The annual Big Day Out circus rolled into Adelaide once again last week, selling out in record time despite what many perceived lineup weaknesses. There is something enjoyable about an event that is an annual must attend regardless of who is playing, with that in mind I headed along with hopes high for a great day.
Arriving with my small group pretty much as the gates were opening, a group that in the festival spirit would lose and find each other throughout most of the day, we progressed quickly through the gates. The efficiency of getting that many people through the gates and their bags searched is something some of our clubs could learn a lot from. Heading inside, it was out of the heat and into the Boiler Room, were The Swiss were putting on a brilliant live set. They sounded extra tight on the huge system and although the crowd was pretty small at the early hour, there is no doubting the world class talent that the three-piece has. As they wound up, Master Celebrator appeared on the smaller side stage and were playing a mix of fairly mainstream house music that the crowd really got into. It was shirts off and glow sticks all around, so we quickly decided to leave and have a brief wander around, returning to assume prime position for Delta & Staen 1’s set.
All of a sudden the room was full and Staen was loving every minute of it as he did his trademark trick set, the crowd lapping it up and responding with serious volume when he willed them to. As Delta took the stage there would have been somewhere between 1500 – 2000 people in the room, the sort of crowd Delta loves to play to. He smashed it, performing tracks from his debut, one new track off his second album The Second Story. He then performed for the first time his verse off the title track from that album, dropping in the next few months incidentally, over the dope My Block beat from Scarface.
As the set finished the room emptied, myself included, I headed for another wander around catching part of an extremely tight set from Gyrascope and a ho-hum main stage set from Faker as we chilled briefly in the grandstand. Heading back to the Boiler Room, local boy MPK was spinning some drum n’ bass to the masses – masses being an accurate description when the room filled up for Dizzee Rascal. Wedging through the crowd and avoiding those without shirts, we nestled about eight row back and watched Dizzee catch wreck. Tracks like He’s Just A Rascal and Fix Up Look Sharp drawing the most crowd response I heard all day. He worked hard on stage too, definitely not leaving anything in reserve as his DJ Semtex kept the tunes coming. There was only ten minutes between the end of Dizzee and the start of the Hilltop Hoods on the main stage so somewhat of a mad dash was required. Arriving just as they took the stage I had no interest in dealing with the surge of bodies in the D area, happy to sit back and watch the set from afar. As I had seen the warm up show for the tour, the Myspace ‘secret show’ two weeks earlier, I knew exactly what to expect from the set and wasn’t disappointed. The addition of Lowrider really punches up the live sound while the quartet too gives it an extra layer of sound and live oomph. While there weren’t any surprises in the form of new tunes, the response from the hometown to the tracks from the last two albums was insane. Hopefully one day in the not to distant future the hip hop talent we have here beyond the Hilltop Hoods will also get rewarded with some main stage love.
In what was a well trodden path, at least for me, I headed back to the Boiler Room to catch some of Pnau. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the trance-flavoured harder sounds being cranked out by Bexta, but the aforementioned shirts off glow stick massive were loving it. Pnau pulled out all the stops for their set, even giant fruit and vegetables making some on stage appearances and yes, you did read that correctly. They’ve most definitely returned to form with this year’s album and their live show is supremely tight.
After a couple of hours spent with friends and due to programming quirks, seeing nobody on my must see list I headed back into the Boiler to catch the start of the impressive LCD Soundsystem show. Ten minutes in and through no fault of LCD I left and headed across to catch arguable Adelaide’s fastest rising musical star Vents, who would have been greeted by his face on the front of that day’s newspaper when he awoke to his Big Day Out debut. Somewhat surprisingly and definitely disappointingly, Vents had a really average crowd. I guess people were more interested in securing a position for the headliners… And by an average crowd I don’t mean three people all of whom are family members, I talking about a more reasonable kind of Big Day Out average of a crowd of several hundred. With Trials alongside him, he gave his signature tight performance, working through all the big moments of his debut Hard To Kill he made sure if people were elsewhere they were missing out on something.
At the end of his set I made my way back to the Boiler Room to see out my day. A brief stop for a massively overpriced hot dog on the way I headed in to see the end of LCD’s set, something I was glad to have made it back in time for. Closing things out was Carl Cox, with the big man having a few warmup tracks spun for him by John Rundell as he assumed his position centre stage for a house music workout. Personally I miss the days where he played more banging tech, and the set really struggled to hold my interest, so much so that I made a dash outside to the back of the arena to hear Rage Against the Machine closing the night off with Killing In The Name Of. When I returned Cox was clearly having a ball, walking out from behind the decks with a microphone in hand to work the crowd before returning to his mix. As he played the last half hour the room filled with everyone who wasn’t prepared to go home just yet, the music quality not really picking up at all but people (myself excluded) weren’t complaining.
I headed off into the night tired as the sounds ceased with the sort of tiredness twelve hours of music, wandering around and the odd beverage always brings on. It may not have had many acts that I wanted to see, but I most definitely left satisfied. I have just one request that would guarantee an even quicker 2009 sellout; bring down the Wu Tang Clan.
doggahoskin says...
Certainly was a ripper day. Haven't seen to many shows like RATM before!