2nd March 2009 - Perth, Australia.

Its like winding the clock back five or so years. Zesty, energetic crowds. No vision obscuring movie taking on camera phones. Heaps of band t-shirts. Even the food isn't that bad. The vibe is friendly and many bands offer invitations to hang out and share beers afterward. Stereotype, mock and dismiss the metal lovin' kids all you want; this is what a celebration of music should be. This is the primal root of it all, here in Perth's steaming metal underbelly. Well, Guildford.

The immediate problem for The Dillinger Escape Plan is the significant gap between stage and steel railed-off front row. A stage dive here would be suicide. Previous shows were blurred by a fluid exchange of band personnel and audience in both directions, so it's a major outlet denied to the band who have an almost what-do-we-plunge-into-now look as singer Greg Puciato, sporting a Rollins-esque build, hurls water bottles into Row Z.

Let's put things in perspective, no one rocks harder than the Dillinger Escape Plan. Find me your candidates and the DEP will bring their heads to me on a plate. Today the energy is just a tad down, there's even breaks between songs. Maybe it's too sunny. They have a new drummer, Billy Rymer, and the bass player has shaved his mo; never a good move. But the main issue is the distance between devotees and band. Your typical DEP mosh-pit mirrors the activity onstage (aspiring bands: you can learn from this) and the frothing scrum of pit-barbarians do justice to the lazer-tight riffs of the opening bomb-blast. The material is all hard rockin' festival favorites. I could criticise the absence of their adventurous electronic or quasi-jazz experiments but given that anytime they divert away ferocious riffing, like the skippy, comparatively quiet harmonics passages of When Good Dogs Do Bad Things, folks turn around talk to each other. Flaunting a welt of smeared lipstick and red leopard print leggings a woman gazes round, looking for a guidance.

Even at 85% these guys leave the competition panting, their sheer energy is unsurpassable. Guitarist Ben Weinman mounts a 2 x 4ft speaker stack and against all laws of physics manages to ride the precarious double wobble. Finally at the death of Sunshine the Werewolf Puciato and Weinman dismount their high vantage point and take a running leap into the wantonly receptive supporters, smoothly surfing around with all the assured direction of experienced pros.

Mac described the prospect of the Bloodhound Gang as watching the musical equivalent of an Adam Sandler movie. Fair to say, they've been regurgitating the same pussy gags for the last ten years over standard issue chugging and badly judged Euro-disco. It's not affected their popularity, what with a near earthquake of boozy jumping to the strains of the roof being on fire. The bogans choice for sure. Beer spitting (at least I hope its beer, it's a brown liquid of sorts) white trash denominator.

I have to confess, I enjoyed Alice in Chains a helluva lot more than I envisaged. Without being consumed by the urge to go buy their records, resistance to their bog of Sabbath inspired hooks is tough. It certainly goes down better than the new emo-strains of Billy Talent. To their credit they salute the community spirit during the Victorian bushfires and it could be my special ears but I'm sure one of their songs features the lyric "fuck me I'm a coastguard". It would have been sweet if the organisers could have found a band able to compliment the atmosphere of the departing sun. But I digress, Alice in fuckin' Chains: not a lot of movement on stage, stoner rockers all right. They do have a natural magnetic presence and anthems that tap into the well of universal angst, as they suck in a fair old migration of curious drifters. The finale is leaden under heavy handed and rather bleedingly obvious No War politic-ism. I wouldn't trust these guys to fetch me a pizza let alone write protest songs, but I'll happily spend another hour with these attractive grunge survivors.

A bloated influx, clearly with the sole intention of catching Nine Inch Nails on what could almost be their farewell tour squeezes through the turnstiles round 8pm. And so totally the festival spirit changes. The barely blemished camera-phone track record is besmirched by a swarm of LCD hovering between me and the band like a plague of digital fireflies; they're everywhere. Watching the damn thing on your computer afterwards is no substitute for being there. If it was I'd do all my gigging on youtube, or better yet imeem. It also means stiffly standing rather than getting physically into the music. Deluded cocksuckers.

There's not as much mayhem as I could have hoped for. Although with this static, unreactive audience, I can make no bones. I've seen more unruly behaviour at a Belle & Sebastian concert - seriously. I feel almost embarrassed thrashing my head around. The third song is March of the Pigs, in fact it's impressive the expectation Trent Reznor can generate by just teasing the word "pigs", but after it the high energy numbers are largely discarded. The performance itself still retains a pile of commentary worthy features. The sonic backdrop is hushed to a minimum during the disaffected ballad territory of Something I Can Never Have. I half expected Reznor's bionic growl to be beefed up studio concoction, but I have to concede I'm hit by the true force of his voice. There's a number of obscurer song choices that perhaps they wish to play one last time, including Reptile with its inimitable guitar chongs that rattle the bones and force the fingernails to recede into the skin. The shocker is there's no Closer, only the final distorted piano coda reverberating over semi-mechanical aqualung breathing. With the sea of exotic noises that span the average NIN album I was half-expecting an army of musicians, however everything is handled by four musicians, including Trent who mans an array of synthesisers and occasionally guitar. It's oddly cinematic. There's a blinding shitload of lights oscillating wildly for which I'd hate to see the electricity bill.

Whilst I don't recognise every piece, at times the intensity seems to dissipate. I can't shake the feeling that his band are able session musicians rather than a cohesive unit with which he shares an instinctive bond. The weary spirit that underlies their impending hibernation resounds in Reznor's "Support bands. Fuck record labels" speech. It's not bereft of hope. We all steal music Reznor announces, himself included; reticently holding up a half guilty hand. We can help by "attending shows, buying t-shirts, blowing musicians if we have to". He also informs us that every so often a band comes along which blows us away. And right now that band is Coldplay. There's a collective gasp of horror and several uncharitable suggestions as to what Chris Martin can do to himself. Reznor relents and invites Dillinger Escape Plan to join them for Wish. My head comes clean off my spine. It's probably still rolling around the Steel Blue Oval waiting for me to pick it up; a forgotten piece of litter. I don't know. It's all a bit fuzzy now. There's nine or so loony mentalists flailing over every inch of stage. Mic stand in hand, Puciato punches the air as an unidentifiable figure clubs a kick drum with his guitar. This was the kind of mayhem I'd been hoping for. It's worth the cover price alone.

Transcribed by Reverend Chris.

Postscript: there were many other bands that I didn't get to witness who I'm sure all deserved copy. However one phenomenon that mustn't be neglected is the new metal craze which involves the band dividing the masses down the middle - something like Moses parting the red sea, then getting each side to full steam charge each other in a smash of cartwheeling limbs.