big it up fo tha BDO

[sirravesalot]

Just wishing all those going up to the BDO (of whom I am one) a fucking awesome time. For those not going, because it was sold out, not enough money, too much of a little bitch (Ray that ones for you) then I hope ull enjoy ur weekend. For everyone else, go nuts, and if anyone tries to mosh to Prodigy, lets show them how to dance properly, Canberra style. Peace.

[Alistair]

sorry sirravesalot... your gonna hate the crowds moshing to a) the prodigy, b) basement jaxx and c) the crystal method. Its gonna happen, and i reckont the best things to to are 1 - see dave clarke instead of the prodigy... 2 see nofx or dj fenix instead of the jaxx and 3 see the white stripes or new order instead of the meth... its tough, but will be ultimately as fullfilling IMHO. Or we could just set up the canberra dancing school tent that was proposed at gsss

[Sysex]

yeah what the hell hapened to make cyrstal meth so.......@!#$?>

[bennybee]

15000 capacity for superdome, i think we will be safe for the jaxx. prodigy will be another storey and asides the highlite o the day for us yeeoleetimers will be New Order

[Smokey McPot]

Have fun guys, would love to be there but financial restriction inhibit such noble pursuits. I'll be on the coast with some mates and our friend oscar the friendly ounce (this'll be my third bdo missed since they began so I'll be wistful), so have a ball and show how its done in a Canberra stylee!

[palu]

yay!!!! BDO here we come!

[Breakz Junkie]

"Let's take ya back to the concrete streets
Original beats with real live mc's
Playground tactics
No rabbit in a hat tricks
Just that classic
Rap @!#$ from Jurassic"

Me cannot wait! everyone who's goin, have a good one!

[calico]

sorry but fenix instead of the jaxx?

what you talkin about willis?

all i wanna do is rap
make some tracks and live life kinda fat and that's that,
but how can a man just rap
when the whole damn industry is wack?

[Alistair]

LOL calico i was hoping someone would pull me up on that one :)

[GMAN]

For all those that are not able to make it to the Big Day Out don't forget that tonight (Friday January 25) el.e.men.tal is on.

Unfortunately Sugar Ray had to pull out due to circumstances beyond our control and the event will now be an all local eclectic lineup including Mr Fink from Sydne.

Playing tonight are:
Mr Fink
Bec Paton
Ben Henderson
Mikah Freeman
Fat Freddy
Kaos

Tickets are only $7 and doors open at 10 pm

See you there!

GMAN

[livian]

how was sydney BDO all you crazy cats that made it up? going to melbourne one on monday, i need to know which acts to cull from my rather lengthy "essential" list, any advice much appreciated. did anyone catch crackpot??

[Alistair]

