Big Day Out @ Olympic Park,26/01/2005

Wed 2nd Feb, 2005 in Gig Reviews

I have done a number of silly, no make that stupid things before in my life, which I won’t go into here, but thinking that I could go to the Big Day Out one day and then work the next was beyond stupid, it was insane. But by the grace of god or some other random deity, I managed to make it through.

My Big Day Out began well before Australia Day, not exactly well before, but the night before, when I laid out not only the clothes for the 26th, but also the 27th, as I expected to be quite exhausted for my first day of work. With clothes laid out I went to bed, full of nervous excitement.

When I awoke on Australia Day I was ready to rock, got everything done and was on the bus from Canberra to Homebush at 8:00am, full of excitement and expectation. On the ride up, there were the usual videos, and whilst not fully realising I was doing it, I found that it might be possible to use Jackass as a teaching aid when I teach physics. We finally reached Olympic Park at midday, and I made my way to the station to find some FasterLouder people who were holding my ticket. Whilst waiting I bumped into a couple of Canberra friends who helped pass the time, and I also made friends with a couple of Labradors and German Shepherds, but they weren’t as friendly with me as they were with others.

Well, I was finally in and that’s when the fun began. I initially made a bee line to see Wolfmother, but one song through my stomach began giving me those unmistakable signals that a feed was required, so I quickly ducked off to grab some food and made it back half way through their set. I really love these guys, as always they were tight, their stage performance was up there with the best, and they play such an awesome mix of seventies tinged tunes.

My next stop was the main stage to see The Hives. I had unfortunately forgotten the golden rule of the D, no bags; so I spent half of their set waiting in line to get into the D. In other years it was usually not much of an effort to get in, but this year it was a long and arduous process, so I didn’t bother for the rest of the day. The sound for The Hives really wasn’t up to scratch for a festival of the size and stature of the Big Day Out. From where I was standing behind the D, it was muddy and washed out, the only crisp parts were the interludes.

After a set that disappointed because of the sound, I was looking forward to The Music’s. They played a brilliant hour, and were real crowd favourites, as they played mostly from their self-titled debut. It included a brilliant version of Take the Long Road and Walk It, The Truth is No Words and also of the title track from their second album Welcome to the North. For a set so early in the day, they were certainly one of my highlights, and I was left wondering as to what their sideshow would have been like, would it have been mostly the new album, or would it be similar to what I saw here.

Up until Wednesday I really knew nothing about Chicago hardcore outfit Rise Against. Over the last nine months as I’ve reviewed a good portion of the acts that come to Canberra, I’ve seen a lot of hardcore, but Rise Against blew all of those other bands away. Their songs were great with good guitar lines and melodies, all of the songs had great lyrics and they all sounded different, unlike some of the other hardcore bands I’ve seen.

I was then keen to head over to the Hothouse to see the best Australian Hip-Hop act, bar none, The Hilltop Hoods. I think forty thousand other punters had the same idea as the Hot House was packed to the rafters, and really was a hot house – you could barely breathe in there. Australian Hip-Hop has really hit the big time. There was a delay in getting things started due to the massive number of people in the area and the idiots who climbed up the side of the tent. Once things got started the whole crowd moved in unison to the Hilltop beat, it was so squished you really couldn’t move independently. I only managed to stick it out for four songs before I had to scoot over the other side of the park to see Le Tigre.

Le Tigre provided another highlight for the day. Their eclectic mix of low-fi synth pop and guitars is super catchy. The entire crowd found itself dancing around on the spot. I did find that as with their albums, the earlier stuff came across much better than their later material.

Post Le Tigre, I hooked up with some of the FasterLouder people and watched Spiderbait whilst enjoying a quiet ale. The only times I’ve Spiderbait of late have been at festivals. Every time I’ve seen them they have not failed to nail the performance. Again it was great. In their set they played all the favourites, Old Man Sam, Buy Me A Pony and they played a rollicking ten minute version of Black Betty which had the crowd jumping and to end a great set.

By the time Spiderbait’s set was said and done, food was again the order of the day, and by the time I got to see The Polyphonic Spree they were half way through their set. I arrived just as they were playing Light & Day, which has been stuck in my head for the last couple of days, and that was followed up with It’s The Sun, but that where the highlights of that set end, as the last couple of songs became long and, dare I say it, a tad on the boring side.

I decided that another beer was in order so I went to the “second guest bar” where all of the industry flotsam and jetsam were sitting watching proceedings. I sat and enjoyed the last half of Powderfinger’s set and contemplated life the universe and everything. As always, they were tight, professional and unfaultable.

At the opposite end of that spectrum were The Beastie Boys, who came out and played some of their best old stuff including 3 MC’s and 1 DJ, Intergalactic and others, but then they preceded to play instrumental numbers, which were kind of boring, not getting the crowd going. There was quite a big wait between numbers and the band went off stage whilst they played a video of people at the Big Day Out. I’m sure it would have been interesting if my ugly mug had have been up there, but it just seemed like filler. The Beasties then left the stage for a short interlude and came back walking between the D and rest of the crowd whilst rapping. They finished off their set with a lacklustre version of Sabotage and promptly left the stage. The Beastie Boys rate as the most hit and miss act of the day.

In stark contrast to the Beastie Boys performance was that of the Chemical Brothers who began their set with Surrender and then started pulling out the big guns to have the entire crowd dancing under the stars, well clouds. The set moved from big hits like Block Rockin’ Beats and Hey Boy, Hey Girl, to some of The Chemical Brothers more rave oriented tunes. Their set didn’t just run to time, but ran about fifteen minutes over, so by the time I got over to where Regurgitator were playing their set, I only got to hear Kung Foo Sing and one other song, before they were off the stage and the crowd was heading home.

I slowly trudged my way back to the bus for the return trip to Canberra. My legs were fucked, but I was fairly satisfied with my day. Seeing brilliant live performances like those from Le Tigre, The Music, Rise Against and The Chemical Brothers was an affirmation of my love of music.

Post Script: For those who are interested, I made it to school without a worry the next moring, and spent the day bouncing around on less than three hours. I don’t know how I did it, I guess adrenalin is a wonderful thing!

Read Luke’s review of his Big Day Out here!