|
  After
a night drinking in a biker's bar in Interlaken town with various
members of Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails's entourages,
I was already feeling worse for wear. The sun was shining over the
beautiful mountain valley in which the Greenfield festival site was,
one of the most scenic places I've visited. The heat and blazing sun
had already created a lot of sunburnt bodies spotted about the site
during the day and it was great to see so many tanned, well-toned
shirtless males walking around! Later on, the weather was going to change...
The Mars Volta
cancelled their appearance on the second stage because singer Omar
Rodriguez was unwell, so the main bands everyone was looking forward
to seeing were Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails. The
lovely sunny day was ruined by rain later in the evening, which
developed into a massive thunderstorm - right before Queens of the
Stone Age came onstage! I stood on the stage at the side, by some
amps, all excited to watch Josh Homme and Co. when all of a sudden
aggressive winds blew the stage sheeting inwards, ripping it at the
side and letting in all the rain! It was scary and everyone rushed
off the stage as fast as we could. The bands, their friends and staff
all stood with me under cover watching the storm! Equipment belonging
to both Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails was damaged and
neither could perform at all! Therefore they all just left to travel
onto next destinations for other festivals. This meant almost
everyone walking over to the second stage to watch veteran punks
Pennywise perform. Typical that, later on, the damage to the main
stage was fixed ready for German natives Die Toten Hosen to play!
Saturday,
25th June
I wanted this
day to be free of bad luck and apart from rain interrupting most of
the day's entertainment, at least there wasn't another storm! The
skies cleared up during Simple Plan's performance and before
headliner's Green Day in the evening. Just before Simple Plan went
onstage bass player David Desrosiers said to me, " Hardly
anyone's going to bother watching us, it's raining and they're
waiting for the big bands.". He was proved wrong. The rain
stopped and the Canadian's catchy punk pop tunes and entertaining
audience interaction attracted a larger crowd than expected. Fantomas
is one of three bands that singer Mike Patton formed after Faith No
More split. It's also the most unique and weirdest of his musical
projects, which I've never quite understood. Described as 'avant
garde noise metal' with bizarre noises, battering drum sessions and
random squarks and squeals down the mic from Patton himself, Fantomas
are definitely worth checking out just to be puzzled by what the musi
c actually all means! Fantomas drummer Dave Lombardo is also in
Slayer and was busy on tour elsewhere in the world with his main
band, so drummerv Terry Bozzio took his place. I rushed back and
forth to try and see both headline bands, Feeder on the second stage
and Green Day on the main. Feeder are a British band who have been
together for 13 years, made five albums, survived the suicide of
original drummer Jon Lee in 2002 and gone on to be better than ever.
The marquee was packed out despite competition fom Green Day being on
the other stage at the same time. Starting with Come Back Around,
Grant Nicholas still has the sexy, husky, vocals he's always had.
Insomnia, Rewind, Just the Way I'm Feeling and their biggest hit from
2001 Buck Rogers were brilliant live and for the last song, Just a
Day several fans were invited to join the band onstage for a dance
around! Then I went to catch the rest of Green Day. Now incredibly
rich and famous thanks to the mega-selling American Idiot the
Californian trio have spectacular stage effects and are unmissable.
Billy Joe even said, "This European tour is the best ever tour
we've done!" and he's right. They've played to the biggest
audience's they've ever had, including 120,000 people in two days the
week before in the UK. Of course, all the Green Day favourites are
sung, like Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Minority, Basket
Case, and even a cover version of Queen classic We Are the Champions.
After such a great performance, Billy Joe, Tre and Mike were my
festival champions, Green Day are an awesome show! |