my day went like this
the hive sucked ass (really dissapointing), q45 in the boiler room was meant to be cool coz he had a live guitarist jamming away over the top of his set, 1200 techniques suck more than the hive did, Amen are way slicker than i thought they would be, but their drummer is way out of time and they are just a shitty metal band with a cool album title (lock up your parents), betchadupa are a band that id be heaps proud of if i was a kiwi and play some solid alt-pop-rock, eskimo joe are way more popular than i imagined and they are prob aus's most listenable pop band, machine gun fellatio dont work as well on a festival stage as they do in a dedicated venue, audio active were the most awesome suprise of the day (cool, stoner japanese reggae/rock/ambient whatever), so much so that i missed most of gerling (shock! horror) to catch all of their set, the two gerling songs i heard were good, but they are (like MGF) better seen in non festival setting, primary suck as usual (i was eating lunch and just overheard them), SYSTEM OF A DOWN RULE i cant stress that enough, they are just truley impressive if you can handle rock in any way shape or form check them out, the gurge followed system nicely, chris fresh kicked arse (one punter claiming "this is easily the best dj set ive heard so far today" (note the dj set part, coz he thought audio active was still the best), Jurrasic 5 were ok - if it had been an indoors gig it would have been unreal, their djs trick set was definatly worth going for, New Order well what can i say... unbelievable, better than i could possibly have dreamed (60 miles an hour, blue monday and love will tear us apart again were highlights of one of the best sets ive ever seen by a band) and they finnished with the line "see you next year!" YES!! Dave Clarke is a god, played some awesome funky but hard techno, peaches really really sucks dont believe anything anyone tells you about her, unless its that shes really really crap, NOFX were too ska for me at that stage, and Basement Jaxx you couldnt get into due to mass rioting after the allegedly shithouse prodigy and people scrambling to get inside for where your head at. So i boogied along to Disco Stu on the EAR stage, and he went prob 45 mins overtime, which was cool.
Biggest dissapointment of the day overall was finding that after a damn decent run of 99 songs, the hottest 100 was won topped by Alex Lloyds "amazing", prob topping my crappest 100 list, and the best things about the day that i havent already mentioned - the new d-barrier system works a treat, as does structuring the lineup like they did so no more crushing deaths at the main stage (boiler room might get some though... way too popular now than for its own good). They have vastly improved the sound on the main stages (esp. volume wise) and actually all throughout the entire event, and the food was way better than ever before (tshirts not so good this year, peaches is prob the best, or the prodigy ones). So yeah, there was my day, hope that doesnt sound too negative, coz ill finnish this by saying that this was prob the best big day out ive been to - new order and system of a down easily into my top 5 big day out main stage acts with a buller (NIN, the manics and atari teenage riot are still in there though!). For all those yet to go - enjoy!

[Alistair]

two corrections... amens album title is "we have come for your parents" and in the last sentence, its with a bullet, not buller... May this be a call for ITM boards to have a preview feature put in somehow!

[palu]

BE sure to check out Garbage... Shirley Manson rocked my world!!!
Prodigy crap? uh, i dont think so, but hey thats my opinion. Kosheen were also really good - it was different from all the other djs/acts going on in the boiler room. Jurassic 5 was awesome. New order played beautifully as the sun was setting on the grand stadium. Altho I must admit that the thing i loved the most was looking down at the thousands of people in the main stage, and knowing that every single person had a smile on their face and was having the most wicked time!

palu

(I too missed Basement Jaxx grrr)

[Disco_Stu]

basement jaxx rocked!!! We pissbolted from prodigy at about 10 cause we knew it was gonna be packed. We got in while it was still relatively empty and made our way to the front. Anyone who didn't get in missed out big time. They did this little intro thing, then went straight into 'Romeo'. THey played all the major singles, red alert rendezvu as well as my fave bongoloid. and when they dropped 'where's your head at' the crowd went insane! I reckon that everyone in the room must have been jumping and screaming as loud as they could. Easily the highlight of the day

[Alistair]

Cheers for the review disco stu... now i know i personally diddnt miss anything (not a jaxx fan at all) (unlike everyone else i know). Oh and palu, i dont know if the prodigy were crap or not, thats just what some people were saying as they tried to force their way into the boiler room.
One thing i would advise people to do is find the area in especially the main area where the sound is the best - two of my friends have since told me they thought New Order were out of time completely, where as I found them to be totally on form. So a bit of scouting around for sound quality might well be a good idea.

[sirravesalot]

since i started this thread, i may as well have my say as well.Prodigy rocked my world. While this may have been contributed to buy my off-tittsedness, they really rocked it up for me. I was dancin like crazy and had lotsa fun...... kosheen were enjoyable for me as well, and while they seemed (to me) to be more of a listening act rather than a dancing-to one, i still had a great time. At that ear place, was anyone else irritated by the stoopid experimental electronica which seemed to be coming out the whole time? anyway, the weather was good, i was fucked, and there was lotsa good music nyah. good times for all. btw, someone told me that this year was the second last BDO EVER!!! seeing as this was my first, ill be pretty pissed off if that is the case.

