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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Of Moons Millionares And Mothers Part 4: The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck! Or No, I Didn’t Forget An Episode

Hello all you happy people.. and as you can see by the title no I didn’t forget an episode despite Della’s debut comes before this. It’s kinda important. But Kev who comissioned this retrospective requested I take a look at Della’s appearances in IDW’s tie-in comic first, as it was the only look we got at her personality before her debut, see how it compares, similar to him having me do her only major comic appearance. I was more than fine with that, but it meant due to something I had planned for June I had to shuffle things around a bit episode wise.

See like I did for Goofy last week, to surprising applause from one PATICULAR source for one PATICULAR review

I’m not putting that there to toot my own horn so much as I still can’t believe that fucking happened and have to keep reminding myself.

Point is since Donald is also my boy and I have even more to pull from for him, I naturally decided to give him a weeklong birthday celebration too. And the comics.. just fit too well for that. We never saw Donald before a combination of life beating him down and loosing Della took ALL the fun he did have adventuring out of it for him. We’ve seen him be awesome and adventure, the show gave us plenty of that, if not as much as i’d of liked. But we never saw him at his peak, only at his valley and then his new peak. Kinda like how if you only saw Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic and John Whick and missed his other peaks with the first two Bill and Teds and Matrix. He was also damn good in Parenthood. Good movie, great tv show, wish he’d made a cameo in the latter. Or Steve Martin, Or Rick Moranis. My point is part of his story there is missing so it felt only right to put the filling of it in his week.

So i’m jumping ahead an episode: this one now, the comics next week, and THEN whatever happened. It dosen’t really wreck the flow of things too badly as this episode dosen’t removely involve Della and her episode while excelent was built to work in isolation, likely so they could slot it wherever needed after christmas.

Okay good. So moving on this episode... the episode came out of the concept for another episode that never happened: Scrooge would tell the kids a story, they’d make revisions and due to some magical mishap of the week they’d end up rewriting history with them. They ended up reworking the basic concept: Scrooge still tells a story to one of the kids, in this case Louie and they kept one or two of the changing up the story gags just in a diffrent context, but the made it more a direct homage to the Princess Bride, a grandfather telling his grandson, both things metaphorically but still, about a story the Grandson has no intrest in and slowly gets invested in as he goes. Did it work? Do I still like this episode? Find out under the cut!

Our story begins at the mansion. Louie is watching Ottoman Empire... which begins a running gag/mini-arc for the season as it turns out Randy has left the show leaving Johnny to his own devices and bitter about the whole thing. For some reason the crew didn’t hire someone else. I mean... personally i’d go with Al Borland. Let him just take over the show.

Scrooge comes in being generous.. well the Scrooge version of generous as he had some misprinted buisness cards and figures Louie can write his company name on them.. which Scrooge has forgot. I’d drag him for this.... but my own short term memory is notoriously shoddy. I take a while to remember peoples names and can sometimes forget what I was just told to do 2 minutes ago. So I won’t be throwing stones in this glass house.

Louie however claims he’s given up. And while Scrooge guesses legit things his latest idea didn’t pan out, a sociopath with a chess motif spent months driving him back to alcoholism, he found out he was a robot and left the company, he had to fake his own death so his scietnests could bring him back to life, you know normal stuff. But no being Louie.. there was like four people at the patent office. To which I laugh as, in getting a new photo ID, I stood for over half an hour socially distanced You suck child.

Jokes aside though I do like this as it’s something we all knew would happen at SOME POINT. Louie has some drive in him.. but his inherent laziness holds him back. Can relate. So of COURSE he’d quit at the first obstacle at some point and it’s a miracle he made it through the entire last episode without bailing.

Frank and Matt did make the wise decision thoguh to NOT make this an entire episode. Louie’s lazy shctick only works in small doses: it’s why this arc and his focus episodes are more focused on his grifting and shortsightedness, with only this one and great dime chase focusing on his laziness.. and even then the latter focuses more on the grift. It NEEDED to be in the arc.. but unlike Louie’s other faults it just isn’t something that’s easy or fun to build an episode around.

