AViVA will rally her “Outsider” community to the call with her idiosyncratic spin on pop-rock immediacy. Sacramento’s DESTROY BOYS will be eager to unleash tracks from their brand new Funeral Soundtrack #4 LP and expand on their bratty punk origins. With a career spanning half a century, legacy rockers DRAGON will showcase their heavy prog pedigree and penchant for soul-flavoured melodies. Meanwhile, DIY rock troubadour FRANK TURNER AND THE SLEEPING SOULS will mark another return to Australia as part of the Good Things Festival, this time supporting his acclaimed new album, Undefeated.

Pennsylvanian outfit FROM ASHES TO NEW have climbed to the front of the rock vanguard, embracing the freedom of hybridity and experimenting with hard rock, hip-hop, electronic, and alternative sounds. Known for stretching genre descriptors into alluring new forms, alt artist GRANDSON has netted over one billion streams and a dizzying list of high-profile collaborators including Mike Shinoda, Travis Barker, and Tom Morello. Backing up with another trip Down Under following 2023’s ‘The Midnight Demon Club’ tour, Cape Cod iconoclasts HIGHLY SUSPECT will bring their rule-breaking rock philosophy to the festival stage with cuts from their shiny new full-length, As Above, So Below. Swedish heavy purveyors IMMINENCE will introduce Aussie crowds to the uncompromising alt-metalcore vision of their bludgeoning fifth full-length,The Black—this is one set metalheads do not want to miss.

KILLING HEIDI will throw it back to the early 00s when their album debut Reflector became a four-time ARIA winner and mega-smash single Weir was an inescapable earworm, playing the record in full for the Good Things Festival crowd. As one of Britain’s breakout heavy exports, LOATHE have built a reputation for their intense, multi-media live show, as seen on a recent North American tour run supporting Knocked Loose. Mixing metalcore with shades of electronica, pop, and post-hardcore on their stunning debut full-length, Secrets Of The Future, Sydney newcomers RELIQA will dazzle with their intricate take on progressive metal stylings. Influenced by early 90s and 00s pop-punk, TAYLOR ACORN’s sound is imbued with youthful exuberance and relatability, tackling mental health struggles and head-on with catchy hooks and earnest vulnerability.

2024 also marks the return of the talented STAGE 666 Artists and their carnivalesque Freak Show lounge. Witness the knife-throwing, gravity defying stunts of host Captain Ruin, or be amazed by Princess Tweedle Needle’s daring feats of bodily transgression as the “princess of pain” performs the ‘human pincushion’ act, skewering her flesh with glee, swinging a beer keg with her lady bits. Direct from the underground nightclubs of Berlin, you don’t want to miss out on STAGE 666’s guest star!

GOOD THINGS FESTIVAL LINE UP:

Korn
Sum 41
Violent Femmes
Electric Callboy | Billy Corgan | Mastodon | Kerry King
The Gaslight Anthem | Jet | The Living End | L7 | Northlane
Bowling For Soup | Alpha Wolf | Sleeping With Sirens | The Butterfly Effect | 311

In Alphabetical Order:

AViVA | Destroy Boys | Dragon | Frank Turner And The Sleeping Souls
From Ashes To New | Grandson | Highly Suspect | Imminence
Killing Heidi (Performing ‘Reflector’ In Full) | Loathe | Reliqa | Taylor Acorn
Plus the return of Stage 666!

DATES AND VENUES:
Friday 6 December – Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne (15+)
Saturday 7 December – Centennial Park, Sydney (16+)
Sunday 8 December – Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane (15+)

Early Bird pre-sale tickets on sale Tuesday 27 August @ 10am AEST Time
Sign up now for early bird pre-sale tickets at www.goodthingsfestival.com.au

General Public tickets on sale Thursday 29 August @ 10am AEST Time
https://www.oztix.com.au/

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Gig ReviewsReviews
December 10, 2022
Kynan Arden

[Review] Offspring / Sum 41 @ John Cain Arena, Melbourne 7/12/2022

I don’t think there are many words that can capture the pure bliss and adrenaline of a double injection of pure punk nostalgia, and I’m sure that can be said for a lot of big rock shows, but Sum 41 and The Offspring delivered something truly out of this world and will keep my heart pumping for months on end.

The venue collectively packed with avid fans in anticipation for the big night, ready for Sum 41 to deliver their introduction. Obviously keeping the spirit of Australia, the lights dimmed and then reddened to the tune of TNT by AC/DC, right before the band followed by Deryck ran into the spotlight. His energy immediately screamed volumes to the upcoming performance he would deliver as a frontman. The skater punk icons wasted no time, immediately erupting into their intro as well as The Hell Song, and no expense was spared for the unexpected pyro technics that could melt your face off even in the side stands.

Deryck’s involvement with the crowd is the type of interaction I’m inspired by as a musician/frontman myself, hyping up the crowd to the max and encouraging them to lose their mind like, as Deryck called them, “crazy motherfuckers”. The audience did not brush this off, as the circle pits and jumping ensued for the entire first set, even to the point of Whibley questioning their exhaustion. With chants to screaming competitions to call and responses, this group always knew how to keep a room alive, especially with the violent giant balloon popping

I think my leather pants were strong enough to contain my punk excitement when Deryck mentioned the name of Sum 41’s classic album, All Killer No Filler, right before Dave Baksh began the riff to In Too Deep which caused a temporary earthquake with the amount of feet jumping up and down, including my very own. Deryck proceeded to talk about how special it is to perform all these tunes that the boys wrote while they were teenagers, right before treating the OG Sum 41 fans by taking us all the way back to a track from their very first 2000 album, Makes No difference.