PS. No matter how good it was, it didnt even come close to Field Day's greatness.

[mewz]

Well, for me the Big Day Out was a f***ing HUGE day out!!! I had much fun in the sun. My fave acts included the Gurge cos they are just so damn eclectic (poppy, punky, hip hoppy, grungy, electronica-y), J5 cos they are so damn talented and smooth (hip hop at its old skool finest) , sonicanimation cos they're always good value (they make the crowd go AWOL!), and Basement Jaxx cos they absolutely rocked out. I agree about Peaches sucking hardcore! My friend and I couldn't get into the Boiler Room for the Jaxx so we went into the Hot House and Peaches were sooooooo shite that we had to leave immediately. I don't know who the hell gave them such a coveted slot but they should have their head checked. Luckily, my friend and I were able to sneak into the Boiler Room when a security guard was preoccupied and got to have a wicked dance to the Jaxx. We had to be very stealthy though. We saw one guy try the same thing and he nearly got punched out!! Not very cool. While I'm talking stuff that sucked (although on a whole that day was fantastic) what the f*** was with the beeping at that stage with all the demons and sh**?!!! That should have been a chill out area cos it was all nice and grassy but instead they were making these ear-piercing noises guaranteed to make you go insane...not very cool. Also the group playing "music" at the very end (above the entrance) when everyone was being forced to leave was someone's idea of a very sick joke! I personally think that they got that group up there to make everyone want to leave as fast as possible to escape those brain scrambling sounds.
Anyway, the whole point of this post was to say the I thought the Prodigy were easily the best act of the day. It could be because I am an old skool fan, but I absolutely loved their set. My only complaint is that I couldn't get to the front!! I lined up on the left hand side of the D barrier (missing the Crystal Method, a very sad state of affairs I know, but I really wanted to be up the front for Prodigy) for at least 20 minutes during New Order only to be told that we had to line up at the other entrance on the opposite side. So I waded through hundreds of already very packed people to line up for at least another 20 minutes. Then the Prodigy started and I was still in the line. They hadn't let anyone in, even though people had left from New Order. It was bulls***!!!
Now I know the whole barrier thing was set up to stop people dying and I fully respect that but it was soooooo frustrating to be standing in a line while Prodigy were playing on the other side of the stadium!! I ended up going back into the mass of people cos I couldn't bear just standing in a line while everyone else was going mental. Trying to get back to the other side of the stadium was extremely difficult cos everyone was so tightly packed. I ended up getting parallel to the stage but was so far back I couldn't see a thing. Then I thought f*** it, desperate times call for desperate measures. I'd always wanted to crowd surf at a Big Day but I had never had the guts. At that moment I thought its now or never and so I chose now. I asked two big dudes standing near me for a boost and I was up, up and away!!!!!!!!!!!! It was the biggest rush ever, sailing over a group of people as one of my favourite groups rocked out. I must have looked like a right idiot cos I was screaming out "f*** yeah", but I didn't even care, I was so lost in the moment. Anyway, what goes up must come down. About a minute l8er I got dropped but miraculously escaped unscathed. Some people were trying to get out of the mosh so I moved forward and lo and behold I ended up being right near the front of the second barrier.
And Sirravesalot, I know that you think that people shouldn't mosh to the Prodigy but mate, I think you've got it all wrong! I love to dance, but some music just has to be moshed to for the full effect and the Prodigy play that kind of music. Sure, I got sweaty and crushed and had people fall on my head but the experience was so intense and real it was amazing. You can dance to s*** like that if you want, but to fully experience music that is that raw and raucous you can show me the moshpit anytime...

BTW, I moshed to the Gurge, System of a Down and the Prodigy and the only mark I have on me is a bruise on my leg from when I was waiting at the barrier and they told us to leave...pretty good, huh?

