three months pass...
Reviving because Big Day Out 2003 is underway...
Here's a perceptive review from the NYT (way off-beam re Gonzales but alarming re Wilco and the electronic obsession):
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/21/arts/music/21FEST.html
No Crowd-Surfing, Mate, and Hold the Rap-Rock
By NEIL STRAUSS
OLD COAST, Australia, Jan. 20 — There was something strange about the lineup of Big Day Out, one of Australia's largest and best-known touring music festivals, which had the first Australian date of its tour here on Sunday in searing 88-degree heat. It seemed as if something was missing from the list of headlining bands.
Advertisement
Among the dozens of acts at the festival were the Foo Fighters, Jane's Addiction, P. J. Harvey, the Living End, the Vines, Kraftwerk, Queens of the Stone Age and Millencolin. For the most part these acts were either throwbacks to the early days of Lollapalooza, the eclectic American alternative-rock festival that inspired Big Day Out, or artists whose music has grown out of the fast, clean strum of punk-rock.
The more musically dense genre that has dominated American rock festivals of the last few years — call it rap-rock, new rock or new metal — was almost completely absent from the lineup. Yet the snub didn't seem to hurt ticket sales. The show here sold out, with 45,000 fans packing the Parklands.
The less aggressive lineup was likely a result of the death of a 15-year-old girl who was crushed in the audience during a set by Limp Bizkit at a Big Day Out stop in Sydney in 2001. The local police said that the crowd at this year's event was one of the least aggressive it had seen at a Big Day Out festival.
In addition to softening the lineup, promoters took the precaution of erecting a D-shape barricade in front of the main stages. After a performance by the Australian garage-rock band the Vines, fans were emptied out of the barricade to allow other, less exhausted ticket-holders inside. And crowd-surfing was prohibited (though it still occurred), with signs instructing the audience in this beach community, "Surf in the ocean — not the audience."
Most admirably, unlike concession-hungry American rock festivals, attendees were allowed to bring in one sealed bottle of water. On the grounds there were water tanks and taps at which they could refill their bottles free. Because of a summer drought, festival promoters were not allowed to spray the audience with giant mist machines, but people wearing jackets labeled "crowd care" walked through the crowed squirting seltzer bottles full of water into the audience. Still, by the end of the 12-hour festival, 20 people had to be treated for dehydration.
Since the days of the original Woodstock (not the one that festival-goers burned to the ground), the idea of the outdoor festival has drastically changed. It is no longer enough simply to put a lot of popular bands on a big stage in a field. There must be multiple stages, all with high-quality bands, guaranteeing that no one ticket holder will be able to see everything. And there must be fairground attractions like concessions, rides and contests as well as art-happening events and a political activist component. Though much of this is unnecessary and makes attending such a festival a wearying event, the promoters of Big Day Out still tried to raise the stakes.
In addition to a large circular cage that two motorcyclists drove around in and a giant slingshot amusement park ride that sent fans hurtling hundreds of feet into the sky, there were a staggering seven stages: two main ones, two for slightly lesser-known rock and rap acts, one for electronic music, one for local bands and finally the Lilypad stage. Unlike the other festival stages, the Lilypad, flanked by two giant sculptures of sumo wrestlers, was a home for the talentless. There was a nude karaoke contest, a beer swilling competition, a horrendous talent show and somehow a performance by the white Canadian rapper Gonzalez, whose music actually fit the stage's theme of acts who are geniuses only in their own minds.
One error was that promoters underestimated the popularity of electronic music. Not only were fans inside the electronic music tent packed to the sweat glands for performances by a Sydney D.J., Kid Kenobi, and the hip-hop-influenced Brisbane act the Resin Dogs, but the crowd spilled far outside the tent in all available directions. At the same time in a nearby tent, the audience was so sparse for the alternative roots-rock act Wilco that one could walk up and touch the barrier in front of the stage. It was Wilco's first-ever Australian show, but unfortunately part of it was overlaid with beats drifting in from the electronic-music tent, much to the consternation of the band.
Later, on the same stage on which Wilco performed, the rapper Xzibit also had his first Australian concert, working the crowd until it couldn't be worked any more and strengthening the case for West Coast gangsta rap's efficacy as live performance. It was surprising that the crowd even had the energy to respond to Xzibit's many exhortations, considering that his show came near the end of a long day of walking across the immense fairgrounds in heat during the day and rain after the sunset.
Though such festivals do not present ideal acoustic or visual conditions for seeing one's favorite band, an advantage is that they provide the opportunity to see artists when they are not in their normal touring cycle. Thus many acts unveiled new songs, including the Vines, who performed a particularly shambling, self-indulgent set; P. J. Harvey, whose new material took a harder, rawer edge in comparison with the lovestruck songs of her most recent album; and Kraftwerk, the pioneering 70's German electronic-music act, which has released only one new song in 17 years.
Other highlights included the hard-rock group Queens of the Stone Age, particularly when it came to watching the combustible relationship between the band's two very different singers, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri, come closer to combustion, and the Foo Fighters, who rose to the challenge of closing the festival with a surprisingly varied, jam-intensive set that was hampered only by the singer and guitarist Dave Grohl's amusement at hearing himself burp into the microphone.
― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 03:52 (twenty-two years ago)
seventeen years pass...