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Toolroom coming to festivals
Mark Knight and his Toolroom Records stable have steadily been taking over the... [more]
CHANGE CITY :
Bumble bees, butterflies, fairies, mohawks, hand-painted T-shirts, crazy costumes, and, yes, several hundred Australian flags, beautiful Queensland sunshine and the biggest collection of very happy punters hanging out to see all their favourite bands makes the Big Day Out one of the highlights of the Summer festival season. Big Day Out is one of those gigs that the bands love to play as much as the punters do. It’s a long, hot day of crazy musical madness, covering all genres of music across eight different stages, so it doesn’t get much crazier than the Gold Coast Big Day Out. One enthusiastic conversation overheard in the line-up for the porta-loos went: “I’ve been to heaps of the Sydney ones, but this is my first Gold Coast Big Day Out and it is sooo much better here!” The general consensus is that we Queenslanders are more laid back, friendlier and party just that little bit harder than our Southern counterparts. BDO 2007 saw a fantastic line up of top acts guaranteed to please anyone from the fifteen year olds allowed in under the generous all-ages licence to fifty year olds hoping for a chance to relive their youth. With a wide variety of acts from emo punksters My Chemical Romance to Old Skool teenage angst legends Violent Femmes the emphasis was definitely on rock and roll and less on dance music than in previous years. Even the traditional home of dance; the Boiler room played host to a broader range of styles than usual with crazy electro in-your-face debauchery from Peaches and Herms, to the Cockney geezer hip hop of British act The Streets having trouble drawing the masses away from the main two stages hosting the headliners of the day.
Traffic into the event wasn’t as bad as it has been in previous years and choosing the easy $10 on site parking option provided almost door-to-door entry to the gig, although this option faded in appeal at the end of the night when after having been revved up to the max by the Crystal Method finishing off the night with their own adrenalin-inducing track -Get Busy Child_ everyone had to sit in their cars for over an hour before the traffic even began to move out to the street!
The day kicked off with the winners of the Queensland JJJ Unearthed competition Hip Pocket playing in the V Energy Local Produce Stage; a funky band with lots of horns and percussion and a brassy big band sound incorporating reggae beats and hip-hop style, had the audience’s toes tapping and hands clapping along enthusiastically. The band members were all grins from ear to ear as they thanked the equally appreciative crowd for getting them there. Then it was over to the Boiler Room for yet another slice of juicy local act My Ninja Lover who have been making quite a few appearances around town lately drawing a loyal and dedicated fan base keen to catch powerful vocalist Manta Ray in action. Next up was Digital Primate mixing up some groovy beats, and then it was off to see the sights, catch a few rides grab a drink and get revved up for the day while The Spazzy’s were cranking out some ear-splitting guitar-driven chick rock on the main stage.
At 12.45pm in the blazing Gold Coast Sun The Butterfly Effect took to the main stage and it became apparent that pushing through a swarming sea of sweating bodies to get as close to the front as possible seriously detracted from the sound quality coming from the main Orange and Blue stages both of which were better appreciated from further behind the mosh pit away from the mufffling effect of thousands of sardined punters. Back here the clarity of the sound was much better and there was room to jump around without being shoved around as well as a slight refreshing breeze to ease the sunburn somewhat.
Next up were Kiwis Evermore happily announcing that their gorgeous single Light Surrounding You had just gone to number one and showcasing a few tracks from their new album Real Life along with the hits It’s too Late, For One Day and Running as well as a version of Stand By Me.
As Kiwi rapper Scribe was hip-hopping on the main stage getting the crowd to feel the peace and love and Stand Up and put their hands in the air and all that, at 2.15pm Little Birdy beckoned back at the Green Stage for something a little bit more deep and meaningful with singer Katy Steele looking and sounding like a cross between Bjork and Gwen Stefani belting out great stuff including the popular Come on, Come on and a version of the Split Enz’s classic Six Months in a Leaky Boat and their new track Bodies.
