Nova Rock Festival 2007 – Day 1

(intro text: Sandi Sadar)

 

The festival fever we’ve been living through this summer has seriously worn down our immune system too. Back in June we caved to the first wave of loud, promising announcements, which crushed our resistance and sent the two-man Rockline crew across the border into Austria. The reason was simple enough: out on the Pannonian Plain, right by the Hungarian border and two hours’ drive from Vienna, lies the idyllic little village of Nickelsdorf. Precious little happens there during the year, but once a year the place gets occupied by hordes of young men and women hungry for music, beer and a good time. This year, too, one of the biggest concert events on the Austrian side of the border opened its festival gates. Three days, more than forty bands on two stages, scorching sun, lots of tattooed skin, excellent organization and a campsite that soon turned into a garbage dump: that was this year’s Nova Rock festival, held June 15 to 17 in Nickelsdorf near the Hungarian border.

Nova Rock 2007 was shaping up to be a total sellout. We were determined to test the temperature of the sun, the quality of the beer and the stamina of both the performers and the hordes of rock worshippers ourselves.

After its third run, the festival was completely sold out for the first time, lured by big names like Pearl Jam, Linkin Park, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, The Killers, Slayer, …

 

Plenty was on hand to keep visitors from getting bored between gigs: assorted party tents, two bungees, a fire fox, stalls selling jewelry, clothes,… In short, there were more than enough ideas for spending your money.

After a pretty short, sleepless night, Thursday morning finally arrived. A few last preparations and off to Ljubljana’s Tivoli, where the Koncerti.net bus was already waiting in the shade of the oaks. Shortly after ten the bus doors finally closed and some 28 diehards from Slovenia set off for the Austrian flatlands to defend the colors of our tricolor. After six hours on the road, soaked in thick anticipation, sweat and unbearable heat, we were getting closer and closer to the site of our three-day catharsis. With every kilometer the expectations grew too: that we’d see the icons who adorn so many posters on the walls in the lonely corners of our personal universes, and hear the sounds that make our hearts beat harder and pour waterfalls of multiple meanings into our lives. At six in the evening the bus stopped. All of us delirious from the long trip and loaded up like Tibetan Sherpas, we headed for the campsite entrance and merged into the endless crowds of the thousand-headed festival mass. Many people started their battle with the crowd before they even got in. Before they could enter paradise they lost their nerves in a hellish fight for parking spots, and after the almost exemplary queue for tickets and entry (by the way: needless to say, the lines looked like people handing out bread in Russia at the height of famine and recession …) came the fight for free spots to pitch the mobile homes we were planning to live in for these three days. Not a fight but a butcher’s slaughter, with everyone who was grabbing free patches between the outhouses and side fences and footpaths not just for themselves but reserving them for friends who hadn’t even arrived yet. In the end we made it – we got the tents up – but hoped for sleep in vain, since the first day is mostly for acclimatizing, pacing out the distance between one venue and another, making contacts and testing your hooligan resistance. Plenty of organisms withered on day one, and somewhere toward morning the voices of the European Babylon finally went quiet for a short while among the endless stucco of multicolored tents.

DAY 1 – Good Friday, 15.06.2007:
You can tell the day by its morning. The sun started beating down very early, and after an extreme night of Homeric boozing, crowds of T-shirts with multicolored motifs and slogans began to roll toward the supporting pillars of civilization: the outhouses were under siege, and just a stone’s throw from our main base the lads under the St. Pauli pirate flag, who had clearly taken the American film Jackass too much to heart, discovered that outhouses can be used for a lot more than morning secretions. After acrobatic leaps onto the roof, the first doors gave way under a wave of vandalism, and then the whole thing was tipped from vertical to horizontal, so an unforgettable start to the festival was on the cards. The rest of us preferred to head for the festival grounds and beat a few tens of thousands of souls who were waiting in the shade just for the main attractions.

The action was split across two stages: the main blue one and the smaller red one. The gates opened at half past eleven. The debauchery could finally begin. Day one, or Good Friday, was marked by The Smashing Pumpkins on the blue stage and emo rockers Billy Talent on the red.

