LIVE REVIEW: GOOD THINGS 2025 @ FLEMINGTON RACECOURSE
Good Things Festival, for many Australian alternative music fans it’s a yearly tradition that rounds out the year in early December and I dear reader, am no exception. With this year’s headliners we saw the triumphant return of prog metal legends Tool after 5 years away from the land down under, accompanied in stark contrast by emo-pop progenitors Weezer. This year’s Good Things was ultimately a success I’d say, even if it might not have reached the same heights of previous years (in my humble opinion).
I’d like to immediately thank the foresight of employing traffic controllers on the high- volume roads right next to the racecourse which really helped move people into the grounds in an orderly fashion right at the start of the day. I’d also say the entrance gates themselves were sufficiently staffed and it took me essentially 15 seconds from entering the queue to being inside the festival.
Immediately making a beeline for merch is an important part of any annual festival goers’ pilgrimage if they have any intention of snagging the items they want. After a mildly annoying experience last year where it seemed like not enough merchandise was available only 30 minutes after entry, there was more than enough to feed the masses this year. I myself copped the campest y2k South Arcade shirt on offer and sprinted to the other side of the racecourse to catch said band’s set.
South Arcade might be young and without even a debut album under their belts but they know exactly what their doing and are right where they want to be. With ear wormy tunes featuring heavily produced instrumentals, tight drums, delightfully fuzzy bass and effective riffy guitar playing these Brits kicked off the day for me fantastically. Their frontperson Harmony Cavelle has energy in spades and kept the vibe up the entire time. Huge shoutout to Ollie for embracing Australian culture and doing not just one but TWO shoeys.
Following a quick re-group with my friends we made our way to the front of Umeå hardcore titans Refused’s (R.I.P.) set on the main stage. For those who had no idea who the Refused are I’m sure they were quite taken aback by the energy of the 53 year old swede in a purple silk shirt who from the very first song was locked in.
Refused have shaped the sound of punk and post-hardcore since 1998 and they made damn sure that for their last Australian shows they brought the energy and aggressive sound that put them on their pedestal in the first place. Pounding fuzzy riff after pounding fuzzy riff with gut wrenching screams and the coolest fucking microphone tricks I’ve ever seen I was quite happy I’d managed to catch this band before their faux retirement. Also, frontperson David Sandström directly addressing world issues and speaking out explicitly about the genocide in Palestine, reminding everyone what punk is about and the duty of care artists with a platform have to speak out about what’s right was a personal highlight of the day for me.
I then slid to the left and watched yet another Stand Atlantic set, now that might sound like I’m tired of the homegrown pop punk stars, but far from it. Their headline show at the Forum last night was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and after being a last-minute replacement for the All-American Rejects they absolutely rocked the Good Things main stage.
Having seen them so many times and owning approximately 6 shirts and a hoodie I can say they bring it every time, in fact they even brought a fraction their headline show releasing about 20 beachballs into the crowd (foreshadowing) and having two of their mate’s crowd surf in inflatable rafts. Bonnie and the gang are excellent every time, what more can I say than that?
After a not so quick toilet break a quick perusal of food stores plotting my lunch, I decided to go catch what I could of absolute champions of the local scene and Christmas party pro’s Thornhill. Now in the days leading up to Good Things I was stoked at the thought of seeing Knocked Loose again, I even had tickets to their side show courtesy of my very good friend and BackBeat photographer Lau. The announcement that they would not be playing broke my damn heart, but I’m an Alphawolf fan and enjoyed their regional tour quite a bit.
But only half an hour before their set in the Stand Atlantic pit my friend beckoned my attention to his phone where I learnt that Thornhill would be playing instead on extremely short notice. Thornhill, as per usual, put on a great live show, the fact that it was on such short notice too just shows how prepared you need to be to be a band of that calibre. I will say this is about the point in the day where the mixing on the main stages went to shit a little bit.
Following last minute addition Thornhill, I once again slid to the left to catch Machine Head but was so offended by the poor mixing and hammered 50 year old white dudes that I ducked out pretty quickly, which is a damn shame as they played my favourite songs in the latter half of their set.
I hightailed it to stage 5 to catch L.A. rap-rock/punk group Fever 333 and my god, the best decision I made all day. I was already familiar with Fever 333 having blasted their first EP and subsequent album non-stop when I was a teenager, in fact when they played those iconic early songs it took me right back and honestly, I felt a little emotional. But I’d been a little out of the loop with them the past couple years, but from the opening song I was hooked and right back on board. The pure amount of energy that comes from every member of this band is beyond electric; every member of that band played like their life depended on it and it made them the standout set of the day for me. Every song kept the vibe and energy going and the impassioned words against bigotry and division in between made it a truly special set. A cover of Song 2 by Blur with the verses replaced by Fuck Tha Police by N.W.A. is the exact type of absurdity that leaves a mark and helped make this the best set of the day for me. Fever impressed the crowd right until the end, during the last song vocalist and frontperson Jason Aalon Butler climbed the stage rigging and ended their set as quite literally the highest person at the festival, screaming gutturally with everything he had.