So instead Scrooge decides to tell Louie a tale from THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK. Speaking of which if Disney is all in on this whole making mini series thing... make a Life and Times series. Either bring Frank back and simply make a version that fits into this continuity, and fills in the gaps we didn’t see, with the easy wraparound of him telling his daughter the full life story from his perspective, or do a straigther adaptation of the comic.. and still bring frank back because come on. The show DID do flashbacks and rather good ones, this one included... but we never got to find out how certain major milestones went and there’s PLENTY of room within what they’ve told already to tell new stories. Plus.. I want to see Hortense dammit. I’m still bitter about that, especially since i’m highly convinced it’s Disney’s fault. I do bring up Life and Times for a reason though as my current retrospective of it just so happens to be in this period of Scrooge’s life: CLOSE to making his fortune in the Klondike, but still a ways off on other gold rushes, though with some key diffrences we’ll get into as we go.

So in this period Scrooge is already hardened, tired of people and untrusting, and still working to make his way square, this time settling in the small town of gumption working his claim. After falling in a rockslide he meets Sheriff Martial Cabrera, who in Life and Times Fashion, is Fenton’s ancestor. This comes out of something Frank always had in mind about Fenton’s history: he comes from two long lines, one of Lawpersons the other of mad scientests, with his career as Gizmoduck being the logical combination of both. I think it’s neat, giving him a rich family history of his own and also neat to have his ancestor be an upstanding POC Dork too.

Marshall is also played by Lin, who does a great job here, not only pulling off a southern accent, but managing to give Marshall simliiarties to fenton, his cheerieness, obliviousness and sense of justice while still making him diffrent, even more naive and far more bound to the law and what society thinks is right. Scrooge naturally hates him, but begrudingly lets the man save his life and shares some beans with him. As it turns out Marshall was inviting Scrooge to the town meeting as Scrooge has largely isolated himself as you’d expect, and he wants his miners to be in on the big shot coming to Gumption to help it. The “Miners” part though is what sticks with Scrooge as he’s been working this claim for some time, and demands to know who the hell thinks they can jump in and cash in on his hard work.

Yeah not a huge suprise to him. Though Louie is upset as he dosen’t want any mushy stuff with ol dpeople While Scrooge as ever denies being attracted to Goldie, which is also as convincing as ever, he also has a valid point that leads to the best line of the episode and what i consider to be Monihan’s best comedic line delivery series-wide Scrooge: We weren’t old then! Louie: It’s impossible to picture you young.

I never fail to laugh at that. Especially since he’s not even being a dick for once it just comes off like a genuine kid reaction. So Scrooge brushes it off. As an aside the two hadn’t even met yet in the comics, but this change, like the other massive one coming up is one I feel still works: since Goldie is scrooge’s rival as much as his lover here, it only makes sense Dawson wasn’t even the first time they met and they have a long history of stabbing each other in the back, something that would later be brilliantly used in “The Forbidden Fountain of The Foreverglades” as it’s backbone and to question if they really could keep going on like this forever. Spoilers they could not.

Louie ends up stopping the story because he dosen’t want prospector talk and we get David Tennant’s own best comedic line reading as he tries to do modern slang. TRIES being the key word. Louie wiselygoes back to the old timey talk.

So the two naturally are at each other’s throats with Goldie having already bought up all the dynamite. So the two spend what’s likely days working at it, Scrooge working hard while Goldie casually tosses explosives around like she’s the Mad Bomber What Bombs at Midnight.

Eventually though Scrooge DOES strike Gold, as does goldie.. the same nugget in fact that’s utterly MASSIVE... and quickly excivated bringing both to the surface and face to the man who stole their hard earned gold, John D. Rockerduck.

Rockerduck is another barks creation, a rich rival of Scrooge’s he only used once, likely because he retired not long after the story. Suprisingly though unlike the MANY, MANY one off villians Scrooge fought Rockerduck caught on and overseas ended up being Scrooge’s arch enemy instead of Glomgold and getting fleshed out in the process, being a younger rival willing to spend. Don Rosa further added contrast by giving him the backstory of coming from a wealthy family in life and times, as opposed to Scrooge and Rockerduck’s own father Roger who worked for every cent they had.