RED STAGE:

text for Red Stage: Sandi Sadar

 

An hour after the gates opened, the action kicks off on the stage in my favorite shade. The concert program at this year’s Nova Rock was opened by young American hopefuls who are also pretty unknown and anonymous, In this Moment, who came to the festival armed with a good dose of self-confidence and their upcoming album Beautiful Tragedy. The quintet from Los Angeles is undoubtedly one of those bands you’ll be hearing more of in the future. On their way of catching stardust they’ve managed in a few years to build a strongly cohesive whole out of their own distinctive metalcore sound, one that can bring fans of bands like AFI, My Chemical Romance, Sworn Enemy, 36 Crazy Fists and others under the same roof. What sets them apart from the heap of all-too-similar musical clones is that the dirty work behind the mic is done more than diligently by a charismatic tattooed singer by the name of Maria Brink. After a rather mute entrance onto the stage, the mouths of the skeptics, who had come more or less to sate their curiosity and just passively witness the debut on European stages, were soon shut. The twenty-minute set was soaked in adrenaline and a sexy combination of guttural vocals, monstrous screaming and very tight guitars. After the explosive start of the song ‘Next Live’, Chris Howorth and Blake Bunzel did a lovely job answering the rhythmic dissection by Jeff Fabb on drums. Maria shows her temperament right after the first verse, and between the guttural verses she conjures up the melodic beauty of a chorus that would delight fans of In Flames. The solo was a bit less distinct, but the harmonic inserts were a feast for the ears. The metalcore breakbeat and explosive transitions are a real challenge. Sun at its zenith. Energy cranked up to the point of total breakdown of the organic system. The first movements in the crowd and the odd raised hand in the “horns up” pose. The ice was broken with flying colors. A quick glance at the papers and on in the manner of total defiance of stasis with a fresh outburst of brutality, heart and rage – ‘Ashes’ may not be the first single off the record, but it’s very singable and a perfect gig-mover for “hair-pulling”. Maria runs out of voice at moments, but given her admirable fight against the heat and stage fright, you really can’t blame her. ‘Daddy’s Little Angel’ is a stereotypical continuation of the red thread of total vocal-cord destruction, but In this Moment are compact and dynamic and successfully reach the calmer part of the set too – the first hit off the record is undoubtedly the duo of songs ‘Beautiful Tragedy’ and the Maiden-style bouncy ‘Prayers’, where melody wins out over monotonous growling. A brilliant show, deserved applause and cries of delight! A promise that they’ll be back, and off the stage they go.

IN THIS MOMENT setlist:
1. Next Live
2. Ashes
3. Daddy’s Little Angel
4. Beautiful Tragedy
5. Prayers

At 13:15 Hardcore Superstar take the stage, a band we already had to endure on our own stages at last year’s Metal Camp. The self-titled album got praise and fairly lenient reviews from critics and fans alike, but since retro sound is a bit too much to swallow in the midday heat, I take a few steps away. Partly because of the pretty monotonous set, partly because of the rather boring banter with the crowd, and partly because my dehydration level was already very close to critical mass.

After half an hour of exhibitionism in front of a crowd of thousands, Boss Hoss step up, whose motto can simply be “Whiskey and amps”. It’s been three years since Berlin’s city cowboys Boss, Hoss, Russ, Guss, Frank, Hank and Ernesto joined forces and served up the first dose of trash-country punk rock. The year before last they released their first album Internashville Urban Hymns, and just a year later came the second record, Rodeo Radio. They packed their dose of redneck melodies into a good 25-minute set, in front of what was practically a home crowd, scraping out the songs ‘Hey Ya!’ , ‘I Say A Little Prayer/You’ll Never Walk Alone’, ‘Ring Ring Ring’, ‘Everything Counts / Truck´n´Roll Rules’ and other “hits” unknown to Slovenes. Still, the response among our neighbors was pretty wild and inspiring, because a good time, if you’re made of the right stuff, takes really very little …

