What started out as plans for a small birthday gig to celebrate the 29th year of life for local Sydney man Goredo, snowballed into a 12-band extravaganza called 'GoredoFest' featuring a mix of young and experienced bands stretching encompassing everything from Hardcore to Brutal Death Metal. Things kicked off on a cool Sydney morning at 11:00am and ran through till midnight. I knew I was going to be one of the sore thumbs of the day, but damn..

Before I go any further, I wish to inform you I'm a harsh prick. That said, I am deeply ashamed to be a human being right now. There were some truly disgraceful examples of our species at Goredofest, obviously there are still a few turds floating around in the gene pool. Anyway, that's the last you'll hear on that matter, I won't elaborate (you can figure it out). It's on to the music now, and overall the bands on the bill I was there to see (specifically The Amenta, Transcending Mortality and Infernal Method, not to mention Switchblade, Inane Eminence and Bludgeoner) really impressed. My only disappointment was Infernal Method whose sound seemed really out.

11pm The Amenta
10pm Daysend
9pm Infernal Method
8pm Flesh Mechanic
7pm Switchblade
6pm Bludgeoner
5pm Inane Eminence
4pm Transcending Mortality
3pm Omerata
2pm Aeturnus Dominion
1pm Rather Be Dead
12pm Coma Lies

The day opened with a few bands I wasn't too interested in but towards mid-afternoon things really got great. Transcending Mortality put on another excellent show and got a fantastic response from the audience (who admittedly seemed to be screaming for almost the entire day prior to their appearance). Newcastle's Inane Eminence tore through a set that really revved up punters mid-afternoon before the heavy-hitting second half of the day got underway with the likes of local crowd-pullers Switchblade who undoubtedly walked away millionaires judging by how much of their merchandise I saw people wearing, and also set the crowd right off. Flesh Mechanic were a band I hadn't seen live before and I was pretty keen to check out their new-ish vocalist, who proved to be a worthy addition to the fold, doing an impressive job with the mic and at gaining the attention of most of the guys in the building. Infernal Method opened their set with an acoustic birthday song for Goredo care of Peter before getting into their distinct Melodic Death Metal sound. As previously mentioned, I was a little disappointed with the sound of Infernal Method tonight, especially the tone of Peter's guitar. It may just have been me, or my location in front of the stage but I've seen the guys before and tonight something just didn't sound quite right.

Fresh from a load of US dates were Daysend, the band the vast majority of he crowd had turned up to see, hit the stage at 10:00pm. Going on crowd reactions they went down pretty fucking well too. The set highlight (as was the case at Metal For The Brain) was a cover of Anthrax's 'Sound Of White Noise' track 'Only'. The Amenta had talked up their live show in the past weeks, indicating we could expect a few surprises. What we were treated to was a very enjoyable set that captured the mood of their recently-released 'Occasus' record, enhanced by a multimedia projection screen cycling through distorted Amenta logos and imagery, live camera shots of band members playing and a and overall very strong stage presence.

Despite a few personally preference issues, Goredofest turned out to be well worth the time and effort and undoubtedly gave many of the bands on the bill exposure to fans who ordinarily wouldn't have given them a chance.

Below are details of the number of photos we took for each band. You can view them in the gallery below or download the entire set of 231 images in one very convenient ZIP pack from here:
http://eddie.ratm.net/pyro/pyromusic/gallery/Goredofest_2005_PyroMusic_dot_net.zip (17.6mb - right click and 'save target as')

Aeturnus Dominion (13 photos)
Bludgeoner (14 photos)
Daysend (16 photos)
Flesh Mechanic (9 photos)
Inane Eminence (14 photos)
Infernal Method (55 photos)
Switchblade (13 photos)
The Amenta (15 photos)
Transcending Mortality (82 photos)

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