Big Daze Out

Mark stood me up the night before, he was supposed to be at my house at around 1:30am after catching up with Steve and Stacey out east. At 2am I gave up, left the front door unlocked and went to bed. Four hours later I was woken by the alarm as Megan started getting ready for work.

Mark eventually turned up at 10:30, and we began to make our plans. We need to take a number of different things to the gig, and spent the next hour or so making mad dashes around Ellerslie picking up all sorts of things from party pills (argh) and papers, to going to the hardware store to by parts for a cracker.

Our haste was suprisingly productive and by 12:00 we had begun our walk from my house to the stadium.

Once we arrived at the gates, we had to make some decisions about what we thought would be permissable to take into the complex, and what would clearly be deemed “illicit” by security. We decided to calmly wander down a driveway of one of those industrial type companies in the area, but were screamed at by some rent-a-cop who didn’t like the thought of someone walking on some tar-seal that wasn’t public property. Suddenly we stuck out like a sore thumb.

Anyway, we managed to calm down, and find a nice spot where we could go through our things and make sure we weren’t openly taking something illicit into the grounds.

We needn’t have bothered.

I wandered through a gate that was actually meant for 15year olds and younger, by the time I got the turnstile and noticed the sign I felt I had committed enough time in the queue to warrant an attempt of going through anyway. The security guard didn’t seem to care, she smiled, glanced at my half open bag and gestured me through. I could have had all sorts of stuff in the bag.

Mark and I met back up on the inside and went and sat by the hiphop tent to chill out and get a sense of our surroundings. I’d never been to the BDO before, but apparently it was not as crowded as it had been in previous years.

We met up with two of Mark’s friends River and Aaron shortly after, and wandered to the beer tent to enjoy a couple of cool bevvies in the sun.

As we sat, The Donnas began their set. I dunno, I mean, it was cool and all, but it seemed to middle-of-the-road. What is it with this “new rock revolution”, actually what’s the deal with all music fads. A couple of groups come out who are actually quite good, and then a whole truckload of chameleon bands come along and play watered down attempts of the same style and somehow we think they are valid? I reckon a lot of these groups were nu-metal bands, and when the next “big thing” came along they changed their name, clothes, and arranged the same old songs, except made them now sound like nu-rock.

So I convinced Mark to chance it and leg over to see Pluto, a NZ band that I think are pretty cool. It was worth it, despite having never heard them before Mark “got” them right away. It was a cool beginning to the day. Side note: It’s kind of depressing to think that a band this good can essentially fail to make it in the UK, whilst plod-rock acts like The Donna’s get hype thrown at them like they are a Vodafone commercial.

The Donna’s: 3/10 - Semi-Hot-Plod-Rock?
Pluto: 9/10 - Great live performance, daylight shows on a small stage are never that easy.

Next we headed to back to the Hip Hop stage, where I was hoping to intoduce Mark to RJD2, in return he was going to introduce me to Kid Koala (who both turned out to be friends). The amazing thing about both sets was the fact that neither wore headphones. Mark enjoyed RJD2, and I was amazed by Kid Koala. Another success.

RJD2: 8/10 Awesome skill, great tracks, 6 turntables and that sampler.
Kid Koala: 8/10 What can I say, the skill is immense. I guess the tracks weren’t as killer as RJD2, but technique was tops.

Things got a little hazy after that, I can’t remember what we did for the next couple of hours. Looking at the program I know we missed a bunch of acts I would have liked to have seen (Evermore, Misfits of Science). I can remember coming across Slip Knot though… umm WTF? Is this for real? Really awful music.. like *really* bad.. not even good death-metal or whatever it was supposed to be. The stage performance was like bogans on E with makeup. Was it supposed to be scary? Did the kids down below actually take it seriously? Had they really sat through the albums of utter shite at home long enough to learn all the words to every song? Get a life (and that’s coming from someone who really has no life).

Slipknot: 1/10 - 1 point for proving that any bunch of mugs in masks can make money if they really want to.

Oh, I remember now, my memory is coming back. John Butler Trio. Now I have confession to make. I really can’t get into the whole Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, John Butler hippie dread-lock slide-guitar music that offends no-ones-tastes thang. But on the sliding scale of tolerence it would be in that order. Ben Harper? Can’t stand the guy. His MOR acousti-rock makes me cringe. He sings about the environment, arrggh. Jack Johnson, had a good start, but wasted it in re-releasing the same song 12 times on 2 different albums - is friends with Ben Harper in real life. John Butler, the least uncool, so his gig was not bad. I wasn’t totally crisp at this stage so I just enjoyed the sun and sounds.

John Butler Trio - 5/10 - Not bad, but looses points for the wanky fanale with his cheesy blues solo and the drummer doing a 1 minute solo set like a session guy at the job interview for Sting’s World Tour 83.

So next up was The Streets. I will confess to being a bit of a fan. Original Pirate Material is a great unpretentious record. It has some nice beats, and is like the modern day version of a guy and his four-track. A Grand Don’t Come For Free is as good a follow-up as anyone could make. I was thinking the show was going to be Mike standing there, going through the motions of each song, drunk, whilst a DJ puts on a record. I was wrong. A full band, back-up vocals, and a sober (to begin with) Skinner performed a great, interesting and funny set. The best crowd interaction I had seen all day.

The Streets 9/10 - The most under-rated pre-performance. I expected it to be worthwhile, but to be honest it ranks up there as the highlight of the day.

Next was Carl Cox in the Boilerroom. I was a Carl Cox virgin, a Boilerroom virgin too. It was pretty cool and powerful in there, a totally different scene. I can see why it needs to be in a closed tent. It needs to be dark and visually fantastic.

Carl Cox - 6/10 - Everyone looked like they were having a good time, but then again they were on drugs.

Back to the mainstage for The Beastie Boys. Started with a really cool home movie of Mixmaster Mike being stuck in Japan and having to dash to NZ (through Auckland Airport, Over Fence at BDO) and up onto stage. It was a pretty cool set, not as good as ones I’ve seen them do on TV. Midway through they come on as The Sounds From Way Out band, which was pretty interesting, but for a festival I thought it was a little to particular. A lot of people left at this point. Then back to some of the new hip-hop, and then back to another instrumental set, by which time the Chemical Brothers were playing, so even more people left.

B Boys - 7/10 It was good, but I dunno, something was missing, or maybe I was tired.

Chemical Brothers in the boiler room. Well, it was absolutely packed. I think I danced, the Rapture was begining to kick in. I couldn’t actually see the guys, the stage lights were infront of them, and there was all that dry ice. It was an good, powerful set. Some madman climbed the light rigging in the middle of the tent, and started waving to everyone. There was *no* security in the boiler room. The crowd were pretty well behaved. It’s interesting how a new sub-culture tries to kill any badness in another culture. Like if a bogan that was fighting during Slipknot came into the Boiler room for this, would he chill out? I listened to Exit Planet Dust yesterday and realised who cool the Chem Bros used to be, before they started relying on all this trance/electronic rubbish. I mean I suppose its harsh of me, they did pioneer the chemical beats/big beat thing, but it just seems they have started navel gazing.

Chem Bros 7/10 It was cool, but it was a little out of my league, and Aaron said he had heard the same set twice before.

Okay, so thats it really. We wandered home, repaired the cracker, blew up some balloons and chilled. The Rapture kept Mark and I up till 6am watching Strong Bad Emails.