Karnivool
at The Coolangatta Hotel
I often frequent The Coolangatta Hotel; so when I read Karnivool would be doing a gig there during their Aeons tour, I practically jumped out of my Mickey Mouse Jim Jams to get myself a ticket!
I brought my own vodka of course (crudely disguised in a Vitamin Water bottle), and found myself a spot at the front against the barrier; in front of a fat, bald security guard attempting to look threatening but failing miserably. I’m choosing to exclude my drunken recollections of supporting acts Mere Theory and That 1 Guy because they both had me quite confused. Mere Theory weren’t sure if they were punk or metal, so I’ll refer to their music genre as Petal, and my experience of Petal thus far has been a frustrating one. The people who did watch them weren’t sure whether to play an air guitar or punch the air with closed fists. That 1 Guy from San Francisco had me addled even further, he softly beat what I made out to be an oversized vacuum cleaner pipe, while head banging. Slowly.
So then a fight broke out and the bald, fat man moved out of my way. Karnivool dealt us a long intricate musical intro which resonated through the audience. The lead singer, Kenny has us so mesmerised I didn’t even notice his trimmed Amish facial hair. I had missed them at Big Day Out this year so had my doubts about a live performance. My expectations were all fulfilled during their songs from the Themata record. They played three or four new songs which I noticed most of the crowd didn’t recognise but responded well to. I only noticed the rest of the band when Kenny wasn’t singing. He hypnotised us with each lyric, his left hand held limp at his shoulder and his head lowered forward with the rest of his upper body.
They didn’t have time for two encore songs so after the first, guitarist’s Hos, Jono and Andrew man-piled onto the drum kit to literally go out with a bang; then a crash, and I think I may have heard a masculine cry of pain.
Afterward, as many bald fat men tried to round us up like sheep and escort us downstairs, I was scanning the room for a way backstage. Bassist Jono was casually lung darting in a corner outside. He asked me what me and my friends were doing after we left and I, in true pathetic groupie fashion said,
“Coming with you of course!”
In reality all I wanted was a peek backstage since it had been renovated. It was disappointing to say the least. Their tiny dressing room was sucked dry of all alcohol, a single half-filled bottle of yellow tail red remained which was ordered by That One Guy.
We had photo’s, we pissed the manager and roadies off with our school girl antics and went back to their apartment in Surfers Paradise. They were all very cool, calm and collected which I then found out was due to the insane amount of weed they kept in their hotel room. In the end, two of us got sleepy and went home, but one of us became a true groupie in every sense of the word. Can you guess which one?
