What would a festival be without the search of individuality through words on a t-shirt. Gone are the days of subtle irony and dry wit, replaced by blatant honesty, gems such as “my Barbie swallows”, “c*nt”, “masturbating is not a crime”, “people hate me”, “yes I’m on drugs”, “fag”, “sarz” and a definite favourite “Avril is a dickhead”.
Energy was kicking from the Green Stage with one of the many imports from across the Tasman for the day, New Zealand’s Goodshirt rocking out a variety of new and old material to a rather lack lustre crowd, finishing off with their hit “Green” after shedding their own “good shirts”.
Black Eyed Peas managed to hang ten off the Blue Stage with their full live band with much energy and presence. New addition, Fergie has gelled well with the group but has in turn bought a lot more commercial pop sound to an otherwise soul/hiphop style. Once again with popularity of commercial success, they chose to play mostly tracks off their latest LP, Elephunk; “Shutup”, “Let’s get retarded” and the finale “Where is the love” with some shout outs to other main stage acts of the day. There was also some hard rock moments showing they could grind out a guitar/drum combination and rock just as well as the rest of the main stagers.
On the way back to the Boiler Room, the Globe of Terror further supported evidence why motorcycle riders are classed as “temporary citizens” by hosting two trail bikes in a dizzying whirlwind of metal and exhaust gases inside a metal cage ball. Yep… crazy like a coconut. Forget about drink tickets all together, with up to hour long waits saw many getting drinks only to stand back in line to wait again. Similar queues for the toilets resulted in many adopting the “getting back to nature” approach.
Over four hours in, the Green Tent became merely a pen of support poles after 1200 Techniques took to the stage and completely tore the roof off. With just as many people outside the tent as inside, Australia’s premier hip hop act powered through mostly tracks from their new album Consistency Theory, “Knock Knock”, “Where You’re At”, “Time After Time” even throwing in a freestyle segment. But it was clear the crowd wanted the classics, “Hard As Hell”, “Put ‘Em Up”, “Karma” all receiving the biggest responses. “See Me Rock” was the breakbeat tinged finale giving DJ Peewee across the way a run for his money.
At the same time, Muse were Orange Staging it and well on their way of proving that they aren’t just another Radiohead cover band, even with the interruption from a little “Eye of the tiger” intervention. Dinner time and the car park diners were serenaded by the Hoodoo Gurus. The songs and band may be getting a little long in the tooth but the sound is still well suited to a festival atmosphere. There was no shortage of sing-along favourites from their sizeable back catalogue. “Waking Up Tired”, “Bittersweet”, “Like Wow”, “Miss Freelove” and “Right Time”.
As the sun sank below the tree-scape and the darkness crept in, a similar darkness fell over the boiler room, Mr. James Aphex Twin and Mr. Vibrant had entered the building. Imminent doom, apocalypse, whatever you want to call it, the whole Boiler Room was assuming the position and bracing for impact. For the majority, it was like being set on fire and then extinguished every five minutes a la Ren and Stimpy. Armed with two PC notebooks and Fx’s they remixed and sampled on the fly creating a mash of electronica. Swinging from soothing ambient atmospherics to mutant breaks, trance-type licks then back to 140+ bpm stormers. The wall of visuals from a multitude of sources and live cameras further enhanced the sinister feel with images of alien style silhouettes, fire, skulls, destruction and other abstracts coupled with the lighting created a very surreal atmosphere. The climax came all too quickly with the tearing through of classics such as the seminal “Pacman” by Ed Rush & Optical, re-creating the destructive industrial Squarepusher sound.
Across the Sizzler (recovered from the smoke incident earlier) and ferris wheel lit race course The Strokes, possibly on New Zealand time arrived on stage extra early, complete with “don’t care” 80’s attitude to match their 80’s sound. The performance was sloppy at best, but the fans wouldn’t have expected anything less (or should that be “more”?). There was no shortage of Metallica shirts roaming the grounds through out the day. After many years of experience they sure know how to put on a show, and they played like they had something to prove. The old boys showed they still have plenty of gusto, knocking out a lot of their classic stuff to keep the Napster users happy as well as latest material off their St. Anger album. “Fight Fire With Fire”, “Harvester Of Sorrow”, “One”, “Sad But True”, “Damage Inc.”, “Nothing Else Matters”, “Enter Sandman”, you know them, you loved them, you rocked out in your bedroom on air guitar to them - all timeless tracks from a talented, albeit controversial band.
Headlining for the dance side of things were festival regulars, Basement Jaxx. Obviously a crowd favourite with their repeated visits, they came this time with a full ensemble of drummer, guitarist, percussionist, vocalists and the BJ boys (complete with clothing changes) all working together for a vibrant stage show. Flaming Lips had the honour of closing the doors on the Green tent, in true festival fashion of rabbits, giant balloons and boobies they squeezed the remaining drops of energy out of an already over baked crowd.
So ended the Big Day Out 2004, once again the professional production/tried and true formula made for an enjoyable day, though as the numbers had shown, next year toilet/drink/water facilities, Boiler Room layout and flooring should be addressed. The awards though, would have to go to the efforts of general punters. These virtues of fun and mischief, self indulgence and general running amok are all part of the festival vibe and part of what makes up the extravaganza that is The Big Day Out.
