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Big Day Out '08 - the verdict?

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ViolentDove:

--- Quote from: bells on 01 Feb 2008, 17:15 ---High and Dry near St Albans where I spent new years.

--- End quote ---

!!!

How good was that festival!

My ladyfriend is part of the figure8 crew, so I was up there for a week or so attempting to help out. Beautiful place.

Inlander:

--- Quote from: bells on 01 Feb 2008, 17:15 ---It just struck me how much a part of the system the whole event has become

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Hell, for the Melbourne Big Day Out they had a whole platform at Flinders Street station set aside for trains ferrying punters to and from the site!

bells:
Haha, yes so they can all make their way to the big music event safely and get home with no worries at all; there are so many aspects of the government that are involved in the smooth operation of the day that all the risk and excitement has been drained out through its many orifices. It used to be sort of fun to try and cram as many people into a van trying to find your way out to the showgrounds, and that year when the dudes came up through the sewer system was great but its become so safe and organised, making it pretty much impossible to breed any kind of independent culture or integrity.

In a huge contrast, High and Dry was amazing, it was more like a holiday than a music festival. Everyone was so laid back they were practically horizontal, I saw virtually no rubbish and I swam in the river for about 5 hours a day! It sorta reminded me of Meredith in terms of the one main stage, except I must admit I liked that location a whole lot more. Serious kudos to the various organisers for doing such a bang-up job. Right near where i was camping these guys had just set up a soundsystem and were playing and eclectic mix of great obscure tunes all day, so we hardly even needed to venture into the main part, unless we or our friends were playing. Blissful.

Phaedra:
I went to the Perth BDO yesterday. Unfortunately it turned out to be a 35+ degree day so I didn't even show up until 4 o'clock for Battles (who were amazing). Then straight to the Arcade Fire to wait for 45 minutes to get into the D barrier (incidentally, wtf was with that thing? Last time I went, which was in '04, entry to and from still consisted of a line but they weren't so blatantly retarded as to give the blue and orange stages a joint D barrier!?! Worst idea ever, the whole thing was filled with Rage fans from the get-go).

Arcade Fire were great, but their show seemed to suffer from the poor sound quality that has been complained about after pretty much every other BDO this year. And it was unfair that the sound coming from the blue stage was so good! Silverchair and Grinspoon did not deserve it. I also nearly passed out due to the heat/dehydration and had to flee the moshpit halfway through the set. :-(

Finally Bjork to finish the night off, but I wasn't game to brave the D barrier again and stayed well outside of the crowd. Which is a pity as her set was fantastic, even from 80 metres away. It's a pity to hear about her coke-ing it up before the Sydney show; she must have disappointed a lot of fans.

All in all, the bands I came specifically to see didn't disappoint, but it was unfortunate that the weather was so awfully hot that I just didn't feel at all inclined to wander around and check out any of the other acts on that day. Also, never before have I seen such a horrid congregation of bogans as there were waiting for Rage to start. It seems like a good 70% of the people who bought tickets this year were just hanging out for those guys.

David_Dovey:
Once again, people standing around waiting for the big (overhyped, painfully mediocre) band missed the best band of the night. (RATM were fine I guess but the real stars were...

LCD Soundsystem were fucking on fire, and it didn't hurt they had pretty much all of the Arcade Fire on stage with them at various parts of the set. When they played All My Friends the place damn near melted into a big ole emotional meatpile of people. As incredible and heartbreaking James Murphy's performance of that on the album is, he really poured himself into it live.

Also it was James Murphy's birthday and he gave a wonderful little speech and then played New York I Love You(!). Roadies handed him two bouquets of flowers and he threw them one-by-one into the crowd. Then Regine from Arcade Fire and Bjork sang happy birthday to him.


Overall the sound was generally pretty crap. Battles was woeful on the sound front, just horrible balance between the instruments, shame, because they were very good otherwise, particularly Stanier, who looked like he was trying to turn his drumkit into sawdust. That being said, at least it was a decent volume this year. Last year some sets were just ridiculously quiet, to the point of being able to perfectly understand what people were saying to me, standing a few feet away. That shouldn't happen at a goddamned rock concert, guys.

On a slightly tangential note, fuck moshing. Yesterday I didn't mosh, and I felt excellent at the end of the day. Ususally I can barely stand up at the end pf the Big Day Out. This time I walked 5km home (the trains were too damn crowded and I just couldn't be bothered having my face in someone's armpit for an hour on the train.)

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