The dust had barely settled in the front rows when a flag rose above the stage that promised one of the first highlights of the first festival day. The time is 15:20. No, it’s not time for your meds. It’s time for Mastodon! The Atlantic foursome of musical oddballs, modern gurus of experimental metal, combines the genes of the legendary Today Is The Day (guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer Brän Dailor also honed their brilliant ideas in Lethargy), bassist and vocalist Troy Sanders and singer and guitarist Brent Hinds. But the quartet didn’t stick to the tried-and-true recipe of bands like Today Is The Day, Dillinger Escape Plan or some slightly more melodic version of the extreme technicality of metal avant-garde and death metal. They took their own path up to the peaks of the musical Olympus. After Lifesblood and the fascinating Remission, they picked up Melville and poured an epic about man’s struggle with himself and nature into the epic record Leviathan. For many, the concept story would have ended there. Mastodon decided to climb even higher – up the mountain of insight and to the very summit of the fictional breakthrough of homo sapiens into the astral spheres – to Blood Mountain. To lift man from the profane to the level of something more sacred. Through lyrics they conjure epic battles, ascents, falls … Fine, chaos prevails, so that a new order may be born out of chaos. An intro with sampled fanfares announces the arrival and the start of the siege. A loud greeting from the crowd and off we go on a journey through Leviathan – ‘Iron Tusk’. A low-frequency orgasm of full, massive bass. A wall of heavy, greasy guitar distortion. The rhythmic ease of Dailor grinding skull bones with precise drumming. And right after that, a return a few years back. To the Remission record. ‘March Of The Fire Ants’. “As passion encircles the daily storm / The heart bleeds and droughts do not …”. The textures of the minimalist vocals are measured out here almost in drops of haiku poetry. And the riff is the guiding principle. The foursome on stage is a divine pendulum, foaming the horizons and clothing them in scarlet. The crowd’s thrilled reactions don’t interrupt the proceedings for a second. Mastodon continue their ritual with the ascent of Blood Mountain – ‘Circle Of Cysquatch’. Flight over dreamlike images. A chase after longing. Entry into endless labyrinths. The psychedelic moment of the rhythm and the sense of perfect balance between darkness and light is like a play of shadows with Mastodon. Troy is an oracle. Listeners can be like a sponge soaking up insight. Still, I got the feeling that most people were looking for a party. In that respect Mastodon are a poor choice for profanely killing free time. Mastodon are philosophically detached. And this is followed by one of the strongest arguments from Melville’s Leviathan. ‘Aqua Dementia’ leads into the depths of oblivion and a fresh reconceptualizing of everything you’ve understood until now. So that you can tear yourselves away from your earthly narrowness and free the primal beast watching within you. After the almost punk-tinged ‘Wolf is Loose’ comes ‘Crystal Skull’. An explosion of emotion and energy woven into tribal drum pounding, and the net of mild pessimism once again catches a grain of Melville’s tragic captain, who devoted his whole life to revenge and a final reckoning – ‘I Am Ahab’ is subtly complemented by the track ‘Colony Of Birchmen’. “Run With Death / Gone Away / My Heart’s Gone Away / Taking Everything / My Heart’s Gone Away” The melodic part of the singing sounds a bit stiff and tired. The heat is killing concentration. Still, they win out superbly with ‘Megalodon’ and close the set with an energetic version of ‘Blood & Thunder’, thank the crowd and leave the stage. All that’s left in front of the stage are fragments of total enthusiasm, long faces of unenlightened disappointed souls who were waiting to be rocked to sleep with Edguy-style lullabies, and the fumes of alcoholic drunkenness and the threat of heatstroke. Mastodon undoubtedly earned all my sympathies. Or at least most of them, since I saved a few for the big finale of the first night at Nova Rock.

MASTODON setlist:
1. Iron Tusk
2. March Of The Fire Ants
3. Circle Of Cysquatch
4. Aqua Dementia
5. Sleeping Giant
6. The Wolf Is Loose
7. Crystal Skull
8. I Am Ahab
9. Colony Of Birchmen
10. Megalodon
11. Blood And Thunder

The choice of the next act on the red stage was a bit disconnected and strange, even though Reel Big Fish won quite a few fans among the listeners with their take on ska rhythms and rudimentary reggae. And why wouldn’t they, since they built their reputation as an active and very hard-hitting live band step by step – including tours with the legendary American rockers Kiss, The Cure and the Blues Brothers. Still, I’d venture to say: after a dose of extreme metal they were more of a cold shower than a stimulus for more intense listening. It was time for lunch (at festivals in Austria I recommend the noodles at the Asian Grill stands, but don’t overdo the spicy sauce (tested on my own skin …)) and a beer (at the extortionate price of 4€). We fuel up a bit and head right back to the stages – curiosity.

