Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Burnt Day Out 2007
|
 The following five million paragraphs will be what I claim as my IAR review of the Big Day Out. I've broken it up into parts, so if you really cannot be arsed reading about my battle with heatstroke, you don't have to. As a whole, the review is a "bit" long and quite shambolic, so don't say I'd not warned you.
That's the best photo I took all afternoon/evening at Sunday gone's Big Day Out Music Festival in Melbourne. If you think you can spot that mug from a mile away, and have guessed it as belonging to Lily Allen (left!), pat yourself on the back and treat yourself to a piece of flavoured gum, for you deserve it!
You'll have to forgive me. I'm still recovering from what could only be explained as the most retarded case of Heatstroke I've seen. Did you know that having Heatstroke can temporarily impair your vision? I wasn't aware of this yesterday morning whilst I was trying to work in my 9 to 5 job. The 9 to 5 job which I arrived an hour late for, mind, and left an hour later from. How did this happen? Allow me to explain...
DEATH BY HEATSTROKE
For those of you unaware of what the Big Day Out is, it's a festival each year held across Australia on different dates, where International and Aussie acts join forces over several-many stages to perform all on the one, hot, skin-burning day. Melbourne's Big Day Out has/had a gorgeous history with the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds. Two years ago, those showgrounds were "renovated" for sporting events, and are now so completely fucked up in build that there is just no possible way a Big Day Out could be held there ever again. So two years in a row we've had the "luxury" of it being held at Princes Park. Understandably, last years BDO was the first at the new venue, so baby steps were expected when it came to things like, oh, for example, shaded areas. And by baby steps, I mean none at all. The one thing the Melbourne Showgrounds provided punters with was ample amounts of shade all across the grounds. At Princes Park in 2006, this was a BIG problem. People left the showground bright red, no matter how much sunscreen lotion they'd applied. I remember reading late last year that the organisers of the festival were aware this had been a problem in 2006, and were going to make sure there was an extensive amount of shaded areas available for 2007. Surprise, surprise, there weren't. So being out in the sun, having a wine cooler - or ten, consuming bottles of water (but obviously still not enough of them), and applying sunscreen lotion every 3 hours... and I still managed to burn most of my face and neck off, and was blessed with the joys of blurry vision for 8 hours yesterday afternoon, on top of a migraine. My god. I'm getting old.
So was it all worth it?
CLAUSTROPHOBIA HELL WITH LILY ALLEN
Attempting to find a half decent place up the front for Lily's set was an absolute fucking nightmare. People were pushing, screaming, threatening to punch on (I swear to god) with me - and this was just walking IN to the Boiler Room, in which Lily had been placed to perform. My friend Sera & I were disappointed to have not been right up the front, for we felt had we been, Lily would have seen our "crafty" home-made t-shirts and appreciated them very much indeed.
Whilst Sera may look like a supermodel in this shot, I have a horrible expression on my face which looks as though I'm passing a shit. Fantastic.
Lily sung a few numbers, including "Friday Night", "Nan You're A Window Shopper" (which about only 3 of us few thousand people in the boiler room actually knew was one of her songs), "LDN", "Everything's Just Wonderful", "Alfie", "Not Big", "Knock 'Em Out", & "Not Big", among others. Lily called George W Bush a "cunt", called the photographer's taking happy-snaps of her "cunts", and called another security guard an "ugly cunt". She smoked ciggie after ciggie, and even jigged about here and there. The set (which lasted 45 minutes) was pretty unbelievable, especially the tear-the-house-down performance of "Littlest Things", which would have silenced the critics claiming Lily cannot carry a tune. Once "Smile" began, however, things began to turn ugly. Hundreds of people were trying to push their way through, trying to knock out those of us who'd been quite close to the front from the beginning of Lil's set. It turned nightmarish, with people falling over, the girl next to me trying to run out because she couldn't breathe and felt an asthma attack coming on, and then there was little 'ol me with my intense case of Claustrophobia. Do you remember Kill Bill 2, the scene where Uma Thurman alive? I had to excuse myself from the movie theatre when I saw that so I could go and violently throw up. I don't so cope very well in these audience-crushing situations either. I don't throw up on people (boy, THAT would have been pretty funny though), but it does all get a bit much. I eventually moved as much as I could toward the exit and stood much 's buriedfurther away to catch the last 5 minutes of Lily's set. She was pretty brill, commented on how crap the Sydney crowd were (YEAH!), and threw up the two-fingers when someone hurled a bottle onto the stage. Amongst the crowd crushes and bitch fights, I managed to get a few happy snaps on my ageing digital camera.