Despite his popularity it still took till this series for Rockerduck to hit animation. Though I CAN see why: with the original series they already had Glomgold and really DIDN’T need him, and Scrooge really didn’t have any major starring roles in the 30 years between series. He didn’t vanish but with Scrooge not being in the drivers seat, there was no reason to bring in a rival let alone a brand new one. By contrast, Fethry, the other major comics only character the series brought in this season, COULD’VE very easily been brought in at any time, as donald both starred in Quack Pack and was one of the stars of House of Mouse/Mouseworks, they just chose not to.

Rockerduck was, like MANY characters in this versoin of the series massively overhauled, only keeping his outfit, background of inerheted welath and smugness: John is now his father’s age during this time period instead of a child, his suit is now white, and given his new time period he now has a unique modus operandi: he goes to small desperate towns like this, buys them up, takes anything of value and then flees on a rail. Despite liking how Rockerdcuk was in the comics.. I do LOVE this reinvention: with Beaks taking up his old spot as a younger rival, Rockerduck needed a new gimmick and having him be a stylish, entitled conman still fits the character like a glove while updating him to better fit the larger rouges gallery this series gives scrooge. It also nicely contrasts him with Scrooge’s modern-ish rival and 80′s/90′s style buisness scumbag glomgold: Both are flashy, are willing to spend tons of money for their schemes and have the common decency of a trump, but while Glomgold is all force , arrogance and ill thought out schemes, Rockerduck is far more cunning, manipulating people and situations with all three of his major roles in the series having carefully thought out plans.. but usually with some glaring hole he didn’t think of due to arrogance versus the 80 holes in Glomgold’s plans he didn’t think of because he simply dosen’t think period.

Rockerduck is also part of an intresting concept by Frank: that Scrooge had a major rival in every era. Rockerduck in the prospecting days, Glomgold in the 80′s and 90′s and Beaks in theory and Bradford in practice in the 2010′s, with likely some other scumbags inbetween we simply never got to meet.

Now I will admit it took time to warm up to this Rockerduck on the whole.. but not because he was bad. Rockerduck is awesome here and John Hodgman, whose always awesome, is unsurpsingly great here, having just the right combo of genuine wit with genuine twit. But it was more “why the FUCK did you strand him in the 1800′s?!”. That last complaint as you all well know ended up evaporating and he returned via shoddy cryogencis for plenty of Season 3 and likely would’ve come back again for Season 4 had it happened, as FOWL outside of BRadford and Heron were still around by the end of the finale, just defeated for now, and likely would’ve simply gone their seperate ways and blended into the Rouge’s gallery.

So Scrooge is naturally pissed while Goldie’s natrually angling to steal the nugget, and Rockerduck explains he bought the town, and thus the mineral is his.. despite Scrooge having a legit claim to it since he found it first. Rockerduck however isn’t impressed and Goldie, in order to try stealing it herself, manipulates the two into a scrap. Scrooge EASILY beats the asshole in a hilarous scene as preppy boxing simply can’t outdue genuine grit and badassery while Jeeves, rockerduck’s butler, catches Goldie. Jeeves is also from the comics and heavily reinvented here, as he’s now an even more massive oddjob from james bond.

Our heroes, well hero and Goldie anyway, end up in Jali as a result since while what Rockerduck did is fucked, like most coproaate assholery it’s technically legal and the person he screwed over thus gets even more screwed over by the law. It’s then .. Johnny shows up as Louie’s watching his show.. and watching some guy get eaten by an ottoman. Oh and frank confirmed he’s dead. I didn’t think i’d see a man get murdered by an ottoman on a children’s cartoon but here we are. After Scrooge forces Louie back into a story he CLEARLY has no intrest in at the moment, Scrooge convinces Goldie to work with him with a valid point: they both equally love gold and hate assholes like Rockerduck. They also find another person in the cell with them, Gyro.. and not an ancestor either, though it would’ve been nice to see Ratchet, this is our Gyro, simply stranded in the past and locked in a cell for what Frank said are charges of sorcerey.

Scrooge of course plans to break out and get his gold back.. with Goldie pointing out MAYBE don’t say that while the guy who put them in the cell is right there. Marshall isn’t really bothered though as Rockerduck’s already on a train with the giant nugget. Gyro ends up bursting Marshall’s bubble: as I mentioned Rockerduck’s modus operandi is swindling small towns of resources and leaving them to die, something Gyro knows since by the president Rockerduck’s reputation of being a fucking asshole is infamous. Marshall takes a second to realize maybe since he’s never heard of Ogdenville or North Haverbrook he really has been conned.

