by Andrew Fowle, Photos by Steve OMalley

Last year’s Overcranked left me gob-smacked.

I have a short attention span when it comes to music, and that festival covered just about every kind of aggressive, guitar driven music you could possibly think of. I sort of stumbled through last year’s OC at random, not knowing who was playing where and when or what was going on around me, but loved it all the same.

This year was going to be different. Study the timetable, plot, plan,stratergise, take no prisoners, but take plenty of merch. Leave no stone unturned, let no band go unseen, and above all, remember the fucking earplugs!! You see, O.C. doesn’t just refer to a dodgey TV show and stand for “Overcranked”, it also stands for “Obsessive Compulsive” - and at times like these, thats me to a T.

I arrived just in time to catch the last half of The Quickening’s set. They played with the downtuned heaviness of metal without compromising the relentless flat out pace and attitude of punk. Unlike so many other bands these days trying to cross punk and metal, the overall vibe of The Quickening was rather rousing and uplifting - so it pissed me off no end that I’d missed half of their set.*Mental note: get their CD when you get to the merch stand*

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I moved on to the mainstage area to suss out where everything was, and get my bearings. It was there I stumbled upon Dead Letter Circus. I quite like these guys. They played some intense yet spacious music which had me thinking of Tool one minute and Cog the next, with a pace rarely visited by either of those bands.

After Dead Letter Circus I figured I’d give Melodyssey a listen, but getting to that stage meant passing the Red Octopus stage where Beijing Tank were playing.

Beijing Tank are hardly a band you just walk on by without stopping for a listen. They were metal as fuck, and you know its officially a metal gig when the bacon and Tonka Trucks start flying out from the stage!!

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I finally moved onto the FasterLouder stage in enough time to catch the tail end of Melodyssey’s set. Their stage presence could use some work. In fact, being present at the festival at all would have been a good start! Punk band Vicious decided to start early and play longer in Melodyssey’s absence.
Quite a fun band with a kick ass bassist. I’ll probably catch this band again sometime.Thats the cool thing about these kinds of festivals. There were so many bands I’d been meaning to see for a long time but hadn’t yet, and quite a few bands I’d never even heard of. Its the perfect way to sample a whole bunch of bands at the one place, and discover a few that you might end up a fan of.

I floated between Vicious and Beijing Tank for a while before being lured out towards the mainstage by some slick sounding thrash.

City in Panic were rocking out with some fast, almost old school sounding metal with a downtuned, heavier, modern vibe about it. Expecting to see a whole lot of
black and denim (and maybe even leather!!), I was quite taken by suprise to see mullets, emo fringes, and sweat bands. Not half as suprised as I was when they then shifted gears into a melodramatic breakdown and their fans started fight dancing.

I really dig this kind of music, but I just do not get any other aspect of the culture. Maybe I’m just getting old, but the way kids carry on in the pit these days is a joke. I’m afraid that no breakdown I’ve ever heard has inspired me to try to look tough while shadow boxing in girls jeans. The way they fling their arms around continuously reminds of that robot from “Lost in Space”. It would have been killer if, in the middle of that breakdown, they dropped a sample of him going “DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!”

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Luckily Fort brought me back to my comfort zone quick smart. These guys love their stoner sludge and bore a resemblance to kyuss here and there.They were damn good at it too, and I’ll definitely catch these guys next time they’re in town.I got so carried away with Fort that I almost missed out on Blowhard… and what a treat they were. Rollo appeared onstage wearing only cling wrap, and while that stuff is designed to seal in freshness, it was too little too late - they were already going off.

Mammal were a bit of a suprise for me. Try to imagine a fast and funky version of Cog, with a rapping, screaming, and singing front man who dances like Mick Jagger.

He was camper than a row of tents but managed to work the crowd like a cop at a 4zzz Market Day. Excellent showmanship.