At 3pm it was a quick dash back over to the Blue stage for My Chemical Romance who opened with I’m Not Okay (I Promise) which had the crowd singing along and soon waving their arms in appreciation of Welcome to the Black Parade. Soon afterwards Aria winners Eskimo Joe appeared on the adjacent Orange stage opening with the track Sarah that seems to have been played everywhere at the moment along with the catchy Black Fingernails, Red wine and New York. Their performance was tight, polished and very smooth, to the point of flawless. This was followed up by another very fine performance by the humble John Butler Trio who chose a banner that read “Yes to a nuclear free Australia” in place of the usual self-promoting band logo back drops favoured by the other acts of the day. Playing all their hits including Zebra and Betterman, the mellow lilting vocals and acoustic guitar provided a refreshing accompaniment to the setting sun and a moment of relief from the madness and the heat of the day.
At 6.00pm it was next door to the Orange stage for The Killers who put on a great show opening with When we Were Young and playing some new tracks from Sam’s Town along with the classic pumping dance floor hit Somebody Told Me. The crowd chanted along while they played Mr Brightside. At one point singer Brandon Flowers applauded the endurance of the crowd saying “I wish I could come down there and give every one of you a bottle of water and a hug” and making sure that everyone could hear them clearly saying; “We’ll try and play as loud as we can!”
A quick dash over to the Boiler room in between for a few of The Streets tracks saw Mike Skinner trying his hardest to raise enough heat and energy to justify the Boiler room’s name; “There’s a slight breeze here… now let’s see if we can make this room boiling!” before it was back to the main stage area again for the self-proclaimed legends Jet, who heralded their arrival on stage with; “We are the rock n roll legends of Australia!” Admittedly, they did play a cranking set of some raw and gritty rock n roll you just can’t help head bopping along to. Opening with the runaway radio success Are you Gonna be my Girl? The crowd sang along to Pictureframe and Cold Hard Bitch along with new track Show me the Money.
Back at the Boiler Room were Peaches and Herms with antics that included telling members of the audience to “shake ya dicks”, falling over during Operate, backdrops that included pictures of dildos, a multi-layered underwear strip and a pair of novelty breasts. This electro insanity provided high entertainment and a lot of shock value.
Back at the Orange stage, the most impressive set of the whole event award has to go to Muse for the beautiful backlighting starry night effects and coordinating visual screens of fireworks and space scenes with coloured lighting created such an interesting contrast to the screaming guitars and the churning bass during the track Starlight.
The next hour saw a bit of a clash with Tool on the Blue Stage overlapping with must-sees The Violent Femmes over on the Green stage. Thankfully, most of the bands seemed to play their most popular tunes either first up or early on in the sets, so that if you had to rush off to catch another act, chances were you would at least hear your favourite song before you madly bolted from one side of the showgrounds to the other! From the moment of those first few bass strums as Tool took to the stage the crowd roared as it became obvious that it was the one track they are best known for; number 2 on the Triple J Hottest 100 in 1997; Stinkfist. This head-banging, hair-shaking excessive energy-producing thunderbolt of a track still has the same amazing effect ten years later. They made an announcement to the audience “We’ve got some good news and some bad news… The good news is that there is no bad news”. It was all good news to the loyal Tool fans who had waited all day for this moment and the sea of black came from everywhere to watch them. But the chance to catch another sentimental favourite act; Violent Femmes could not be overridden and so it was off to the Green stage again to catch long-time favourites of generations of teenagers. Opening with Prove my Love, Please Do Not Go and the ever-popular Blister in the Sun, there’s no doubt about it, the night definitely belonged to the Femmes. Showcasing their musical talents with plenty of high-energy solos on the drums, guitar, saxophone and bass and a hilarious glockenspiel solo during the recently remixed, but never as good as the original; Gone Daddy, Gone the lewd lyrics and simple tunes mixed in with a rockabilly rebel tempo are still as appealing now as they were when they first burst onto the scene in 1982. The Violent Femmes don’t need to make any new tracks, they’ve been playing these same old ones forever and nobody expects any different anymore.
With only half an hour left until gates closed, and the ground now a dangerous dump of thousands of empty water bottles, The Crystal Method got their chance to steal the show being the only act playing until 11pm. They had the Boiler room veritably steaming and, as always, managed to please the wide variety of punters still with happy feet with their range of unexpected mixes along with the hoped-for Crystal Method originals including the churning and wailing Born Too Slow and finishing off with Get Busy Child. After the show, Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan enthusiastically thanked the crowd saying that the Big Day Out was their favourite place to play. Several hundred thousand sunburnt and weary agree!