Scrooge, now further inscensed and wanting what’s his, decides to plan a heist. Again time and place. He has a crew with Gyro and Goldie, he just needs to break out.. only for Marshall to voluntarily let the three out and offer his help. When Goldie is understandably skeptical, Marshall points out that his town’s well being and what’s genuinely right is more important than the letter of the law and he’s on board.

So with that Scrooge’s plan begins and naturally it’s a great one: he and Goldie will dress up as high society types and inflitrate Rockerduck’s car to get the keys to the gold, while Gyro and Marshall will use some fancy gizmo Gyro whips up to procure the gold. Goldie is skeptical Scrooge can pass for a rich man and is plesantly suprised and even more pleasantly aroused by his fancy digs and vice versa.

But there’s no time for love Dr. Jones, as Gyro unveils his plan: Rocket Rocking Horses. They’ll use these to get on the train. His plan A was just as cool but also far more of an animal rights violation... by modern standard. By 1800′s rules the only violation nof an animals rights is if you killed it for a reason toher than “tastest good” , “to make stuff”, “It looked at me funny”, “it slept with my wife” or “it tasted good after I shot it for looking at me funny then sleeping with my wife”

So with that our heroes set out to rocket rob a train back to the future part 3 style. Well that involved an 80′s car instead of rocket rocking horses but still, credit someone else actually remembers that movie. So with that Scrooge and Goldie make it on board.

Meanwhile Rockerduck is being exactly as plesant as you’d expect: bragging about the thrill he gets from swindling people, having a guy thrown off for understandbly questniong the human cost and then railing a waiter out for a feather in his soup and for having soup available in the first place. Huh so that’s what people like Tucker Carlson did before they had cable news to lie-scream into. Neat.

Meanwhile Marshall and Gyro prepare their side of the plan but Gyro’s general inablility to get that not everyone, especially a cowboy from a century or two before, is going to get how to work stuff and ends up knocking him out. Marshall does prove to have some of his descendents genius though and quickly cobbles something together to get to the gold on time: STEAMPUNK GIZMODUCK ARMOR. Hell.. yeah. It has a neat design too.

Back at the train Goldie and Scrooge enact a plan on the fly: both sneak in and Scrooge tells her to do what she does best.. leading to her blushing. Goldie he dosen’t want you to peg him in a train car... he didn’t bring the old timey dildo with him. You gotta think. No he wants her to be “an annoying diversoin” and she throws a song together. And HOLY SHIT I forgot Allison Janney could sing, this woman’s talent knows no bounds. So while Goldie kills it, a nod to her saloon routes from the comics, Scrooge takes care of Rockerducks...

Energy to swipe the key. Getting the gold turns out to be more difficult as Jeeves is already there and a fight insues, with the odds evenend once goldie joins in, and our heroes winning out.. for a second anyway, but long enough to get the gold to Marshall. Not long enoug however to escape as Jeeves grabs both mid jump. I do love how Scrooge gets out of this though: He simply uses his head and his own background, pointing out Rockerduck likely dosen’t appricate a working class man with jeeves and offering him the gold chunk. Sure it’s a bribe.. but it’s a well meant one, and one from a man who almost never gives up a dollar for anything, let alone gold. So with that our heroes are released and the most Rockerduck can give out is an “ah dang”. Granted he’d freeze himself so he could fight them again, but there are probably several more adventures before that anyway.

For now our heroes seemingly win... only for the Gizmosuit 0 to short circuit, forcing Marshall out and our heroes off and blowing up the gold.. to Louie’s sorrow as he’s finally getting into it. Turns out though things still worked out: our heroes DID loose the gold as it was.. but the various flakes from the explosion ended up in gumptoin’s river. The town now has a gold rush on it’s hands free from rockerduck. Scrooge and Goldie exchange words, though Goldie exploits the moment between them to whack scrooge on the head. Some things never change.