[palu]

hahaha... yeah i must agree, wat WAS up with the E.A.R stage? it irritated me greatly

[Alistair]

speak for yourselves... I personally dig that geeky noise stuff they were doing at the ear stage, but in saying that, im glad they dont turn it up any louder than it is...

[sirravesalot]

hey mewz, obviously you have never danced so fast your feet are a blur, then you stop looking at them and they keep moving of their own accord while your arms are spinning equally out of control while the music just pumps u full of fucking awesome vibes. that is what i enjoy doing to get the full enjoyment out of my music, and believe me, prodigy was amazing. But hey, horses for courses, or as i always like to say, different people for different dancing styles. hey, who gives a @!#$, it was awesome. btw, alistair.................... what the @!#$? how can u enjoy (most) of the stuff that they played. It sounded like aphex twin stuck in a blender.

[Alistair]

what can i say... im a fan of b-side stylee aphex ;) And also, the last 2 hours (whilst the jaxx were on) were fully funky awesome club kooky styled stuff (think biftek-ish) so it wasnt all some dude playing a guitar with a screwdriver... And also, it not like the Ear stage was by any means what i was there for - it was just the 5 mins when i was leaving the hothouse or looking for the cigarette stall that i was checking out the bizzaro stuff. And i reckon its pretty cool.

[Breakz Junkie]

the EAR thing was bollox! How do those people get a gig?!! They were playing the most annoying sounds ever! Maybe next time they can have people playing THREE loops instead of the standard 2, with miscellaneous stabs. My set would include the classic breaking pane of glass loop, the nails scratching over a blackboard loop and the nu-skool screeching modem sounds loop. I'd mash it up with a few stabs of dogs barking and jumbo jet engine sounds. All played with minimal varioation for oooh... 70 minutes. fr-fr-FREEEEESH!

[calico]

did anyone see curse ov dialect on the lilypad stage?

[Optimus Rhyme]

Did anyone see the those fucking wack as @!#$ people rapping about all the different cultures in a humourous (at their expense, they thought they were enlightening us, or were at least cool in some way) manner? @!#$ it was funny!

"represent the aussie culcha! word the @!#$ up!!! This cunts gonna kick it macedonian style! word up kuntz!!!"

[Sysex]

so it wasnt all some dude playing a guitar with a screwdriver

Oh I thought you might have found my long lost band member :(


soundz like breakz junkie answered his own question...

Q: How do those people get a gig?!!
A: playing the most annoying sounds ever!


Just because YOU can't dance to it doesn't mean it aint' music.

:)

[livian]

Thanks for all the reviews guys. Had a great day in Melbourne too, but I think the Showgrounds aren't as good a venue as Homebush is. The Boiler Room floor wasn't. It was grass, so by the time Crystal Method played it was smelly mud. Yeah, the Boiler Room is far too popular now, there really needs to be a bigger tent (in the case of Melbourne at least - we didn't have the luxury of a big fuckoff arena like the Sydney crew did).

Gerling: killed it, had to ad lib when their machines were drenched by overzealous water bottle throwers.
Eskimo Joe: so sweet and genuine.
J5: rocked. Cut Chemist and Nu Mar rock. The people climbing up and dancing on the roof rocked. Easily the best set of the day. Even braved Alien Ant Farm's shite song (my name's not Annie and I'll be OK if you stop playing and disappear into oblivion) to get a good spot. At least their song didn't get #1 in Hottest 100 (#6 is still too high though).
Prodigy: would have been better in an arena instead of open air stage. Still love them, where was Funky @!#$ though?
New Order: Bizarre Love Triangle. Sigh.
Spiderbait: hurt my ears.
Grinspoon: great new single "Chemical Heart."
Basement Jaxx: couldn't get in. Sounded good as I walked away, bawling that I couldn't see them.
Crackpot: DJ Ransom's band, very laidback and chilled.
The swarms of girls in school dresses emblazonded with "slut" and other such derogatory terms: well, I guess they spoke for themselves. I'm all for being individual, but aren't you just a sheep when 1000 other people are doing exactly the same thing??