A little after six in the evening, former MTV darlings, America’s Papa Roach, took over the stage. After the album Infest filled free minutes on our small screens, and the neighbors wanted to impress me by showing they’re metalheads too because they knew the lyrics to the mega hit ‘Last Resort’, the band suddenly vanished into thin air. Convinced they’d long since gone to pick mushrooms, I had almost wiped them completely from my memory. Why wouldn’t I, with nearly seven years since their last media appearance. But the guys stayed active and kept creating. The band’s singer, back then much less tattooed and much more youthful, Jacoby Shaddix, delivered a proper dose of high-octane punk-hardcore performance, and this time the band’s goal wasn’t just reviving memories of the recent past – they also served up fresh songs (the latest record was The Paramour Sessions, and they’ve released as many as nine albums so far (the first four – Potatoes for Christmas (1995), Caca Bonita (1997), Old Friends From Young Years (1998) and 5 Tracks Deep – were self-released, after which they finally managed to sign with a major label (Warner Bros). Let ‘Em Know (2000) was the fruit of a short-lived collaboration, after which they moved to Dreaworks Records, for whom they recorded two very successful records – the triple-platinum mega hit and MTV blockbuster Infest (2002), followed just two years later by lovehatetragedy (2004), and then the news simply dried up. Papa Roach ended up on Geffen Records, for whom they recorded the rather overlooked Getting Away With Murder in 2004, and the latest record, released last year, did no better. Still, the festival gig exceeded all expectations, and they kicked off the energetic show with a track from the latest album, ‘…To Be Loved’, which no longer sounds as explicitly nu metal as their earlier work. Rap metal has been replaced by post-grunge. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Papa Roach are clichéd and that the belief in what they sing died long ago. ‘Getting Away With Murder’ is shallow and anemically transparent. Prosaic. Jacoby Shaddix sings it respectably enough, but it looks like he’s singing it with his wallet and not his heart. The crowd was lenient with the Roaches, and waves of enthusiasm were released toward the end, when they reached for volleys of half-faded hits from Infest. The finale itself hit an epic, anthemic level, and after ‘Last Resort’ there’s nothing left to do but leave and hand the stage to the next act.

PAPA ROACH setlist:
1. …To Be Loved
2. Getting Away With Murder
3. Alive (N’ Out Of Control)
4. Not Listening
5. She Loves Me Not
6. Time Is Running Out
7. Forever
8. Dead Cell
9. Broken Home
10. Scars
11. Reckless
12. Between Angels And Insects
13. Last Resort

After that nu-metal (or, if you prefer: post-grunge) ear-stuffing, it was time for the men in black to take the stage, who earned undoubtedly a much bigger share of media attention this year. If Rob Flynn gave things a proper kick into the dark on a few records, then after his latest masterpiece, according to some critics a worthy successor to Metallica’s Master Of Puppets, the album The Blackening, a lot of those missteps can be forgotten. Machine Head have returned to the path of success and greater sense and compositional coherence. Still, in my humble opinion, first place on the list of the most beloved MH albums stays with the debut, Burn My Eyes. The whole set was really just about dishing out a huge dose of thrash and groove, which would put you right into a state of mellow bliss and make you forget that the frontman of the Oakland crew had also fallen for nu-metal emptiness and the temptation of cliché. ‘Clenching the Fists Of Dissent’, which they opened the festival gig with, was a good indicator of good shape and above all of a readiness to offer a lot more than a ton of blather. The changed concept, or better, the return to the roots, moved hordes of metalheads to be ready to besiege the Red Stage on day one already. Stage diving was strictly forbidden, but by the song ‘Asethetics Of Hate’ a real fight for survival had flared up in the front rows, along with euphoric obedience to mastermind Rob Flynn’s instructions that it was time for chaos and a livelier mosh pit. It was definitely one of the highlights of the first day.

MACHINE HEAD setlist:
1. Clenching The Fists Of Dissent
2. Imperium
3. Aesthetics Of Hate
4. Old
5. Halo
6. Take My Scars
7. Descend The Shades Of Night
8. Davidian

After them, the pompous In Extremo marched onto the stage, but since my ears, and even more so my heart, were longing for something more ’90s, I left the crowds of sweaty Austrians, Germans, Swedes, Finns and all the other pan-Europeans, leaving them to the mercy and mercilessness of the last headliners on the small stage too – emo darlings Billy Talent, who came to sell a bit more of the Billy Talent I and II albums … (no offense: Smashing Pumpkins were simply a bigger temptation for spending the last hours of Friday evening …).

Concurrently with the concerts on the red stage, there were of course concerts on the blue stage as well. Constantly walking the 500 m from one stage to the other wasn’t an option in this heat, sadly, so we had to adapt and skip plenty of gigs we wanted to see.