In the present we find out how it panned out for the two of them, pun intended: Goldie got away with some of the gold of course while Scrooge didn’t find much, but still made off decenly by starting a panning company. But neither were Rich.. and this makes Louie wonder what the point is if getting rich is just an endless moutnain of obstacle and setbacks. Scrooge’s real point was this: that it IS worth the effort, you need to put some in and can’t just give up, and that you have to decide which kind of person you want to be: a conman like rockerduck, a shifty operator like goldie or an honest worker like Scrooge. Gyro then picks then to come back to the present, with Scrooge slowly relaizing “Oh yeah that was Gyro.. kinda obvious in hindsight. “

Scrooge REALLY should’ve thought that speech through as we end our episode with one hell of a sequel hook: Louie caling up Goldie to mentor him.. and her implicitly agreeing because it will defintely tick Scrooge off.

Final Thoughts:

I really like this one. It has great pacing, a neat setting and as always Janney and Tennant have phenominal chemsitry, so giving them another episode opposite each other was a no brainer. It’s a fun old west romp. It’s also good character stuff, with Louie getting his drive back.. but only because he might of found another short cut, and the bits where his talk clashes into the story are inspiried, especially the Scrooge slang bit. Tennant is a masterful voice actor and I hope after this and final space he keeps going with it.

Next Time: Well I already went on about it but we dive into the old school trio’s past comics style. Will it be underwhelming PROBABLY.

Next Time on this Blog: IT’S PRIDE MONTH BITCHES.

If you really enjoyed this review, consdiering becoming a backer RIGHT HERE. Even if you can only kick in a buck it not only helps but gets you access to exclusive reviews, my discord, and to pick a short when I do a shortstacular, my celebration of a character from the theartical short’s day’s birthday. You also help me reach stretch goals: 20 has some duck reviews with monthly darkwing duck reviews and 2 Ducktales mini as well as a brucey bonus Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy review, while 25 will have me reviewing 3 MORE disney movies (The Recess, Proud Family and best Kim Possible Movies), and allow you the backers to pick a review. And the best part is like this review EVERYONE, wether you can afford to pay or not, gets the review. So if you end up liking this review and want more, hop on. And if your consdiering becoming a 5 dollar backer and thus helping meet my next goal automaitcally you not only get a review a month but if there's a reward down the line you'd rather swap one of the current ones for the 20 dollar tier with let me know. If it's within reason i'll gladly do it.

#scrooge mcduck #ducktales #goldie o gilt #john d rockerduck #sheriff martial cabrera #gyro gearloose #louie duck #the old west #of moons moms and millionares

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wearetanzen · 4 years

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Happy Birthday to our Wes Borland wannabe guitar player. Please make him shut up about Limp Bizkit by getting tickets for DJENT FEST 2020. We will be announcing bands and sponsors weekly. Stay tuned! 👽🛸👽🛸👾🧞‍♀️👾🧞‍♀️ (at Beat Kitchen) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7bV1VVADyQ/?igshid=1cianagjfv780

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downtherabbitholewithlucy · 6 months

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His hips don't lie either Shakira

Just sayin'.

#somebody get him in a belly dance skirt STAT #I'll be in the crowd cheering him on with a tambourine #but like why does he have to be this enticing huh? he knows damn well what he's doing. the little shit.#Like that little forward bend at the end is very Marilyn Monroe “Happy Birthday Mr. President” of him. The tease.#Wes Borland #Black Light Burns #Limp Bizkit #nu metal #down the rabbit hole

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jdrespling · 6 years

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SCOUR the Black metal kick ass band fronted by Pantera’s Phil Anselmo made a rare US performance in Baltimore MD. Before taking the stage Empire Extreme got to talk to Bassist John Jarvis about the show, among other things.

Empire: How’s it like doing this rare US Show?

JJ: yep it’s the only US show this year, we wanted to do a warm up gig so since it’s easier to fly out from this side of the country we decided to jam out around here. Do a show in Baltimore which me and Adam live here, so it works out good for us. I get to sleep in my own bed.

EE: How’s it like working with Phil, were you nervous any since he’s such a metal icon?

JJ: No luckily I have jammed with him before with my band Fulgora. We collaborated together and did some recording with us, he signed us to HouseCore Records a while back. I got all of the nerves away back then. It’s still exciting, all kinds of emotions at a Scour Show. It’s been like a dream come true.

EE: How’s it like working with your brother in the band?

