The Australian summer for Sydney siders may not be at its most ideal conditions at the moment. But the festival season has started and returning for its second year is the alternative heavy music festival Good Things. It has once again brought us a really good mix of homegrown and overseas bands to get down and mosh to.

Changing things up from its inaugural year, the Sydney version of Good Things was at a new home in Centennial park. The huge open spaced lush green parkland providing ample area to sit and watch the bands from a far especially for the main stage whose huge screens really made it quite handy to sit back and watch your favorite bands. The lay out was of good design with distance between stages perfect and no sound over lap, plenty of amenities. Food and drink lines were quite reasonable even if pricing for their goods weren’t, but hey it is Sydney and a festival so to be expected, but all in all not bad.

Those things I mentioned above are just small parts that go into making a festival what it is. But we all know that a festivals true heart and soul lie with the bands that we came to see. Let me tell you I have nothing but love and praise for the days artists.

The diverse line up really had something to be loved by every one. I had spent all week psyching myself up for Saturdays main event by listening to the Good Things playlist on Spotify. There was one artist who had me asking myself who is this ? Every time I heard their track come on and that artist was Poppy who was an early opening act and her first time down under. She did not disappoint providing a set full of cute yet vicious tracks.

Ice Nine Kills were another early stand out, the horror loving metalers killing it. No one was left untouched as The Veronica’s delivered on their wall of death and welcomed to the stage Bert McCracken of The Used who happen to have played last years festival. The Butterfly Effect as always were huge crowd favorites and the metal titans Trivium had people crashing over the barrier in waves.

Wow ! the amount of home grown talent at this festival was amazing to see. New festival fav’s like Skeggs got the party started and Violent Soho had a huge sing along. I took a moment to watch the Beautiful Monument before flying over to see Simple Plan bring out on stage Erin from Brisbane band Stateside to sing Jet Lag. Slowly Slowly another one of my days highlight and how good was it to Sydney’s own Yours Truly crushing it over on stage 5.

Now as Sydney’s almost spooky looking red sun began to fade and night fall crept in A Day To Remember finished off their set in spectacular fashion. I had made my way over to see Simple Creatures the duo of Mark Hoppus (Blink 182) and Alex Gaskarth (All Time Low) that have created a new band with a new sound far removed from their other bands. I must admit I am a huge Blink 182 fan so seeing just one of my idols back on an Australian stage was my day made especially getting to hear them cover Depeche Mode. Now for the grand finally over on the main stage Parkway Drive had already lit up the stage quite literally. The Byron Bay metal heads had the mosh pit in full effect as they dazzled us with a spectacular lighting and pyrotechnics show that had drummer Ben Gordon do a full 360 spin. It was definitely the performance of the night had every one talking and ended with quite a bang.

Good Things really do happen when everybody comes together and that was exactly what I saw today. A whole cohesion of dedicated music festival fans with an amazing line up that show cased so many of our nations top acts making it no place I would rather be then here on this Saturday. Proving that after the death of Soundwave Festival Good Things come to those who wait.

Review – Chad Heard

Check out our gallery: https://www.scenezine.com.au/gallery-good-things-festival-sydney-2019/