Sum 41 neither spared any humor as Deryck acquire his guitar, claiming we shouldn’t get excited as he had no idea how to play it, all before intentionally awfully playing Smoke on the Water and Seven Nation Army, even surprisingly roping in the band to perform a pop punk cove of We Will Rock You. But I’m sure many of us knew why the guitar was in his hands, as there were two hits they were yet to play. I couldn’t even finish my thought process before the iconic opening riff to Fat Lip amplified through John Cain Arena followed by the conclusion of Still Waiting already damaging my vocal chords for the night. As they disbanded, I sat their in awe wondering how on earth that performance could be topped…..oh boy was I wrong.

The 30 minute interval between sets are always the prime time at any show to get some booze and grub, but regardless of this there was instead a plethora of antics as entertaining as the shows themselves. At first, a giant blimp bearing the iconic Offspring logo flown by a drone circled over the packed arena like a hawk over its prey, followed by a mysterious crew member coming onto stage donning a gorilla mask who proceeded to slingshot shirts into the crowds of thousands. This was all followed by quintessential American stadium games, like kiss cams, headbang cams, twerk cams, and as essential as always in our blessed country, mullet cams. Laughs turned into a loud countdown from 10 as the boys were ready to put on a show.

I could not contain my aching grin as The Offspring already proceeded to performing hit after hit back to back, opening with the classic Come Out And Play, followed by the iconic “AY YA YA YA YA YA” to All I Want, and then a song I never thought would be performed live, Want You Bad, taking me back to a time I’d have this on repeat in class to escape my most punk worthy oppression at the time…general mathematics. Dexter and Noodles did what they do best next to putting on a killer show, delivering a gut busting crowd interaction really showing the brotherhood between the two.

After performing a few of their latest hits including Let the Bad Times Roll, Original Prankster sent all of us as a collective into a frenzy, as if we were listening to their greatest hits record being played live on stage. The ending of this track ended with a few second of silence, before the crunchy bass riff introducing the SMASH hit, Bad Habit, which in itself transformed the mosh pit into a zombie horde straight out of World War Z, all before Dexter swiftly halted the song unsurprisingly at this point. Dexter and Noodles continued to share more banter before cussing like sailors and getting everyone involved with expletives flying from every direction.  

Noodles proceeded to continue his own standalone comedic standup, expressing his love for playing guitar and demonstrated this with covers of Security by Amyl and The Sniffers, Back In Black, Thunderstruck, The Trooper, concluded with possibly the greatest cover of In the Hall of the Mountain King I’ve ever witnessed, right before Dexter returned to join the band with an explosive cover of Blitzkrieg Bop by none other than the Ramones.

At this point in the night, I was sweating, my neck ached, my legs shivering, and my grin was ever so plastered across my face, which I didn’t think could grow any wider until Dex whipped out the acoustic to smash of Spare Me The Details, as I’m sure we all have a shitty ex to dedicate that belter to.

Now we get into a solid 10 minutes of pure, authentic emotional beauty, as the lights dimmed, a grand piano was rolled onto stage. Sat behind the grand was Dexter, who delivered an emotional speech about cancelled tours and trials throughout the pandemic, all before introducing the new and improved mellow alteration of the Ixnay On The Hombre tear-jerker, Gone Away. And oh, my friends there were waterworks all around me behind our flashlights that lit up the entire stadium, a purely magical moment.

We swiftly moved on from the topic of loss, back to the ballads for shitty partners, and what other song could portray that than a personal favourite, Why Don’t You Get A Job?; joined by a wonderful backdrop of the iconic cartoonish album cover of Americana…safe to say my voice was non-existent by this point. Then the USA hailing punks concluded the show with Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) and The Kids Aren’t Alright, which provided such a blast for us all.

As they exited the stage, it’s almost idiotic to not assume there would be an encore with the hits they were yet to play, and this confirmation came to light as the blimp reentered the arena, now donning a banner announcing the words none other than:

DANCE FUCKER DANCE!

The band returned to the stage to bust out, of course, You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid, which sent the crowd berserk (as if they stopped being such a way at all). We in the stands finally ignored the signs and stood for the remainder for the show, because why the fuck wouldn’t we. Dexter and Noodles between finales exchanged one last demonstration of brotherhood after introducing the incredible band, with Noodles praising his best friend Dex with his song writing and even the completion of a PHD in biology, then after a count in and seeing all vocalist collectively approached the mics, we heard it:

La la LA LA LA La La la la la!

The ever so recognizable vocal introduction to a rock n’ roll anthem, Self Esteem, that was answered with the screams or the existential lyrics, neck-shattering head banging and ground shaking jumps, for the final time turning up the energy to 11.  Adding to this the inclusion of confetti and beach balls, as the band embraced to a rapturous crowd as they said their good byes.

Even as I exited the arena through the hordes of tireless fans screaming the lyrics to Sweet Caroline, I don’t think I could shake the lingering buzz that I received from this prodigious show, a truly phenomenal experience that I will never forget. Safe to say that upon The Offspring, or Sum 41’s return, I will be throwing myself into the pit. It’s exhausting and painful for a skinny beanpole like myself, but what can I say…..I’ve Got A Bad Habit.

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