Very hot and sunny, as usual at the Gold Coast Big Day Out, and a massive, neverending stream of people flowed in from the morning on. The Gold Coast grounds have a reputation for not being as good as the Sydney grounds for the Big Day Out, and for good reasons too – Sydney has the massive Olympic Stadium surrounding the main stages, instead of a horseracing track which makes it nearly impossible to see the main stage bands unless you are two meters tall, or right up the front.
For some people it seems the Big Day Out is time for a fashion statement. Some social groups adopted a ‘BDO TEAM’ uniform for themselves, others dressed as eccentric as possible. One girl was wearing a dress made entirely of empty wine bags. Many many people, as usual, were wearing the australian flag. The silliest of all are, of course, the girls that dress in the finest ‘going out’ clothing and best shoes. The mud, sweat and rubbish make short work of those ideas.
The first act of the day, and by far the best band in the morning slot, were teenaged locals Operator Please. This band were initially on the local produce stage, but were elevated to the much larger Green Stage as timetables were finalised. They deserved it, and it was a good decision, because the crowd for them at the Green Stage was larger than it was for a good five hours afterwards. The band looked incredibly spiffy, bearing a mixture of bright colours and fringe haircuts. The band has an electric violinist, who proudly wore a vintage ‘new kids on the block’ t-shirt. Their set was flawless and incredibly danceable, playing tracks off their two EP’s plus recent creations. The crowd was impressed, dancing, and even singing along during their radio hit Get What You Want. This band is a good live act and no doubt has a fine future.
The Sick Puppies played the mainstage for the morning slot. Remember Puddle of Mudd? That’s these guys. Probably. They have the mid-90’s alt-rock thing going, and a chick bassist who looks like she plays in Megadeth (If Megadeth was a girl band). They work the audience really well, but something about them seemed fake. Mostly, their ‘marketing campaign’ centred around trying to claim for themselves the popular Juan Mann ‘Free Hugs’ video. Theres a music video around which is Free Hugs set to their recent single. Their merch even reads ‘free hugs’. Gimmicks like this are not very rock and roll. “Who here has seen the video of guys getting free hugs?” Puppies frontman says to the audience at one point. Gripes aside, there was a large section of the crowd who were obvious Sick Puppies fans, hundreds of people were getting into their set and moshing. Their popularity was suprising. They are very adept at their style, which is a very familiar and radio-friendly grunge/rock style, and won a lot of the excited audience. They then wrecked any credibility remaining with a flop cover of Say My Name by Destiny’s Child. It wasn’t a bad idea, and could have been great, however the very serious attempt to ‘metal’ the vocals to this r+b song sounded fake and ridiculous.
The Spazzys were drunk or stoned (or both) as usual when they took the stage. They are a very punk band, who are unfairly often not taken seriously. Their more recent stuff especially showed their deiversity. Their songs go from humorous to pissed off and dirty. Singer Kat claimed she was drinking corona even though her face was on a tooheys can. Why? Why even say that? Unfortunately, they are fairly stationary performers, and don’t have much inter-band dynamic. For a moment, Kat picks up an acoustic guitar. Fears of a ballad died quickly when another fast punk number belted from the strings. The Spazzys aren’t bad but need to play sober at some point in their career. Maybe then they could be impressive.
Brisbane band The Vegas Kings played the early afternoon Green stage, and quite frankly, were awesome. This bunch of hairy men play incredibly riffy, full sounding punk rock. Surprisingly, they had no bass player, and noone really noticed. The two frontmen go nuts on their guitars and made some incredible rock music. It is a pity they don’t have much stage presence, they stare at their guitars while they riff most of the time and don’t make much use of the stage or interact with the audience and other bandmembers. This could be why their music is so good, however. Bris rockers The Vegas Kings go highly recommended.
I Heart Hiroshima had the Brisbane indie scene out in a drove. Consequently, there wasn’t much dancing. Scenesters don’t like to mess their hair. That aside, I Heart Hiroshima put on a fun and enjoyable performance. The drummer, while not the lead vocalist, is absolutely the frontwoman of this band. Her charisma on the drumkit in the centre of stage is a great focus of attention amidst the two shoe-gazing guitarists. However at the more energetic times, the two explored the large stage while enjoying their mash of syncopated strums and hard-to-describe chords. Set highlight was last song, Red Hands, where drummer Suzie leaped up from the drumkit and panda-danced around with tambourine, joining her band brothers on their microphones. The bands multi-vocals is a definite strong point and is shown off well with call-and-response sections between each other and superb songwriting. These guys put on a great show.
