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CokeFest and Gaming – Story

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By Philip Dunkley

Coke FestI would like to give some background to this story before I even start with the actual meat of it. Firstly, I know that the 5FM Coke Fest Concert has nothing to do with gaming, but music and games are closely linked. Secondly, I have had hardly any sleep in the last few nights due to loads of parties and a large amount of booze. Thirdly, I am definitely getting old; I just cannot last for 14 hours on my feet trying to rock out to some of the world’s best bands, drinking warm beer and getting covered in mud.

That said, this is what I’m going to do. What I decided was, was to rate each band as a game, and actually try and think what game would represent each band according to style and performance.

I know, I’m warped in the head, but hell, why not.

So we do the whole responsible thing after getting tickets from Gallo, and head over in a shuttle bus as we can never be expected to drive in the state we are going to get ourselves into, and arrive at the venue with just over 46000 other people. I sigh, but continue forward, and soon we are the proud recipients of our Lanyards and Festival info, and we head straight for the bar. Now the first time round, it took us about 10 minutes to get a beer, the next time took us about an hour, so our hopes of getting drunk were dashed almost instantaneously. Then we decide to stock up on a few beers, but this was a bad idea as they literally got hot standing in the sun. So we resign ourselves to the fact that we are going to literally being drinking Coca-Cola and Play energy drink most of the day.

This bring me to the bands, and I’m only going to rate the international bands here, as I’ve seen the SA bands plenty of times, and I’m sure many of you have too, so here comes my analogy of each of these major groups.

30 Seconds to Mars – Conflict : Denied Ops

This band has all the potential of being good live, especially with Jared Leto being the front man, but being called a Mother F#*&@ more than 20 times can get rather irritating at points, and they basically just performed like they should with no real stand out features and very little to get anyone excited, and if you’ve played this game, you’ll understand the significance of the bad language.

Kaiser Chiefs – Unreal Tournament III

A fantastic showpiece of a band, with energy levels through the roof, and a pace that does not slow down until the last riff is played, or last bullet is shot. There is a good reason why this band won best live act at the Brit Awards. Great energy, great sound and a really good overall performance, just like the Game.

Good Charlotte – Army of Two

This band shows up and wows the crowd with a great performance, even though I was sceptical if I was going to enjoy them or not, but they come out and give a solid show. Both of the front men of the band work well together, kind of like in the game, but I suppose being identical twins generally help that somewhat. Enjoyable, and very entertaining, sounds like army of two.

Chris Cornell – The Elder Scrolls : Oblivion

With a long history of being a front man for some of the world’s biggest bands, including Soundgarden and Audioslave, Chris Cornell’s enigmatic voice has captured the hearts of many a listener, and there’s a good reason that Time Magazine rated him as one of the world’s best voices. He absolutely oozes with depth, and his previous outings have only strengthened his position in his new role as a solo artist. He was fantastic on stage, and blew my mind more than any other on the day. It will be an experience that will stay with me for a long time to come, exactly like Oblivion did and still does.

Muse – FIFA 08 Wii Edition

The reason I chose to compare this band to FIFA on the Wii, was because they started out really well, and had a high tempo and really interesting bunch of songs. But as the experience went on, I realised that it got a bit too much of the same, and the depth of the band waned over time, as did the game. I was expecting more, but I can also blame tiredness on this, so this could be a bit harsh.

Korn – Duke Nukem Forever

After organising our shuttle to collect us at 12h00, we had to leave the concert by 11h30, but these guys had still not pitched on stage. I know they are a big band, but come on, don’t make us wait forever to see them, nearly an hour and a half changeover after Muse is crazy, and just when we thought they were coming on stage, they didn’t. So we left and did not see them, kind of reminds me of a game I know!!!

Anyway, that’s my warped opinion of the bands, hope you enjoyed it, I did.

Last Updated: March 26, 2008

9 Comments

  1. NoMaD

    March 26, 2008 at 12:43

    Cool idea, great reviews 😀

    Reply

  2. Jinja

    March 26, 2008 at 12:55

    Nice idea, but you missed the BEST band of the whole day!!!!!

    Jinja’s last blog post..South Park Episodes Free

    Reply

  3. J4NR1K

    March 26, 2008 at 13:26

    Awesome! and spot on!

    Reply

  4. Naudran

    March 26, 2008 at 13:27

    @Jinja: Best? Muse is already there 😛

    Reply

  5. kay

    March 26, 2008 at 13:33

    Good Charlotte sounded all the same to me. They have a couple of nice songs, but they either can’t perform live or their sound setup was dodgy. To my ears at least, they sounded mushy and boring. Never was a big fan anyway.

    Muse rawked! I (and everyone else I spoke to) just could not get enough of them. I will plan my next European holiday to include at least one proper Muse concert 😉 If you found their depth lacking then clearly you were at the wrong concert!

    I enjoyed KoRN more than I expected – I used to be into them back in the day but haven’t really followed their new stuff. They put on a brilliant show. Watching the crowd bounce to Blind was totally awesome.

    Mostly the same impressions from the rest of the bands – Chris Cornell and Kaiser Chiefs were my highlights after Muse.

    For me, Muse was by far the most entertaining act, but by the looks of it KoRN had far more support on the day 😉

    kay’s last blog post..RIP: Arthur C. Clarke

    Reply

  6. Jinja

    March 26, 2008 at 13:46

    1. Korn
    2. Muse
    3. Kaiser Chiefs
    4. Chris Cornell (He bored the poo out of me)
    5. Good Charlotte
    6. 30 secs to Mars

    Jinja’s last blog post..South Park Episodes Free

    Reply

  7. Goose

    March 26, 2008 at 15:31

    Saw the gig in Cape Town and I have to say Muse were unbelievable. As a musician I could not believe what I was seeing. In my opinion (and I’m not a huge muse fan either), the best live show I’ve ever seen.

    Other than Muse, I thought Kaiser Chiefs were fantastic (also not their biggest fan) and Chris Cornell made my day by playing Spoonman. Still one of the greatest voices in Rock but was a bit dull on stage.

    I unfortunately did wait around for Korn (who i really liked back in high school) but they were far too loud (loud, not heavy) and pretty sloppy technically. In comparison to Muse (who were tighter than a mouse’s ear) they looked and sounded like a garage band

    Reply

  8. Jak

    March 26, 2008 at 16:21

    Muse was awesome. Dont dis MUSE!!!!

    Reply

  9. Milesh Bhana

    March 27, 2008 at 16:33

    LOL! Agreed about Muse, also my fav that night.

    Actually CokeFest 2007, Guns and Roses = Duke Nukem Forever.

    You’re going to have to liken Korn to a really decent game that got delayed but actually was released.

    Reply

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