JJ: We Of course have been jamming together our whole lives. When Jesse left the band, Adam was the first one to come to mind to replace him. We were lucky he was available. When Phil first started the band, he wasn’t sure if I was in the band or Adam was in the band, and he said “Which Jarvis is in the band?” ( John did a perfect impression of Phil’s voice) He was happy that he had us both in the band.

EE: Did you ever get a chance to meet Vinnie Paul?

JJ: I talked to him on the phone actually in the year 2000. My roommate his older brother was a DJ in St Louis, they would play Pantera regularly and Tool. Vinnie called in and took questions from fans. Since we knew the DJ and he knew we were huge Pantera fans, he asked us if we wanted to ask him a question. We asked him “Who would he rather bang? Monica Lewinsky or Hillary Clinton” He come back and said “ Mandy Moore” and that was his answer. I’ve done shows with him before with Hell Yeah. I wouldn’t say that I knew the guy, but it was a tragic loss to Music. Hit me hard like DimeBag.

EE: How is Scour different from other projects you have done before or Phil has been in?

JJ: For me it’s the only Black Metal type band that I’ve been in. It’s different from all my other bands. Phil is more knowledgeable about Black metal and music in general than I am. He knows his shit. It’s very different.

EE: I seen that you’ve been working with Pig Destroyer.

JJ: Yeah it’s always a blast to work with those guys. We got a new album coming out September 7th. It’s the first one with bass for Pig Destroyer. We got a lot we are doing with them.

EE: I saw you’re doing a project called China Girl that you’re doing vocals for.

JJ: Absolutely, China Girl started with a guy named Dennis Sanders he use to be in a band with Wes Borland from Limp Bizkit. Dennis was a fan of Scour and was posting reviews and stuff. One day I noticed that Chino from Deftones liked his post, he put me in touch with him and then Dennis was like do u want to start a band with me. I’m in a lot of bands and didn’t want it to sound like any of my other bands. We recorded it in LA and it’s been a blast, hopefully I can put it on stage someday.

EE: A buddy of mine sings for a cover band called Penntera and you came on stage and did a song with them recently.

JJ: Yes, I met the guitar player from Penntera, the Pennsylvania premiere Pantera cover act. I met him at Metallica’s soundcheck. We did some shows with my Sepultura cover band Clinched Fist and it was only natural to come up on stage and do a song with them.

EE: Any new Scour material being worked on?

JJ: We just recorded Drums over the weekend, for Phil’s 50th Birthday. Once that gets finalized we will work on bass and guitars. Phil says he knows where he wants to go vocally and with the lyrics. So we are getting ready for our next EP.

Scour came out and just destroyed it, the band sounded amazing, and Phil looked and sounded better than I’ve seen him in years. Phil was interactive with the crowd and seemed legitimately excited to be there. It was good to see him with passion in his veins. The Jarvis Brothers Adam on drums and John on bass, were kick ass. Those drums were just non stop and full force. The band played songs off of the 2 eps the band has out so far and added a few covers as well. Scour covered Bathory’s Massacre as well as 2 songs from Pantera with Slaughtered and Strength Beyond Strength. The show was great and even though the crowd wasn’t full, everyone who was there was enjoying Scour play and getting rowdy like a metal show should be. Scour will be back next year for Maryland’s Death Fest and I advise not to miss Scour destroy the stage once again.

Interview with John Jarvis of Scour SCOUR the Black metal kick ass band fronted by Pantera’s Phil Anselmo made a rare US performance in Baltimore MD.

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catlqver · 3 months

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Happy Birthday to Wes Borland!!

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27-magazine-blog · 6 years

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Download Festival, one of the premier British festivals running since 2003 in Donnington Park, made its Australian debut with a lineup including 29 bands across 4 stages the past Saturday, March 23 at Flemington Racecourse.

Despite the gloomy morning and severe rain the festival kicked off energetically with a bunch of local acts. Cast Down, High Tension, Clowns and Ocean Grove delighted the early punters to a mix of genres and musical styles.

Up next followed Sydney’s metal core quintet Northlane, LA feminist punk-rockers Bad Cop / Bad Cop with their bold political messages, and Tassie celebrated masters of Death metal Psycroptic.

