Good Charlotte rock up to Davo's front yard in North Curl Curl, Sydney and rock the burbs. Story by Mark Hughes.
During their recent trip down under, pop-punksters Good Charlotte were part of a special Live in Your Drive Way contest ran by Sydneys radio station where listeners had a chance to score a good Charlotte gig in their driveway! So on a sunny afternoon in early October the hottest new venue in the country was Davo's front yard out in North Curl Curl on Sydneys northern beaches. Blunt sent Huggy to check out punk rock suburbia style!
Seeing a band in a venue is alwayss cool, but smoky air and poor ventilation sometimes can be a disenchanting factor. So when the chance came to check out one of the worlds hottest young pop punk bands in the world jamming in someones front yard, I was there!
I arrived just after lunchtime and already there were a significant gathering in the cul-de-sac out the front of Davo's house in Nth Curl Curl. The Barbie was flaming, beers were being cracked open and frizbees tossed about in the park across the road. Get a lung full of that ocean breeze everybody.
The bands Tarago puled up soon after and while the rodies were setting up, I managed to grab the guys from Good Charlotte - in between getting their pictures taken with fans and signing memorabilia - to ask them a few questions.
Have you guys played in someone's front yard before?
Billy: Oh sure back home for friends and stuff but this will be the first time in Australia
"Little Things" was a pretty big single for you guys over here and now "Motivate Me" is just getting off
Joel: It's great especially because it ("Motivate Me") is a song about being down. We were at a point before we were signed so we were at our lowest point; we had nowhere to live, we had no money and we just wrote that song. It's kinda weird now because it is a pretty happy sort of song but you wouldnt know we were at a breaking point when we wrote it.
How did you guys get started?
Benji: Joel and I just started playing on an old guitar we found in the closet at our house and then we asked Paul if he wanted to jam and then we met Billy along the way. I went to one guitar lesson one time but I didnt really learn that much. I mainly just grabbed anyone who played guitar and said show me how to play that.
Billy: When you are on tour you just watch other bands and see how they do it and you just pick up things and get better that way. We just did a tour with MxPx and they were great and then there were so many good bands on the Warped Tour like Rancid, H20, Pennywise, The Vandals, who are all great musicians.
So it sounds like the Warped Tour was educational as well as fun?
Paul: It was like a punk rock summer camp.
This is your second visit to Australia. You're all over the TV and radio here, how is that for you?
Billy: It is such different exposure to what we have in the States. Back home we are more on an underground touring level where we do some crazy sold out shows but the songs are not radio hits. It is more a live fan base we have built over the last five years, where as when we come here it is a whole different thing where we are on the radio and TV or whatever.
Joel: It's bigger in a different way. I like how successful we are out here but I also like where we are back home. I've seen bands with platinum records or whatever back home and you go to their show and they offer nothing. But when you come to our show we are proud to say we've built something.
So what do you think of Australia?
Benji: It is awesome you know it has crossed our minds more than once to stay down here but with all the stuff going on back home in reaction to the terrorist attacks, it makes you want to get back there. Everyone is united right now and it kinda makes you want to be there with everyone and be part of it.
Joel: But also by coming to Australia we wanted to show that we weren't going to be intimidated into staying in the Staes, we are giving the terrorists the middle finger.
I believe you guys had a big help from your mum?
Benji: Yeah. When we got chosen to go on tour with Lit, Mum basically let us have the van and just caught rides to work herself.
Paul: We trashed it too
Benji: When we were in school our mums used to stay at home and make copies of our first demo to send out to the record companies.
Joel: And when we didn't have a place to practice we'd set up in our living room and play with mum right in the next room. It was so loud but she just loved it. But we all have great mums.
Thanks guys!
As the afternoon wore on and more and more flesh wash charred on the BBQ, the crowds just kept on coming until Davo's front yard looked like one of the smaller stages at a music festival. A giant transparent marquee housed the stage and sound gear and while Davo, his mates, curious neighbours plus anyone who had been listening to the radio and had ventured out for a bit of Friday afternoon punk rock gig, clamored for a good possie.
By six o'clock the tent was fully crowded. Mums and dads, teens and toddlers, yobbos and grandmas plus the usually bevy of neighbourhood pets, formed a throng of rabid punters in front of the stage, spilling out onto the road in front of the house.
After a quick on-air chat with one of the radio DJ's, Good Charlotte took the stage and launched into "Little Things" followed by "Motivate Me", which they played very cleanly as it was going to be live to radio. But as their radio commitments ended, the band was able to get into a bit more and play just for the crowd in Davo's front yard, who by this stage were in a general state of merriment. Bare footed youths podo's and crowd surfed while parents looked on from a safe distance tapping their towes and nodding their heads in a sudden appreciation of what a mosh, was, albeit a mini-suburban one.
Fielding requests from the audience, the Good Charlotte lads jammed "Festival Song" and a few othes before sadly announcing they had to leave as they had a plane to catch. They headed off satisfied in the fact they had just rocked the burbs!
I wonder how Slipknot would go on my front porch?
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