 

The early festival hours were, as usual, mostly reserved for still unknown or lesser-known acts. Which undoubtedly comes in handy for everyone who had been lazing around in their tents since the night before or fighting for a spot at the outhouses.

 

text for Smashing Pumpkins: Sandi Sadar

rest of the text for Blue Stage: Živa Vivana Doria

 

While the concerts on the red stage kicked off with much harsher sounds, the main, or blue, stage was opened on Friday at 13:00 by Americans Under The Influence of Giants, who tried to win over the keenest festival fans with their indie rock, the ones who were already hanging on the front-row barrier at 13:00 and probably stayed hanging there until the end of the day. Another band that might get lost in the flood of today’s so-called indie bands, but who add a pinch of R&B to their songs. Judging by their look, heavily influenced by ’60s fashion and the Beatles, they were a pretty pleasant way to start the festival. 

JOHNOSSI: 13.45 – 14.15

The early festival hours are usually reserved for still unknown or lesser-known acts, and next we got to hear an interesting duo from Sweden.
John Engelbert on guitar and Ossi Bonde on drums make up the whole band. Which slightly reminds us of the White Stripes, but Johnossi make mostly acoustic pop rock. Despite the heat, the space in front of the stage slowly filled up, as their interesting presence drew in the audience.

FOTOS: 14.40 – 15.15
 The German band Fotos, apparently already well established in Austria, got a lot of love from the Austrian crowd. Which was probably also down largely to their lyrics in German.
Their music surprised me a little, since Germany doesn’t usually produce nearly as many modern rock acts as countries like the UK, Sweden, Finland,…
Still, you can see that Austrians are entirely partial to bands who sing in their mother tongue, since they happily sang along.

I AM X: 15.45 – 16.35
Chris Corner, who works under the name I AM X, is a British pop star of electronic music. The carefully made-up and groomed young man delivered a flawless performance that got the warmed-up crowd, already packed in under the stage, on its feet. Corner dedicated this summer to promoting the album The Alternative at summer festivals. Even so, stylistically speaking, musically he doesn’t quite belong at a festival like Nova Rock.

EDITORS: 17.05 – 18:00
Next up was one of the most successful European indie alternative rock bands, Editors. In 2005 their debut album The Back Room drew rave reviews. Frontman Tom and the band delivered an excellent concert, with no shortage of hits like Munich, Bones and Blood, and of course they also promoted their just-released album An End Has A Start. Too bad they only had a measly hour.

 

EDITORS setlist:
1. An End Has A Start
2. All Sparks
3. Bones
4. Blood
5. Escape the Nest
6. Bullets
7. The Racing Rats
8. You Are Fading
9. Munich
10. Smokers Outside Hospital Doors
11. Fingers In The Factories

 

The hours kept ticking by, and meanwhile people were gathering in front of the stage, already impatiently waiting for the day’s headliners, Smashing Pumpkins.

 

ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES: 18.30 – 19.35
Nobody could skip the next band (whether you were at the beer stand or back at camp). Put simply, Me First And The Gimme Gimmes are a party band that makes the scene at a festival like this incredibly more fun. The band is made up of members of well-known punk rock groups who took the biggest cheesy songs of the last few decades and more than successfully turned them into a killer punk rock combo. Success guaranteed.

THE HIVES: 20.02 – 21.15
At eight in the evening Swedish rockers The Hives took the stage (whether we liked it or not). The egotistical Howlin took the glory into the hands of his band and tried to convince the crowd that everybody here was really here for his band.

 

Their performance was probably one of the most energetic of the day. Howlin talked to the crowd nonstop, and the crowd practically ate out of his hand. Personally, the music got a bit monotonous for me at moments, but they still get bonus points for an excellent performance and for connecting with the audience.

INCUBUS:
After the savages The Hives, Incubus were definitely a balm for the eyes and ears. The guys created a pleasant club atmosphere on stage, never mind that it was a festival.  Believe it or not, the guys from Incubus have been on the scene for 16 years! Their biggest mainstream breakthrough onto the world music scene came in 1999 with the album Make Yourself, and their career has only grown since. After last year’s release of the album Light Grenades, Incubus headed out on tour again. Since I don’t follow their work very closely, they won me over  (like most of the female audience in the front rows) right away with the proven hits Nice To Know You, Are You In, Anna Molly, Wish You Were Here and one of my favorite songs of this year, Love Hurts.