The crowds kept filling Flemington racecourse as the weather cleared and Swedish war machine Sabaton took us on a battle “To Hell and Back” and made clear that the evening was just getting started. Frenchmen Gojira amidst columns of fire reminded us about suffering and pain with their obscure heavy melodics and triggered the biggest moshpit of the day so far one that included at least 30 people sitting on the ground evoking an imaginary boat and rowing powerful to chant the last chords before Swedish Death metal legends Amon Amarth appeared onstage. Vocalist Johan Hegg drank from a horn and cheered “Skol” as the crowd —in one of the best moments of the festival— held up high one of the fans in a wheelchair. Tales of Asgard and Viking mythology continued as Thor’s Hammer was wielded to please the fans.

Mastodon blasted our ears straight away with “Sultan’s Curse” from their last album “Emperor of Sand” —widely acclaimed and considered best metal album of 2017 by Metal Hammer. With tracks like “Show yourself” The band displayed once again their versatility and impressive blend of metal styles which makes it hard to classify them. Troy Sanders requests the crowd to chant ‘Happy birthday” to guitarist Bill Kelliher before closing with Leviathan’s masterpiece “Blood and Thunder”

Good Charlotte’s “”The Anthem” divides the crowd as some of the younger people dance and sing while others head to the Avalanche stage to watch Venice beach thrash skater punk legends Sucidal Tendencies perform.

It’s been already a long, weather changing and intense day. Time for a quick bite, drinks and a much needed stop at the festival’s inflatable church to clear the mind and try to decide which of the upcoming clashing bands is best to witness. Heading back to the Black stage Wes Borland matches in perfection, all clad and painted in Black. Limp Bizkit is in the house and after a few minutes Fred Durst is held up in the middle of the jumping crowd chanting to the beat of “Hot Dog”. “Rollin” and “My Way” continue to widen the moshpit before their rendition of “Smells like teen spirits prepares the audience for the climax of the set with “Break Stuff”

As the nigh falls upon Download, excitement arises as sirens wail and members of the USA supergroup Prophets of Rage stand in line with their fists high in the air. Tom Morello, Brad Wilk, Tim C, B-Real, Chuck D and DJ Lord light fire on the Red Stage with their homonymous track. “Testify”, “”Take the Power Back” and “Bullet in the head” transport us back to RATM’s glorious days; “Bring the noise” —Public Enemy and Anthrax great collaboration across genres back in the day—, “Insane in the Brain” and “Jump around” get everyone to raise up and down and dance their arses off. A few minutes later Tom Morello gives a speech about the lost friends along the way and encourages everybody to sing in memory of the late Chris Cornell. “Like a stone” delayed riffs are the backdrop to a shining light on a lone microphone stand. A perfect yet sad metaphor of the void in the world of music and all our hearts that will never be filled.

After the most emotive moment of the night “Bulls on Parade” followed by B-Real statement “Violent times call for violent songs” seem a perfect fit in today’s world politics “Killing in the name of” caps an outstanding and powerful performance that leaves everybody ecstatic. A woman in her 60’s high fives the crowd and claps vigorously, another man approaches me and my mates and says “How good was that? I am a father of 4 kids and could die right now!

That’s the power of music

And talking about power, Arch Enemy’s front woman Alissa White-Gluz shreds the remains of the Dogtooth Stage with her impressive growling, while NOFX’s Fat Mike delights the audience by wishing malaria to Melania (Trump) and makes sure the Avalanche Stage is closed in due manner as “Linoleum” and “Stickin’in my Eye” get the last crowdsurfing action of the night.

Back to the main stage, festival headliners Korn close the evening with an hour and a half of tracks from their 25 year career. Jonathan Davis, Fieldy, Munky and Head deliver pure Nu Metal anthems to keep the multitude going for a little more. “Y’All Want a Single” bass slaping makes for perfect headbanging while “Shoots and Ladders “bagpipes are the perfect lead to the erratic “Twist”.

Back from the encore “Blind” and “Freak on the Leash” are chanted loudly by the crowd who knows the festival is close to an end. “Da boom na da noom na namena. Go!” makes everyone jump to the last verses of the song as the first Aussie edition of hopefully many more Download festivals comes to an end.

Behind the lens Nicole Matthews Words by Gus Morainslie

Live Review: DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL Download Festival, one of the premier British festivals running since 2003 in Donnington Park, made its Australian debut with a lineup including 29 bands across 4 stages the past Saturday, March 23 at Flemington Racecourse.

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