Big Day Out: The highs and lows
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OPINION: Friday will mark the 13th time Stuff.co.nz entertainment editor Chris Schulz has been to the Big Day Out, and he's covered five of them for this website. He reflects on the festival's highs and lows.
It's always too hot. The queues are always too long. Your hot chips will always be luke warm, just like your beer. And there will always be some munter who asks you for a free cigarette, vomits on your shoes, then passes out.
You can guarantee that just as your favourite band comes on, a guy standing directly in front of you will choose that exact moment to hoist his largish girlfriend onto his shoulders, then stagger into your line of sight every time you move.
And there's bound to be some shirtless dude flicking his disgusting sweaty dreadlocks all over your face once you summon up the courage and venture into the moshpit.
Some things you can count on when you attend Auckland's Big Day Out music festival, and it's as much about endurance as it is about enjoyment. If your legs aren't aching, your ears aren't ringing and you don't have stitches, lumps, rashes or bruises afterwards, you didn't really enjoy yourself properly.
But the positives far outweigh the negatives. Tickets for Coldplay last year were $180, but attending the Big Day Out costs around $140. Where else can you see around 50 bands for so little money?
Every year the line-up is so chocka it's guaranteed there will be brain-destroying decisions to be made. This Friday's event is no exception, with hyped British acts Kasabian (Blue Stage, 3.20pm) and The Horrors (Essential Stage, 3.30pm) creating quite a dilemma for rock fans. Better toss a coin for that one.
At least the 5pm slot is an easy decision. That's when Powderfinger hits the Blue Stage. Avoid them at all costs. Also steer clear of Jet (Green Stage, 2.45pm). If you must check out an Aussie band this year, try The Temper Trap (Essential Stage, 12.30pm). They're like Coldplay, with more falsettos.
This year's highlights are likely to come in the form of underground metallers Mastodon (Blue Stage, 1.45pm), mash-up DJ Girl Talk (Boiler Room, 3.50pm) and super-sized stadium giants Muse (Blue Stage, 9.10pm). And with Dizzee Rascal (Orange Stage, 6pm) and Lily Allen (Blue Stage, 7pm) both on the main stage, there sure are a lot of Brits playing this year.
But planning your Big Day Out like a military exercise is a fatal mistake. And very anal. It's much more fun to leave things to chance, and stumble across things you might otherwise miss. Like the Silent Disco, where teens dance around with headphones on, reminiscent of a Steve Gray exercise routine from Good Morning.
One year they had female wrestlers going head-to-head in a makeshift ring near the Boiler Room. It was very entertaining - if you were a man. They attracted more fans than some of the bands. Funnily enough, the lycra-clad wrestlers have never been back.
My favourite Big Day Out moment was another lucky accident. Eating lunch in the shade I came across two bizarrely camp, pyjama-clad Australians on the tiny Lilyworld stage making over a Metallica bogan, all for a free T-shirt. He got the T-shirt, but his dignity was taken from him forever.
While people-watching is always entertaining, most are there for the music. And the best performance over the Big Day Out's tenure came from The Prodigy in 1997. A perfect union of right time, right place: Liam Howlett, Keith Flint, Maxim and a crazy dancer dude made the main stage moshpit bounce like I have never seen before, or since.
Dizzee Rascal's overheated Boiler Room show in 2008, Kasabian's epic and anthemic performance in 2007, Jurassic 5's hand-waving hip-hop delight in 2002 and Rage Against the Machine's political rally in 2008 all came close. And Kiwi rockers Shihad always own the main stage, thanks to lanky front man Jon Toogood's theatrics.
The worst? That would have to be poor old Scribe, given the honour of a late afternoon main stage slot. He soon found his support was waning when he played a pretty dour set with a live band to a quarter-full stadium in 2008. Not many, if any, indeed.
And Mike Skinner was so drunk when he played with The Streets in 2007 that he spent most of the set doubled over in hysterics and playing drinking games with the crowd. Apparently he'd been on holiday for several months before the concert. It showed.
Being too wasted to play properly was also a problem for Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, and The Dandy Warhols, in 2004. Or perhaps they had imbibed too much because they were nervous about opening for Metallica. Hell, it'd drive me to drink too.
But The Magic Numbers and Mudvayne couldn't use alcohol as an excuse in 2006. Both bands were, for completely different reasons, absolutely appalling. Luckily, we've never heard from either of them - or Alien Ant Farm (2002's disgrace act) and The Ting Tings (2009) - since.
But that's the thing I love about the Big Day Out. You see people, and bands, at their best, and their worst. And if something terrible has happened, one good song can make everything alright.
* Are you going to the Big Day Out this year? Post your comments below.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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I will definitely go again - bring back LCD Sound System... PLS FIX: excessive amount of downtime queuing for food & bev; & I thought Telecom & Vodafone would do a better job ensuring there's actually a respectable level of network coverage and availability [not overloading] - after all, isn't this the target audience they spend $$ advertising to? That said - Respect BDO!
Highlight of the BDO ever for me had to be breakin my leg in the D waiting for Rage and gettin to see them side of stage after telling the medical staff that I wouldn't go to the hospital until I saw them.
Muse are always epic though
big downer - had to wait 2 hours to pick up my ticket from ticketmaster!
I was front row for The Ting Tings last year and they were awesome! I agree with AAF thou, really bad!
But best BDO would have to be Rage, I waited 6 hours inside the D to see them! No way was I going to be standing at the entrance when they were on!
the only reason im going is for mastodon. every other act is terrible/overrated..
Just throwing in another vote for the Violent Femmes, they were awesome
Muse's show at Waitakere Stadium a couple years back will be very hard to top but I'm sure they will give it a good crack!!
@21 - Right on
Not going this year, probably wont ever go again unless the line up is stellar.
as for highlights, if you were at the abomination that was the chilli peppers or trying to squeeze into the boiler room for the chemical brothers, then you missed Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, playing close to the best set at the BDO i had ever seen, a set heavy on clash songs with a good selection of solo stuff.
Other highlights were , Brand New despite clashing with RATM, Hatebreed and Thursday ruled, Fear Factory (sydney 1996 i think), Sean Lennon in 98, Soundgarden (in 1996 the sydney show was awesome, Auckland was missing something, but they had just played one of the best gigs ever at the wellington town hall the night before), My Morning Jacket were a standout last year, Sparklehorse were great in the bigtop in 96 and Beth Orton in 2000 was another standout
Worst. The Ting Tings, The Mars Volta (3/4 hour jams on one tune just puts me to sleep), The Dandy Worhols, NOFX (One of my Fav bands but were disapointing)...the worst had to be Limp Bizkit that was truely awful especially after coming on after rammstein
so many good times, but the last few years have been disapointing
my highlights would mostly be from the early doors BDOs - the likes of the Bad Seeds, Urge Overkill, the Cult, Ministry, Tism and the Darkness but with Joe Strummer's closing set up against the Chemicals Brothers as the undoubted best of the best. Then I'd toss in the Stooges, the Hellacopters, the Hives, Soulwax and Polyphonic Spree.
lowlights: Primal Scream and Scribe, but the worst by far was Fat Freddie's self-indulgent crapfest to end what had been a cool day. Given a crowd gagging for it, they chocked on their own wannabe coolness...keep it in your trousers fullas.
not going this year, can't say there's much to inspire and there's a definite whiff of been there done that, so I'm taihoaing for Laneways/ Al Green/ Pixies.
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well you failed. Jet was awesome and girl talk was rubbish Nice job.