You are infatuated with what consumes you

The fact that I live in New Zealand has always been a gigantic problem when it comes to seeing bands that I love. It is rare that anyone cool will actually make the journey over the Tasman Sea from Australia, so when I heard that a new festival was coming to town and that it was devoted entirely to heavy metal, I was fucking stoked. For years, the only festival NZ had was Big Day Out, but now I had something new to look forward to...No Sleep Til Auckland. It is a pretty big deal for a little Kiwi like myself, and the line up was fantastic. The day started with all the brilliant NZ bands like Leeches (see here for more), Outsiders and Antagonist AD. Next, Canadian Vikings 3 Inches Of Blood were more electric than I ever could've imagined and Suicide Silence were fucking heavy. Katatonia, Parkway Drive and Alkaline Trio were the other great bands from the afternoon. Just as the sun was setting, GWAR took the stage and everything got brilliantly fucked up! With their demon costumes and theatre-like performance, they were the most entertaining act of the night. I managed to get covered in fake demon blood that sprayed from the neck of a monster they decappitated on stage. Some of the bigger acts were a little boring, like Droplick Murphys and NOFX, but the main event blew me away. Megadeth were celebrating their 20th anniversary of Rust In Peace and they were just as good as they have ever been. The shredding was phenomenal and the vocals were fantastic, they played through the entire album in order, with the high point being their monster hit, Holy Wars...The Punishment Due. Despite all the amazingness of that festival, the greatest set I saw that day (and the #1 reason I wanted to go to No Sleep) was August Burns Red! ABR are a christian metal band from Pennsylvania, USA but don't be fooled by the christian tag, they are fucking heavy. Promoting their new (and fucking awesome) album, Constellations, they played an intense set of 8 songs that were the best thing about the entire festival. Even though it was just a 50 minute show at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of a big festival, I still rank ABR as one of my favourite shows of all time. I fought my way to the front of the crowd the second they started playing and at the end of the show I was rewarded when Jake Luhrs gave me the setlist from the show. It is pretty ripped up and trampled, but that just shows the essence of the show. (p.s. the date on the setlist is wrong, apparently the boys in ABR are a week behind us all).

August Burns Red. 09/12/2010. No Sleep Til Auckland, ASB Showgrounds, Auckland, New Zealand.