Not exactly Herb Ritts, but it'll do.
SUNSHINE WITH A SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM
This is most probably where the sun damage occurred. If that's the case, then it was all very much worth it. Aussie dance outfit Sneaky Sound System were - by far - the BEST act I saw all day at the Big Day Out. Miss Connie is an absolute STAR, ridiculously gorgeous and full of superb robot-esque dance moves. MC Double D - the bands resident rapper/front man - is also a joy to watch. Cheeky, extremely talented and quite easy indeed on the eyes he is indeed. Throw in the brilliance found within their debut self titled album (currently in my top 2 for the year) all up on stage, and you've pretty much got the electricity and chemistry one needs to enjoy themselves no matter how scorching the sun. I danced my ARSE off, especially to hit singles "Pictures" and "I Love It", and took about 60 photos of Miss Connie just generally being fabulous on stage. The first picture below is significantly special in greatness compared to the others though, for the gorgeous Miss Connie is looking RIGHT AT MY HAPPY-SNAP-MAKER. !!!!
AMAZING.
Here is MC Double D, showing off a lovely hat and hints of an even lovelier snail trail.
Sexy vocalists, brilliant dance records and superb entertainers. It's almost as if Sneaky Sound System are the Rogue Traders of 2007, isn't it?
THE BRILLIANCE DID NOT CEASE THERE. You must all immediately take note of Miss Connie's STELLAR SET OF HIGH HEELED SHOES.
There are truly no words, are there?
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
My Chemical Romance were mind blowing, in particular when "Welcome To The Black Parade" began to blast its way through the grounds of Princes Park, whilst Peaches ripped everyone a brand new arsehole for her set in the Boiler room, removing a good 9 pairs of her underwear and donning sexy hot-pink shin pads. The Killers were more than likely great, but I was more interested in sitting in the shade than watching all of their set, so I only caught a song and a half. Muse, on the other hand, I saw pretty much all of and - as predicted - were stunning. The atmosphere was amazing through out their entire set as thousands of people cheered and sung along to every single line performed of each track. And all as the sun was going down. Very special indeed. Overall, the day was quite nice, but I was very much over it by 8:30pm. Hell, I was over it by 4pm, but there were too many acts left to see at that time that I just couldn't have left. Next year I'll be taking my own Shelter Shed, complete with a mini-bar fridge stocked with ice cold bottles of water, and a big fuck off air conditioner.
I took some more photos, such as crappy snaps of the screen whilst Muse were playing, a few more of Lily, a tonne more of Sneaky Sound System and even several of the Hotel Room several of my friends & I stayed in after the event, so if you'd like to see those, feel free to email me. And if anyone has any photographic proof that Lavina Williams, ex-Idol contestant and sister of Young Beaver Emily, was at the BDO in Melbourne, please email those through as well.
I should also mention that I managed to "spot" a couple of those crazy Pussycunt Moles AT THE BIG DAY OUT!!
Look at 'em go! The second from the left is most definitely Carmit, whilst the other two are probably Melody and One of the other ones. What troopers! How all so very sad there was no room for them on one of the main stages, a decission which saw them slum it out on the events smallest stage.
Loosen up my buttons indeed.
I cannot end this "review" without slamming the price of beverages at the event. $4.50 for a bottle of Soft Drink is fucking ridiculous. We're all just going to have to take out personal bank loans to be able to purchase a drink next year when it goes up in price, for I'm sure it was slightly cheaper last year.
Labels: Gig Reviews
2 Comments:
- 9:03 PM | HotstuffFiles said...
I would comment on every part of the review, but really, as I'm feeling like shit - it could result in my nose splattering over this laptop screen so, I won't. But...
...what great shirts above, and knowledge of 'Nan You're A Window Shopper' - actually - my favourite song (not) on her album. Lucky Americans(/Australians??)!
That is all.
__________________________________________________________________________
- 12:43 PM | J'ason D'luv said...
Babe, you look fab. Lily, on the other hand, looks like a two quid whore.
__________________________________________________________________________
|
|