Now, who's coming down for Vibes???

PS: guys, go and see Rennie Pilgrem. Phenomenal set at Prince last Friday.
PPS: this is totally unrelated to this thread, but I was down at a backpackers bar on Elizabeth St the other night, flicking through the music video jukebox and whose names should I see next to a certain track entitled "Burning Hands"?? Ye olde Canberra DJs Chris Fresh and Nash T.

[Alistair]

No way... i was just looking through a whole lot of crap dance compilations that my sister had brought back from germany about 3 years ago and tacked on the second last song of the second disc of deutchdance vol 3 (or whatever) is "burning hands" as well ... freaky... does this mean its making a comeback - can chris and nash now be considered retro?

BTW i love girls in school dresses with the word "slut" scrawled in artline marker across their chest and "whore" "slag" and "i wanna f'uck fred durst" on the back... brings me back to my youth of thinking it was really cool to do stuff like that (cept im a guy, so it was even cooler...)

[evilchris]

Like Livian, I made the decision to forgo the usual Sydney mission this year for the Big Day Out, and instead head for the fantastic pubs and variable weather of Melbourne this year. And what a weekend it was...I had no idea what I'd get up to apart from the Big Day Out on Monday 28th, and I only had from Sun night to Tues arvo before I had to run back to Canberra and work, but thought I'd make things up as I went along. Things started massively with a storming intimate Sunday night pub gig by Audio Active at the Evelyn in Brunswick Street. The last time I'd seen AudioActive was with 5000 screaming Japanese people when I was living in Nagoya, to see them in such a small venue was quite surreal. I'm glad to see people checked them out at the Big Day Out, even though they got a crappy 1pm slot or something. One of Japan's best kept secrets. After Active finished, we headed off to Laundry just off Brunswick where two guys were mixing incredible dub and ambient beats until early.

'Course, Monday was the Big Day Out, and I ran around in my usual stylee trying to catch as much as I could from all stages.
All up I saw:
Infusion in the Boiler Room: wonderful building tech from one of Australia's best live electronic acts (so good I'll overlook that Nike ad)
Gerling: Genius, and the fact that they spilt water all over their gear made for a better show because they had to freestyle (...'pretend we are Limp Bizkit, preetend we are Gun's and Rrrroses!") Darren Cross is the funniest frontman in Australian guitar rock.
Kosheen: not bad at all, and certainly confused the people who thought they were going to see an hour of drum and bass
Prodigy: who had virtually nothing new to offer, but still pulled off a slick live show with excellent sound (Cut down at sundown..)
The Gurge: great as always, and added scratch dj for extra flava
Garbage: I was a little bit over some of their newer stuff, but when Shirley sang Number 1 Crush I swear my heart missed a beat
Silverchair: A friend of mine always says that I shouldn't cast aspersions on Silverchair without seeing their live show, but now I have, and all I could see on Monday evening was a band that needed desperately to evolve or die, you're talented musos obviously, but try something outside the square!!
New Order: God knows, this is one of my favourite bands of all time...my expectations were so high, and they pulled out a fantastic show with some incredible Joy Division tunes scattered through the set. The funniest thing about being right down the front in the big safety 'D' was the fact that between each song, all the late twenties, early thirty-something fans would all look around and beam at each other....we all waited a long time for that show.
Basement Jaxx: And here, in the boiler room, surrounded by seismic waves of sampled samba funk, I spent the end of my big day out (it's traditional for evilchris), with the thousands of other grooving peoples under the big top. The best bit for me was when Simon got out front and played the live flamenco guitar part for Rendez-Vu...oh, and the Jaxx's VJ (we need more VJs at Aussie festivals)

