Review: GOOD THINGS FESTIVAL - Brisbane

9 Dec

Beach Balls, Sandwiches and Other GOOD THINGS

Sunday 7th December 2025

Written by Tom Wilson
Photographed by: Rashid AlKamraikhi

The day starts off on a frustrating note, after being held up at the gate and instructed to throw out the food in my bag. This is odd, because the very last line of the Event Info page explicitly states that food can be brought in, and I’m looking forward to not being fleeced for food this year. But the guards are holding firm, gesturing to a half-full wheelie bin full of people’s confiscated food as if that proves their point. It doesn’t, and I’m not having it, and it takes a polite but firm bout of Karen-ing to stand my ground and speak to a supervisor.

I showed the supervisor where it says that they’re wrong, and mention that they’re about to have thousands of people through these gates, and they need to solve the problem now, before the first bands start. I am let in with my bag and assured that the problem will be fixed. Unfortunately, we found out that it wasn’t, and the next day we are inundated with horror stories, including diabetic punters being told to throw away their medical supplies. Before we go on with the rest of the review, I would like to share the response I got from the official Good Things account the next day on social media. “The festival directive is that food, within reason, is permitted - it is beyond frustrating to read this sort of things, especially after calls made to the entry gates to rectify.”

“Been frustrating me for 15 years the food thing,” organisers continued in a later post. “A little more forgiving when sunscreen rule gets mixed up with no liquids, but we clearly state food is permitted, so it’s hard to understand where that gets lost in translation.”

Once I emerged victorious with my precious stash of sandwiches, our first stop of the day was checking out Stage 5 to see Logan bruisers BOOF HEADS for the first time, and what a note to start the day on! In the classic Brissie eshay tradition of wearing a hoodie and cap no matter how hot it is, the singer comes out swinging with a bum bag slung over his shoulder and lungs full of spite, alternating between snarling punk and booming rap-metal, like a Logan LIMP BIZKIT. Young blokes running on whiskey and sly durries, BOOF HEADS could be called many things (“eshay-core,” maybe?) but you could never call them “boring”. The vocalist and the guitarist appear to be brothers, and they trade duelling vocals about fighting with such conviction you think there might actually be a punch-on. Oh wait, there is! A mock boxing match breaks out between the two brothers mid-song, with the “loser” flat on his back before arching off the stage and leaping up to his feet hands-free. Later, the singer goes full Eddie Vedder and climbs the scaffold, perching himself on top to sing, much to the amusement of the security officer underneath, who mimes trying to catch him. He even ends up vaulting the barrier and running the pit with the fans. By the time they leave the stage, even the security are applauding, and I have to chase them down to tell them how great they are. GOOD THINGS has officially begun!

We stick with Stage 5 to witness the first half of MAPLE’S PET DINOSAUR hammering out some 90s fuzzy grunge, before we emerge into the main arena as SCENE QUEEN’s Barbie & Ken batters the crowd with bubble-gum-pink feminist metalcore. Pink Rover is a lovely little ditty about tracking down a catcaller and cutting his balls off, and she introduces last song 18+ by saying that, while she can’t legally say who the anti-predator anthem is about, she can’t stop the crowd from yelling it out, and they do … loudly. An infectious combination of sorority imagery, metalcore savagery, feminist messaging and lots and lots of pink, SCENE QUEEN blew their reviewer away with her Brisbane headline show last year, and she hasn’t lost a step, even reappearing later in the day to surf across STAND ATLANTIC’s crowd in an inflatable dingy, still wearing massive pink boots. Awesome.

Now it’s time to shift from castrating rapists to pop-punk, as NEW FOUND GLORY take to the stage, and the good-times anthems that could’ve come from an American Pie movie go perfectly with the beaming afternoon sun. Almost every set today has a sign language interpreter onstage, and they just might have one of the best jobs ever, headbanging and throwing shapes while their hands do the talking. While providing a great service for those with hearing issues, it also provides lots of opportunities for laughs throughout the day, when a particularly crushing instrumental part comes on and they’re left with nothing to do but windmill and throw the horns. Ace.

When I was 18, a friend loaned me his copy of REFUSED’s The Shape of Punk to Come, and it didn’t just make me a fan of the Swedish hardcore legends, it made me re-think what an album could be. 22 years later, I take my place on the barrier and wait to see them for the first, and last, time. You see, this is a special one, as singer Dennis Lyxzén explains. Today, they are playing their last show ever outside of Sweden, and they’ll be damned if they’re not going down swinging. The groove thunders as Dennis shows off an impressive repertoire of mic stand tosses and catches, and in case anyone wasn’t aware that a band performing in front of a banner that says “THIS IS WHAT THE RULING CLASS HAS DECIDED WILL BE NORMAL” might have some political ideas, Dennis lays down his criticisms of capitalism, and that our current culture war is a distraction so we don’t have a class war. Evidently this falls on deaf ears, and some of the same people headbanging to the line “I’ve got a bone to pick with capitalism / And a few to break” jump on our socials to act surprised by them talking about politics between songs. Sigh. For the rest of us with a shred of media literacy, this set is absolutely spellbinding, and even non-Shape tracks on offer go down a storm, like the massive REV001. Worms of the Senses / Faculties of the Skull puts SENSE at risk of a neck injury, and things only get worse when New Noise kicks off, and Dennis asks for the last time, “CAN I SCREAM?” Yes, he can. It’s absolute chaos, and as the band leave stage, it finally becomes real. The New Noise is old, and, as the shirts say, “REFUSED ARE FUCKING DEAD.” Long live REFUSED.