Following Fever’s set, it was lunchtime - well it was 5pm but it still counts. After my overpriced lunch as per Good Things Tradition, my friends and I cooled off in the Stage 666 tent serenaded by an Ozzy Osbourne live music tribute in the background. Having regained some energy, we hit the toilets then caught the last 20 minutes of Texas hardcore act Kublai Khan TX before once again deciding that in our old age (early-mid 20s), we needed a sit down before the headliners took the stage.
Unfortunately, this meant we didn’t really hear Garbage’s unhinged beach ball rant as we were quite far back, but having read up on it since, what a disgusting display. I do want to say having read numerous sources about Shirely Manson’s rant, that what she said is ludicrous. First off being so incensed by a beach ball at a music festival is ridiculous. I’ve been going to festivals since as soon as I was old enough and there have always been beach balls, inflatables and props of that nature, always. It’s simply part of the culture. But to single out and personally attack someone for having fun at a festival is just beyond the pale. Not only that, but to be a near 60-year-old multi-millionaire attacking someone for being “a middle-aged man in a ridiculous fucking hat” and then threatening physical harm simply isn’t something people should be getting away with. Also, to have an estimated net worth of anywhere between 15-18 million playing the main stage at a country’s biggest alternative music festival and complaining about not getting paid enough to a crowd of people who paid $280 to see you play is beyond tone deaf. Especially as a local musician myself and someone who is well aware of how rough trying to make money off of original work is, the last thing I want to hear is a multi-millionaire who did get to make money off of their music in the 90’s and 2000’s, complain about their pay check. The worst part of all of this to me, is she said and did all of this whilst wearing the colours of the Palestinian flag and instead of talking about an ongoing genocide she wasted time complaining about beach balls, threatening festival participants and cheapened any positive message she did previously put out there. I’m proud of us as a community to see all the videos of beachballs at subsequent Garbage sets.
From the distance I caught a few Weezer tunes before once again trekking to stage 5 for my final set of the night, Dead Poet Society. Another band I fell in love with as a teenager, it was a monumental moment for me to finally catch these guys live. The 2nd best set of the day for me after Fever 333, stage 5 just has something magic about it. Said magic is definitely just an actually competent sound guy and probably an easier setup to work with but still, magic. Tune after tune sounded phenomenal and the energy was stout and consistent throughout. Dead Poet’s mastermind, Jack Underkofler thoroughly impressed me with his vocal talent, I mean just crazily close to the record for a live setting, I didn’t hear a bum note the whole set and they are not easy vocal parts. I had an absolute blast hearing a bunch of songs that meant a lot to me and felt it was the perfect set to cap off my night, I returned to the masses, listened to a Tool song or two, and took off beating the crowds for a relatively chill trip home and a not-overpriced-dinner.
So, another Good Things in the books, how does it stack up? Well for one thing some of the yearly reoccurring issues are still just as prevalent as previous years. Such as certain water taps producing a white murky sludge instead of water, the porta potties were still flooded barely 2 hours into the day. The crowds still consist of a large population of inconsiderate dickheads who don’t understand festival or concert etiquette and don’t understand the concept of a rubbish bin but that’s not really a problem you can prescribe to the festival itself. Sound wise last year wasn’t too bad, this year however needed to be better. Stage was 5 was great, stage 3 and 4 were fine if a little bass heavy, the main stages suffered as the day wore on. By the time Machine Head took the stage the low end was drowning everything else out, and it didn’t particularly pick up from what I could tell. There were however some positives, first, I’ve never had reliable service at Good Things, it’s always either been no service for the whole day or spotty at best. But this year I had service the entire time, this made regrouping with people much easier. The variety in not only the food stalls which was great, but other vendors such as bootleg merchandise, temporary air-brush tattoos and Stage 666 provided a plethora of other things to do if you got bored or tired of being in a hot sweaty mosh pit. Something I somehow managed to miss but is a huge improvement was the addition of urinals to the toilet sections drastically cutting down lines and time spent missing out on the festivities.
Another thing I’d like to note as it’s been a point of conversation around alternative music festivals like Good Things and Knotfest the past couple years is the lack of femme representation. But I think this year’s Good Things was a step in the right direction, just off the top of my head South Arcade, Scene Queen, Stand Atlantic, Yours Truly, Wargasm, Fever 333, Make Them Suffer and Tonight Alive all feature some sort of femme representation or are femme fronted. This is a huge improvement on previous years and a particularly stark improvement on the past 2 Knotfest’s.
All in all, I had another enjoyable Good Things experience and now my wait for next year’s lineup drop to determine whether I’m out near $300 begins yet again. Although shoutout to BackBeat for providing my ticket this year as I am broke as sin, cheers!