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Back out on the FasterLouder stage, Mourning Tide were kicking asses. I heard some fast thrashy stuff give way to something similar to what I heard during Fort’s set, and I was loving every minute of it.Then, out of no where, when I least expected it:BREAKDOWNS!! NINJAS FIGHT DANCING!!What the fuck????It was like biting deep into a delicious chocolate cake, only to discover a human finger in the middle. Like making out with a beautiful woman, only to discover she has a penis. Like listening to a kick ass metal band and finding yourself surrounded by confused emo kids, out to prove their man hood. Whilst wearing girls jeans.I don’t mean to completely ridicule an entire sub culture here, especially out of my own ignorance, but I just don’t get it.All posing and crazy dance moves aside; these drawn out, melodramatic breakdowns that are wedged into the songs to give the kids something to fight to adds bugger all to the music. Its almost like intermission for those of us who were actually digging the vibe and momentum of the rest of the song.

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 I packed up my disappointment and moved back inside, where I was quickly cheered up by a drunken heavy metal air guitar competition. This stage is definitely a welcome addition to the festival. I guess its like OC’s answer to BDO’s lillypad stage. They had a tattoo competition, an air guitar competition, and a metal karaoke competition. It doesn’t matter how serious or hardcore the music is, festivals are meant to be fun, and this definitely helped that cause.

With my spirits renewed, I went outside to catch Sunk Loto. The crowd was divided into two kinds of people: those with their jaws dropped in amazement muttering “I can’t believe its Sunk Loto”, and those moshing their guts out.

These guys have matured plenty, and come a long way from their nu-metal-meets-deftones roots. They were fast and brutally heavy, and so different to their old sound that they could have performed under a different name with no one picking up on it.

As good as they were, I had to sneak back into the shed-like confines of the Red Octopus stage to catch at least some of Minus Life’s set. You’d never know Sunk Loto were hogging the crowd the way these guys tore it up.

Excellent set, though it would have been cool to hear the keyboards as well.

Up next was the first international band of the evening. God Forbid played to a massive and extremely responsive crowd. Their frontman was hell bent on choreographing the mosh pit and may have gotten a little carried away. Not content with merely having a fast and large circle pit swinging wildly around like a broken down washing machine, he wanted EVERYONE sucked into the human whirlpool of death. The circle pit widened dramatically and I took that as my cue to check out 8Ft Sativa.

I only managed to catch the last few songs of theirs but stuck around at that stage to see Terrorust. I’d never heard of them before, but several people had mentioned them during the course of the day, so I had to check them out. They were death metal, pure and simple, but one of the most brutally heavy and fast death metal bands I’ve ever heard.

It was chaotic madness, served up with the technical precision of a brain surgeon. Awesome!!

I caught a little bit of Shihad at the mainstage. I can never figure these guys out. Their music isn’t all that fast or energetic, but they always throw themselves into their performance as though it was. At one point Mr Toogood was up on top of a speaker stack and managed to drag his guitar and the mic stand up with him!! The Butterfly Effect were up next, but I quickly shot through to catch Psycroptic.

Between Terrorust and Psycroptic I may have grown an extra set of testicles. Ridiculously fast, heavy, and precise. If only they’d brought CDs with them, I would have bought one for my mum. Of course the last bit of their set would have suffered significantly due to an overlap with headliners, Helmet.

It was more like “The Page Hamilton All Stars” than Helmet, but it didn’t matter for a moment. They played all the old favourites, some of their heavier new songs, and ol’ man Hamilton took the time to take the piss out of his audience.

He’s considerate like that.

Everything from “emotional haircuts” to our parents rocking harder than we did, way back at livid in ‘94.

Highlight for me was when they played “Just Another Victim” from the Judgement Night soundtrack. The last time I saw them I was injured in the mosh pit and left before the encore - which happened to be that song. I never forgave myself for missing that, but now I can finally get over it.

The amount of emo/hardcore/fringecore bands playing this year really put a downer on it for me. One or two good ones here and there throughout the day adds to the variety - which can only be a good thing. This year there were far to many, and its something I heard commented on a lot. I walked away satisfied at the end of the night, but couldn’t help but remember walking away absolutely buzzing the previous year.

Still, I can’t wait for OC 2008!!!