Stepping into the very big shoes of THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS, STAND ATLANTIC soon get the crowd jumping, Bonnie’s voice soaring over a sea of happy punters. In the wake of GARBAGE’s onstage meltdown over a beach ball which saw Shirley berating an audience member, STAND ATLANTIC did their part for “beach ball positivity” by having a bunch of their friends rush out onstage and rain beach balls onto the mosh pit, which are soon spiked in every direction like popcorn in a microwave.

The second lineup substitution on the bill, Melbourne metalcore romantics THORNHILL are having a hell of a few weeks. Fresh off their ARIA win for Bodies (which I can happily say I voted for as part of the 2025 voting … er … body), their phone started ringing when a series of cancellations saw their mates ALPHA WOLF join the GOOD THINGS lineup, only to be sidelined by a medical emergency. ““When I woke up on Friday,” frontman Jacob Thornton begins, “I didn’t think this is where I was going to be on Sunday, you know what I mean?” The answering roar says pretty clearly that GOOD THINGS is happy to have them, and Silver Swarm absolutely detonates the sunburnt moshers.

Another band having an interesting few weeks are Bay Area thrash legends MACHINE HEAD, who are performing in Australia as a three-piece while a member attends to a family emergency – something that, frontman Robb Flynn insists, the band fully supports. Robb is having a brilliant time hucking beers into the audience PANTERA-style, and tracks like Imperium and Ten Ton Hammer have us hammering our fists in the air. CHØKE ØN THE ASHES ØF YØUR HATE is absolutely ferocious and up there with one of the best songs they’ve ever written, and they don’t forget to put on a show either, with red confetti cannons, pyro and MH inflatables, and they bring things to a close with Davidian, uniting the crowd in the Waco-inspired chant of “Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast!” Epic stuff.

- Quick interruption from Rashid - While Tom was enjoying the rest of MACHINE HEAD’s set, I darted back over to Stage 5 to catch FEVER 333, determined not to miss Jason again after being unable to get to LET LIVE’s show earlier in the year. The fever hit hard, opening with Bite Back and keeping their fangs bared for their entire set, even while Jason played piñata with his mic and the stage rigging. While I’m interrupting, I also want to apologise to STAND ATLANTIC for not photographing their set. After REFUSED, it was I who was fucking dead. Now back to Tom.

Next, it’s time for the pop punk of ALL TIME LOW, and Sense gets some shade to enjoy my hard-won sandwiches while the pit goes wild. I’m definitely not ALL TIME LOW’s target audience, but that’s OK, because their audience are all in the mosh pit having the time of their lives, so we’ll go with their opinion! The mood is light, the onstage banter is great, and the crowd goes wild as three “wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men” leap to life behind the drum riser. Family Guy would be proud!

Since Shirley Manson’s now-infamous beach ball dummy spit has taken on a life of its own following GARBAGE’s first GOOD THINGS appearance, we’ve watched a Facebook event about bringing beach balls to their Brisbane set go viral. Beach balls at a festival are like Bunnings sausages. It’s part of our culture, and has been for a long time, so it’s not surprising to see the band take the stage to a defiant hail of inflatable missiles. They drop into There's No Future In Optimism, and when she changes the line “If you’re ready for love” to “If you’re ready for balls”, it seems like she might be seeing the funny side of this. Nope, false alarm. She immediately pivots and insinuates that we should feel bad for caring about her actions when Palestine is happening. It’s a tactic I’d expect from a politician, not an outspoken rock star, and frankly I’m not having it, especially when she can’t even be bothered singing on time to Romeo + Juliet classic #1 Crush. It’s a disappointing final Australian bow to a band with an impressive catalogue, and when she tells the crowd, “We’re unlikely to be back,” she’s at least got enough self-awareness to know that some won’t miss her after this.

By comparison, WEEZER are the perfect band in the perfect slot. The sun is setting, and the LA rockers are an ideal soundtrack for a summer’s evening at a music festival. Frontman Rivers Cuomo is the very definition of laid-back cool, and tracks like Hash Pipe go down a treat, particularly in the era of medicinal cannabis! Island in the Sun leads into an unexpected cover of HOLE’s Celebrity Skin, and Beverly Hills is a massive singalong. He modifies El Scorcho to mention Australian girls, and Say It Ain’t So is glorious, before sticking a pin in their last GOOD THINGS show with Buddy Holly. Ace.

Having always felt priced out of their arena shows, this is my first time ever seeing American progressive powerhouse TOOL, and the video screens next to the stage – which have been providing close-ups of band members all day – are taken over by the band. The anticipation builds as the various animations play on the screens, before drummer Danny Carey turns to the electronic drum pads and hammers out the opening of the first TOOL song I ever heard, Stinkfist. The roar it triggers from the crowd is deafening, and we’re off to the races, though that’s probably a poor choice of words to describe a TOOL show. After a day filled with walls of death and circle pits, we now have no choice but to stand and stare in wonder at the methodical polyrhythms, and Maynard James Keenan has some fun with the audience between tracks like Rosetta Stoned and Fear Inoculum, doing call-and-response work with his trademark deadpan humour. It feels like it almost goes without saying, but musically, TOOL were on another level. The opening of The Grudge sees people losing their minds, even if Maynard can’t manage the famously long scream anymore, and newer tracks like Pneuma and Invincible go down a treat, before they sign off with Vicarious and leave the stage to ABBA’s Dancing Queen.

Overall, despite a frustrating start, this is the best GOOD THINGS since I started going post-COVID. Water stations were plentiful, lines moved quickly, and there were plenty of happy faces. Hopefully, next year we can have security and organisers singing off the same sheet of music, and given how quickly they responded to this online, I know that they’re paying attention. Big thanks to Destroy All Lines and Dallas Does PR for having us.
See you in the pit next year!