Next was Trivium at the Converse tent, a thrashtacular band dressed in the height of metal thrashion with long long hair, black tank tops and jeans (one even wearing a Trivium singlet… He must really like Trivium). On first glance, they sound and act exactly like Ride-the-Lightning-era Metallica, however on closer inspector the truth is revealed – they are much more like Master-of-Puppets-era Metallica. The two guitarists wail out excellent solos, stepping up to the foldback speakers, guitars parallel to each other to show their 80’s metal cred. If that wasn’t enough, they covered Master of Puppets – to enormous crowd approval, but wisely cut it before the slow bits. They are masters of their style and fit in well with the many metal fans at this Big Day Out.
Little Birdy graced the green stage, singer/guitarist Katy Steele wearing a beautiful green dress and freshly straightened hair. Her voice was gorgeous as usual, and the band were stellar, doing their own version of Gyroscopes Beware Wolf with an innovative keyboard section by genius keys man Fergus. Katy was a fantastic showwoman, with tricks that include dancing with the microphone in her mouth, and rolling around the stage while miraculously not flashing the audience her undies. Some of their best material were songs off their new album, including the new songs Bodies and Don’t, but they didn’t leave out commercial radio hits like Beautiful.
In between bands gives time for socialising. “For once Wolfmother aren’t playing, thank God” one festival veteran yells. Market stalls sell feeble Family Guy t-shirts and various ‘witty’ slogan shirts. Food stands sell a great range of fine delicacies from Indian vegetarian curry, to Tacos, Icecream, Chips, and Dagwood dogs. Drinkers get a choice of XXXX gold and Toohey’s Extra Dry. People drop things everywhere, especially drink tickets. One woman near the Converse tent found fifteen five-dollar drink tickets on the ground. The band merchandise was, almost entirely, terrible. The various shirts were mostly very poor or simply boring designs, rarely varying from ‘black shirt plus band name’, and when they did it was usually unfortunate (such as the aforementioned ‘Free Hugs!’). Most dissapointing to the various punters was the terrible design of the ‘Big Day Out’ official shirts, with them looking like some kind of child’s art school accident.
My Chemical Romance played the main stage to a great cheer. It was a hot day, a bad day to wear black, but thick around the parklands all day were hundreds of kids who looked like they had just come from outside Hungry Jacks in Queen Street, and now they were all in the barriers watching the band theyd come to see, MCR. The band were dressed like transylvanian counts, and their drumkit was labeled “The Black Parade” and singer Gerard essentially was trying to be a halloween Davey Havok. Throughout the whole concert I was reminded of AFI, but of course MCR’s own style shone through at times, mostly in set favourite and JJJ hot track The Black Parade. Unfortunately, the vocals were pretty scratchy and poor – either Gerard at the time had a strained/sickly throat or he isnt a strong live singer. However, the guitars were great, and had a lot of Tool fans that were already waiting in the D barrier moshing.
On the Converse stage, a huge crowd gathered for The Vines. Frontman Craig Nicholls has thrown out his clean-cut look that was the rage of NME and now has long cobain-style hair, wearing a shirt of the great 60s-psychedlia-inspired Perth rockers The Silents. The Vines kicked into their hits and a lot of their new stuff, starting with Highly Evolved and going into Gross Out and Outtatheway!. Craig was definitely drunk or stoned or both. Maybe he was hanging out with The Spazzys. Just when it seemed they would bust out the inevitable Outkast cover, they did – but it was So Fresh and So Clean. Obviously Hey Ya should be expected soon. The Vines are back into it after their surprise reunion, and played a much better set today than they did at Splendour in the Grass.
Meanwhile, the epic Kasabian rocked out the Green Stage, decked outin new jeans and fresh haircuts. These brits are a trendy-looking bunch. They even had vintage sunglasses. Rocked out is a fairly loose term used here – their set was epic. During Shoot the Runner’ it felt like there was nothing outside the band and their sound, and this feeling continued for the epic stadium rock track Transistor. The audience were in ecstacy the whole time. The whole sound was so rich and grandiose, and the vocals and backups were so good that they must have used some kind of machine or vocal effects. Crowd favourite and JJJ hit Empire was a highlight. The word ‘epic’ is not used here without reason. Anyone who has ever heard any Kasabian must go and see them in their own venue and show, judging by this performance it would be amazing beyond words.
