| Soundwave Festival 2011 - BAYSIDE |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:35 |
 The biggest downside to a huge festival such as Soundwave is the possibility for clashes - an issue I ran into almost immediately with the end of The Starting Line’s set overlapping the start of BAYSIDE's by fifteen minutes. It also didn’t help that the two bands were playing on the two stages furthest away from one another, with the only path between them being a natural bottleneck. Here’s a tip for future SOUNDWAVE FESTIVAL attendees: practice your dodging and weaving skills. Arriving at Bayside as they were halfway through ‘Montauk’, I was pleased to see that the band were living up to the high quality of live performance that I had come to expect from my previous experiences of the band. While their crowd was relatively small - a curse which seemed to plague most acts on stages 5 A and B - the fans were enthusiastic and the sing-a-long's were loud. Running through tracks such as ‘Sick Sick Sick’ from their 2011 release ‘Killing Time’, to ‘The Walking Wounded’ from their 2007 release of the same name and ‘Masterpiece’ from 2004’s 'Sirens And Condolences', it was a set which covered all bases in terms of their back-catalogue.  Performance-wise, Anthony Raneri’s vocal strength continues to cement his place as one of my favourite vocalists to see live, injecting an element of rawness into their tracks which only aids the band's upfront and honest rock stylings. The energy coming from bassist Nick Ghanbarian was hard to ignore with his constant encouragement for the crowd to get involved and Jack O’Shea proved his worth in the band with many an epic guitar solo. It was also nice to see relative newcomers to the scene Veara standing side of stage singing along to every lyric and Travis Clark from We The Kings also made a brief appearance side of stage, showing his support. Ending their set with a cover of ‘My Name Is Jonas’ by Weezer followed by ‘Devotion And Desire’ - a move which finally silenced the group of fans who had been yelling out "DEVOTIIOOON" after almost every song - Bayside’s short but sweet set was a perfect blend of old and new, performed in the best way possible, honestly and accurately. |
