Just recently we caught up with Lee Gardiner, one of the founders of Adelaide’s Against the Grain festival (and vocalist for Adelaide band Double Dragon), to talk about this year’s event, its history, and what the future looks like. There are BIG plans afoot.
Against the Grain is a full-day metal festival that happens annually in Adelaide, South Australia. It’s gradually gaining notoreity around the country, and this year features its most diverse line-up to date. But it’s taken about five years to get to the point it has.
It started a bit by accident, and Lee had only been with Double Dragon for about six months. Lee is good friends with Joel from the Jones Town Syndicate they often did shows together. When these guys got a date at the Bridgeway, which was eight months away, they started talking and gradually more and more bands joined the bill. Having the venue from midday until midnight, they could put the show on whenever they wanted to; and when Jason North (Truth Corroded) got his band in on the act, he started helping out – and before these guys knew it, they had the whole day booked.
‘The first one was, like, crazy,’ Lee recalled. ‘I think we had 200 people there, and I think A Red Dawn played twice: they played at one o’clock and then one in the morning coz they just let us go all night. I think my mum was cooking a barbie next to the stage… the whole place just stunk like sausage and carcass and stuff.’… READ MORE –>
