Years active 2004–2015 | Founded by Arash "AJ" Maddah | |
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Dates mid-February – early March; late January Location(s) AustraliaPerth (2004–2014)Brisbane (2007–2015)Sydney (2007–2015)Melbourne (2008–2015)Adelaide (2008–2015) Similar Big Day Out, Warped Tour, Stereosonic, Splendour in the Grass, Download Festival Profiles | ||
Soundwave was an annual music festival held in major cities around Australia. The festival originated in Perth, Western Australia and began travelling to the other Australian capital cities in 2007. It features a number of international and Australian music acts, from various genres including rock, metal and punk. The festival has been headlined by Deftones, The Offspring, Incubus, Alice in Chains, Bloodhound Gang, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Jimmy Eat World, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, Iron Maiden, Queens of the Stone Age, Smashing Pumpkins, System of a Down, Slipknot, Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Linkin Park, Blink 182 and Metallica. The festival was run and promoted by Soundwave Touring, who also run Harvest Festival and promote tours for bands and musicians each year.
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On 17 December 2015, the Soundwave founder, music promoter AJ Maddah, announced that the 2016 Soundwave festival was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. This was announced two days after the announcement that 2016 would be the final Soundwave festival.
History
The Soundwave festival originated in Perth, as a smaller festival known as Gravity Soundwave within the Gravity Games. The Gravity Games were held in South Perth along the Swan River, being based mainly on water-based and action sports. The event was sponsored by Vodafone in its first year, with the company reportedly committing one million dollars to the event. Gravity Soundwave provided the music side of the festival, which took place at McCallum Park alongside the Swan River.
Gravity Soundwave was first introduced in the festival's first year, which was held on 14 and 15 October 2004. American pop punk band Good Charlotte effectively became the first headline act of Soundwave, when they performed in the festival's first night along with Gyroscope and One Dollar Short. The following night featured Unwritten Law, Regurgitator, MxPx, Lagwagon and Last Year's Hero.
The 2005 festival was again presented by Vodafone, being held on the night of 8 October. Gravity Soundwave was headlined by Grinspoon, with it also featuring American acts Unwritten Law, Reel Big Fish, and Goldfinger.
The third and final year of the Gravity Games festival in Perth was moved to December 2006, instead of October. Gravity Soundwave featured American act Aiden, local Australian bands Gyroscope, Kisschasy, Parkway Drive, The Getaway Plan and New Zealanders Goodnight Nurse.
2007
In 2007 the festival expanded to include Sydney and Brisbane, and increased the number of bands performing. A number of the artists featured in the 2007 Festival had previously played at the Soundwave Festival in Perth, including Unwritten Law, MxPx and Parkway Drive.
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2008
The 2008 Soundwave festival was headlined by The Offspring, along with Incubus and Killswitch Engage and was expanded to include dates in Melbourne and Adelaide, increasing the number of dates from three to five. The expanded Festival featured five stages compared to three the previous year.
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2009
The lineup for the 2009 festival was announced on 24 September 2008, the headliners were Nine Inch Nails and sub-headliners were Alice in Chains and Bloodhound Gang.
Presenters of British reality stunt TV show Dirty Sanchez and Finnish stuntmen The Dudesons were masters of ceremonies at Soundwave 2009.
This festival featured 55 acts across six stages.
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2010
The first lineup announcement for the 2010 festival was made on 13 August 2009, the headliners were Faith No More, Jane's Addiction and Placebo, the lineup also featured Paramore, AFI, Jimmy Eat World (who replaced My Chemical Romance) and HIM.
This festival featured 46 acts across six stages.
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2011
The first lineup announcement for the 2011 festival was made on 5 August 2010, the headliners were Iron Maiden and Queens Of The Stone Age. The lineup also included The Starting Line, who reunited for the festival.
This festival featured 71 acts across eight stages.
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2012
The lineup for the 2012 festival was first announced on 7 October 2011. The 2012 Soundwave lineup featured System of a Down, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson.
This was the first time Limp Bizkit had toured Australia in eleven years. Their previous tour was the 2001 Big Day Out festival, which was marred by the death of 16 year old Jessica Michalik during their performance at the Sydney show. Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst paid tribute to Michalik at each Soundwave date and openly criticised Big Day Out organisers.
The festival also featured a reunited Coal Chamber, who played their first shows since 2003, and also marked the final shows of emo group Thursday.
This festival featured 95 acts across eleven stages.
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2013
The lineup for the 2013 Soundwave Festival was first announced on 8 August 2012. featuring headliners Metallica, Linkin Park and Blink-182, along with sub headliners A Perfect Circle, The Offspring, Garbage, Paramore, Tomahawk, Cypress Hill and Killswitch Engage
This edition of Soundwave was noted for its "drummers' curse", where several bands lost members in the week leading up to the festival:
There was also controversy regarding bands such as Pierce the Veil and The Amity Affliction having their sets cut short in Perth due to complaints from local residents - after this Maddah doubted the festival's future in Western Australia.
This festival featured 72 acts across nine stages (eight stages in Perth).
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2014
The lineup for the 2014 festival was first announced on 23 August 2013. The lineup containing 94 bands, featured Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Korn and Alice In Chains
The Perth festival was relocated from Claremont Showgrounds to Arena Joondalup, 25 km north of Perth, two weeks before the beginning of the festival due to Soundwave's ongoing conflict with the Claremont Council. Following a similar situation at the Perth leg of Big Day Out in January of that year, which was also relocated from Claremont Showgrounds to Arena Joondalup, AJ Maddah confirmed that 2014 would be the last Soundwave held in Perth, where the festival originated.
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2015
On 28 June 2014, Soundwave announced that it will become a two-day festival, held over two consecutive weekends, with half the bands announced playing day one and the other half playing day two, criss-crossing between Adelaide and Melbourne, then Sydney and Brisbane. AJ Maddah stated on Twitter "Putting the line-up across [two] days enables us to minimise clashes; give bands longer sets, better staging, production [and] infrastructure. I am also hoping that this will give fans better value for money and a less stressful day." AJ Maddah later confirmed that 2015 was the last Soundwave for Adelaide in the foreseeable future as it made a $300,000 loss in 2014, but with the $1,400,000 loss in 2015 due to lackluster ticket sales being to large to subsidise out of the other cities.
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Proposed 2016 Lineup and Cancellation
On 20 March 2015, AJ Maddah stated that Soundwave 2016 would return to the one-day format and would be held in January instead of the usual late February/early March dates. He also later stated that the 2016 lineup would be announced via "drip-feeding" and would also be smaller in order to achieve longer set times for bands.
Bullet for My Valentine was announced as the first act of Soundwave 2016 via the band's social media accounts and the official Soundwave website on 14 August 2015, and over the next four months, Disturbed was announced as the headliner and 24 other bands were added for a total of 26 bands.
On 15 December 2015, Maddah tweeted that 2016 would be the final ever Soundwave, stating it was due to "stress and haters", and two days later he tweeted that the festival had been officially cancelled.
Various problems contributed to its cancellation, including:
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