In short, enough for me to form a good opinion of them and to devote a bit more attention to their work. Of course it’s nice to look at such a good-looking band, but it has to be stressed that Incubus make quality music, though in my opinion they try to cover too many different genres. Still, next time I’d rather see them at an indoor concert than at a festival.

 

INCUBUS setlist:

1. Privilege
2. A Kiss To Send Us Off
3. Anna Molly
4. Circles
5. Nice To Know You
6. Love Hurts
7. Here In My Room
8. Earth to Bella, Part I
9. Megalomaniac
10. Are You In?
11. Pistola
12. Rogues
13. The Warmth
14. Wish You Were Here

 

SMASHING PUMPKINS: 23.30 – 01.00

The peak of the day was approaching. At half past eleven, after the concert by Incubus, the darlings of girls who put looks before substance, the air was full of sparks of anticipation. The minutes ticked by. Suspense cranked up the tension. A little after half past eleven in the evening the music from the speakers fell silent. On the side monitors, in flames, appeared the promise of the very thing that had made me forget tiredness, hunger and thirst all day. Smashing Pumpkins are really going to play! Thick fog burst onto the stage from the wings and the long intro, so typical of the Smashings, rang out. The crowd came alive, and with it the cries of delight. Silhouettes stepped onto the stage among the clouds of fog, and soon we got our first look at the new members, keyboardist Lisa Harriton, dressed in a milk-white uniform. On the left side of the stage stepped the lovely bassist Ginger Reyes. Behind a huge kit of white drums and a pile of cymbals sat the master of jazz-rock alt psychedelia, Jimmy Chamberlin, and the void left by Iha’s departure is filled by a new guitar force, a man with slight Asian features, Jeff Schroeder. Instrumental versions of previously unheard songs get the blood pumping even faster. From the background the main man of the chosen five sneaks in: Billy Corgan. Until recently still clad in Nosferatu black, with a smoothly shaved head, the first impression of this reunion was definitely positive. Nosferatu is dead; Gandalf the White has returned. The first song of the night was the single from the long-awaited album Zeitgeist – ‘United States’. In its rhythm much more like an explosion of sound from some track off Mellon Collie. Zeitgeist, or spirit of the times. The times we live in demand stronger and louder criticism, so Corgan too has abandoned his feeble electronics and reached for the arsenal of rock ironware, warm but massive distortion, riffs sent from heaven and a sturdier structure to the musical compositions. To awaken the sleeping sentiments, the song ‘Tonight, Tonight’ is pulled from the treasury of old hits, but the intent wasn’t to replay already-heard hits – the Smashings came to present the new stuff. ‘Stand Inside Your Love’ from the second-to-last album Machina. ‘Tarantula’ explodes much more directly. The rock authenticity and tandem tightness of the guitar duo Schroeder – Corgan blends pastel-like with the rhythmic filler of the Reyes – Chamberlin pairing. The chemistry of the current lineup could undoubtedly delight even the most demanding critics, since Smashing Pumpkins are completely revived, and form and substance are fused into an indivisible whole. Whether it’s old, well-worn songs like ‘Hummer’, ‘Zero’, ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ or the totally fresh ‘Orchid’ or the brilliant ‘7 Shades Of Black’. The peak of the concert came with the last song, Gossamer, which they stretched into a 15-minute series of drum solos (which in no way sounded like fans hungry for Chamberlin’s pounding could get too much of this …) and epic strings of inventive solos and vocal chanting. It’s about layers. It’s about megalomania, which is still music. It’s about an ego that can resurrect itself even from total death. It was more like hibernation. Smashing Pumpkins are back! I could only be completely delighted a few moments later, when the phenomenal rendition of a gem from Siamese Dream burst from the speakers – ‘Cherub Rock’. Without unnecessary drama and with a good dose of optimism, the Smashings leave the festival trenches with good reason to believe that the recipe for rebirth is a complete victory. The crowd of festival fans was left with a buzzing in their heads and, from the rush of adrenaline, a wildly pounding heart, a lost voice and the feeling that anything more would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The first day ended triumphantly as one perfect whole.

SMASHING PUMPKINS setlist:
1. United States
2. Tonight
3. Stand Inside Your Love
4. Tarantula
5. Shame
6. Hummer
7. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
8. Winterlong
9. To Sheila
10. Today
11. Starz
12. Zero
13. Bleeding the Orchid
14. 7 shades Of Black
15. Disarm
16. 1979
17. Gossamer
—encore—

18. Cherub Rock