On Tuesday morning, I had about an hour and a half to devote to a quick record buying mission, and my brother suggested I check out Gaslight Records in Bourke Street, and while looking for a Ninja Tune cd, ran into New Order touring guitarist Phil from Marion, who I had a good chat to while buying records (he was actually buying a Marion CD to check out the overseas packaging) While he was talking to me he mentioned that "Barney and Peter are just over there" and pointed just behind me, to where they'd been standing the whole time. He introduced me to them (nice cos I didn';t have to walk over like a sad fan), and mentioned that I'd seen their Big Day Out set the night before.
Hooky asked me if I'd enjoyed it, which I had, and I said that I'd been pretty excited about going...but then Barney really put me on the spot by asking me which bit of the set was my favourite. My god, I'd had absolutely no lead up to this, basically within 15 minutes of walking into this record store I'd ended up with 50% of New Order both looking at me wanted to know which bit I rated. "Ummm...I loved the fact that you played "Your Silent Face", because I wasn't sure if you were going to play "Power, Corruption and Lies" tracks", I said, Hooky looked really pleased and then Sumner said "we were actually going to play 'Atmosphere' instead' Damn...I thought, I would have loved to have seen them do Atmosphere. Then Sumner said "Which one would you have preferred?" Eek...wanted to say "Atmosphere' but said "yeah...I thought the tracks you played were a good selection of new and old stuff...
Anyway, I got to have a fair bit of a chat to them both, they were both just record shopping as well, and had an instore there the next day, so they were checking the place out the day before. Of course, afterwards, I thought of all the cool questions I'd always wanted to ask (what's up with Electronic?)...but it was nice to meet them, and they were really relaxed, funny and friendly.
And in the end, I did leave with that Ninja Tune CD...Peter Hook found it for me in a sale bin.

evilchris
www.livingroomcanberra.com

[mrfunky]

What is up with Electronic? heh heh......nice one Chris!

[sirravesalot]

kinda reminds me of a cuppla years ago when some friends of mine went to the Melbourne BDO and met the Chemical Brothers in the city, just walking along. btw, is it just me, or do they look hella nerdy?

[Alistair]

They look hella nerdy (as do most of our production superstars... as a geek at school, i find it cool that nerds can make it too :) ).
BTW new chems album... words cannot describe... f'ucking unreal.

[Sysex]

yes

yes

yes

yes

chems


live

in melebourne



can I wait?


somehow.....

[mewz]

I wanna see the chemical bros again *sob* I saw them at the BDO a couple of years ago and they rocked my socks off...

[sirravesalot]

yeah, its gonna be a difficult decision, between having money and brain cells, or going to see them and then three days later go to two tribes. WHY GOD WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why cant the fucking chem bwuvvas come to Canberra...... we have HABANA damnit.!!!

[livian]

That's a great story Evilchris.

[Alistair]

evilchris, words cannot describe how jelous i am of you... what ninja cd did you get?

[evilchris]

Yeah, it is pretty wild,

The funny thing is, what are the odds of running into any of the big day out touring acts in the city, let alone your favourite act that you've been waiting forever to tour?
The scary thing is, it's happened to me 3 times now...last year, I talked to PJ Harvey in Redeye Records the day after the Sydney BDO, and the year before that, Trent Reznor and his bassist were looking through vinyl in Brunswick Street in Melbourne next to where we were kneeling on the floor going through old 12's.
You should always go record shopping in Sydney or Melbourne the day after the BDO plays there:)

Hey Alistair, the Ninja CD I got is 'Chris Morris and the Blue Jam', it's one of the best Ninjas I've heard (and I have lots of Ninjas). Chris Morris is this really dark almost like a more calm English Bill Hicks comedian who had this show called Brasseye in the UK (which got pulled from BBC for being too risque), all these artists like Coldcut, Amon Tobin and Herbaliser have put down beats under his spoken word and manipulated it a lot.
It's hilarious and bloody hard to find.....
"And tonight, DJ Microclimate presents a gathering of littlebeat...."

evilchris
www.livingroomcanberra.com

[calico]

man you are one bad mafu evilchris