As The Killers were about to begin, they stole the crowd from everywhere else. They took to the stage wearing waiscoats and collars, a style shared by so many of the trendy synth-rock generation. As soon as they began to play, It was unlistenable – the bass, or perhaps the synth playing low, was catastrophically loud, it drowned out the whole music and was distorting majorly. During Somebody Told Me, everything was shaking from the massive bass. It didn’t stop people from singing along, however. This sound issue was repaired by the time they finished Smile Like You Mean It and the Killers finished their set with gusto and impressive falsetto back-up vocals aplenty, playing a short version of Mr Brightside and finishing off with All These Things I’ve Done.
Meanwhile, a tiny crowd watched the virtuoso band Snowman play the Green Stage. Dressed all in black, the band was an all-singing, all-dancing surf-rock-crazyness extravanganza. This band is incredible and were probably the best act all day. Current radio hit You Are A Casino was belted out early on, and later came instrumental frenzies of african drumming, screaming vocals, violin solos, reverb, feeback, and a guitarist blowing on a bent and busted old trumpet. The two frontmen of Snowman are both excellent singers as is the gorgeous female bass player(who they could have stolen from the Roger’s Sisters), and they use their layered vocals incredibly in their unconventional and creative songwriting.
Jet are a predictable band, and predictably were loved by the audience. They aren’t particularly dynamic performers, mostly standing in place and playing their instruments, but they play flawlessly. They have enough hits with just their two albums to entertain any crowd, initially busting out Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is then later moving on to Look What You’ve Done and Are You Gonna Be My Girl and all the rest. Jet have not played in Queensland since a side-stage at the Big Day Out three years ago, so for almost everyone this was the first time they had ever seen Jet. The hard-working band played well and got the great reception they deserve.
Around this time, the many many sunburnt bodies were obvious. The heat, especially in the crowded areas, was incredible, so bare bodies was the vogue. Also overheard was a youngster talking to her friends “Never in my life have I seen so many bad tattoos…theyre everywhere”.
Muse began just after the sun had fully set. They took to stage with raucous applause, the whole band in black save for Matt Bellamy in an unusual all-white. Immdiately, the band break into Knights of Cydonia – the anthemic chorus lighting up in enormous block letters behind the band with fantastic hologram screens. Hundreds of tiny ‘stars’ light up the back of the stage, melding in with the real stars outside giving the impression the band is playing in space. It was simply breathtaking. As the song ends, a bright UV light shines, illuminating the white instruments, and all of Matt – his white clothes making him look like one of the Seraphim.
The enormous sound was awe-inspiring. When the band launched into Supermassive Black Hole, an army of giant robots marched to the beat on the massive screens. It was the coolest thing anyone has ever seen. The band were at best playing their more guitar-heavy and older songs such as Plug In Baby and New Born which gave them a chance to rock out rather than simply stay fixed to microphones. The only problem with the set was Muse’s heavy reliance on pre-recorded sounds and effects. At times when they are obvious, they detract from the ‘live’ feeling of the band. At one point in Time is Running Out the band play a superb sequence and pause dramatically from their own euphoria, only to then go off for a few beats because of the uncontrolled synth sounds.
Tool had the largest crowd of all. Maynard was barechested for the heat, and the band brought on stage all kinds of exotic percussion which decorated the back of the stage. Maynard yells ‘I have good news and I have bad news – the good news is… there isn’t any bad news’ – to which the crowd cheers loudly, and the band play Stinkfist and The Pot. As is expected of a band of their age, they stick to a fairly tried and true formula and don’t mix it up much. They do however play for as long as they possibly can, only ending at the stroke of 10 oclock when they are forced to finish. Maynard tells us Tool will be back in Australia at the end of the year, exciting many. Unexpected song choice was vintage track Opiate off their first EP, a surprise addition to their otherwise stock (but brilliant) set list. Their entire set was augmented by strobe lights and many, many LASERS!
Final band, The Violent Femmes, played to a full crowd in the Green tent, who were a very different crowd from outside. This audience were live music veterans, almost none below around 30 years of age, ranging up to the true grandparents. The Violent Femmes themselves were not as energetic as their fans however. The only member with considerable stage presence was the drummer, who drummed with flair but wasn’t the centre of attention. The singer Gordon Gano was a bland and stiff showman, but the incredible crowd more than made up for it, leaping wildly and yelling the words to all the songs. Without a doubt the set highlight was Blister in the Sun, and everyone young and old went absolutly mental. At this stage, the Violent Femmes kicked up a notch, and really worked the crowd, it was a great three minutes of rock and roll. Sadly, to any but a major fan, the rest of the aging rocker’s set couldn’t match – but for that three minutes alone, their set was more than worthwhile.
