BDO 07
Fucking rock, man.
Main impression of the BDO this year? ROCK. Other main impression? LOTS OF PEOPLE. It seemed like there was a fuckton more people this year, or maybe it was just the new D. It seemed smaller, and the new entrance/queue thing seemed more suckful, but maybe I just feel that because we queued for quite a while, got not very far, and then they closed the D. Futile rage!
My day looked like this:
The Incredible Beatbox Band: were the big surprise of the day. There's always at least one "discovery" about the day (or else you're not doing it right) and these guys were it. They were made of awesome. Three crazy Japanese guys making a cappella dance music. Yes, beatbox noises with their mouths. For the rest of the day, whenever the band made a particularly rock noise, we'd say, "Yes, but the Beatbox could do that without instruments."
Then we acquired food, water and a sense of direction, before settling in properly.
The Herd: were a lot of fun, even if their bass did make St Lisa queasy. They had an odd tendency to announce their songs with elaborately scripted lead-ins, but they were a heap of fun and "Unpredictable" went off about as much as we expected it to.
At this point we encountered a problem. The plan had been to hang around outside the D for the first half-hour of My Chemical Romance and then scamper over to catch Kasabian. But the tent for the Converse and Green stages was PACKED FUCKING SOLID, so we ditched that and went to plan B, which was to cram our way in there and stake a claim while Little Birdy distracted people. The Male and I did that. Lisa, being the dedicated fangirl she is, went to watch My Chem.
Who apparently went OFF, btw. I'm sorry I missed them. But not that sorry.
Little Birdy: were the second big surprise of the day, because I had no idea they were so rock. I'm not going to rush out and buy their albums, but like Sarah Blasko last year, they were a damn fine way to kill forty-five minutes. Watching Miss Birdy tie herself up in the microphone cord was gigglesome.
Kasabian: pwned. They were awesomely rock. Complete tossers, but oh they can rock. They really encouraged crowd antics - Tom is so here to be a rockstar, fuck responsibility - and the crowd didn't disappoint. We went from packed in tight to having a bit of space around us purely on the basis of crowd-surfers being evicted from the front. And our mosh-pit feng shui was really good, because it was psycho nuts ahead of us, crazy to either side, but we were in a little island of well-behaved, which helped. Which wasn't to say we weren't rocking out, because we were. They were great.
And then the tent emptied. So we committed ourselves for a bid for the front for SFK.
Salmon: were fucking grand. We saw them obliquely, being camped in front of the Green stage, but they were a rock outfit. Dave Graney was up our end, and rocking his mellow shit out. Every now and then he'd point in our direction, and we'd all go \mm/!! back at him. (For the unintiated - Salmon have about six guitarists and two drummers; there are no words, just rock noises off.)
Something For Kate: are always welcome. Paul Dempsey really doesn't get any less delicious, all scruffy shirt and jeans and bare feet and HAIR IN HIS FACE OMG. And Steph is always gorgeous and Clint is always a Fraggle. We were in a rowdy knot of old-school fans rocking the fuck out (the first time I actually get my mosh on in the day, and it's SFK...) and singing along at the top of our lungs. And they played a heap of older stuff - Electricity, Anarchitect, the Last Minute - that, as the Male so eloquently put it, stalked up behind the newer songs and dacked them in full view of everybody. But I do like the new album, and California rocked out.
At this point Lisa and I bailed out and left the Male to his Drones and You Am I while we went for an ice cream and a loo break (an epic odyssey at that point of the afternoon) which meant that we were a little later hitting the D queue than we really wanted to be. We listened to Jet while we shuffled our way closer to the rock inner circle, but then they closed it while we were still a few metres off. So we fucked that off and went to find a suitable spot.
Muse: went fucking off. We didn't get a great spot in the crowd - we couldn't see the stage, but we could mostly see the big screen - but we were in amongst a bunch of people who were tanked and thrilled to be at Muse. They were singing along, dancing and moshing with gay abandon, so it was a happy, bouncy, brilliant place to be. It was a fucking awesome set, though it really did highlight that Starlight is just not as rocking a song as some they have produced - "Muse in a box" I described it as. But man, ROCK.
And then - AND THEN - we made a push for the barrier. Aided by a whole heap of people bailing out, and our grim determination, we ended up in a pretty good spot, about three back from the barrier and with a pretty much unimpeded (if distant) view of the stage. Upon which there was then...
TOOL: !!!!!
I mean, dudes. What else is there to say? They fucking owned everything. They turned out a best-of set that pantsed the entire day, with Maynard skulking at the back of the stage, silhouetted against the lightshow in all his rocking-the-fuck-out glory, shirtless and writhing and doing very saucy things with his hat. And occasionally saying snide things like, "Sydney was louder." It was fucking brilliant. They played Sober, and 46&2, and Swamp Song. And they finished up with Vicarious (making me a happy girl, because I love that song) and, bringing the fucking rock finish, Ænema. By that stage Lisa and I had pulled back a little bit, because she was feeling a little queasy again, but that was just as well because you need room to headbang properly to that song. Which we did.
So. Fucking. Rock.
\m/
My neck's sore and the backs of my knees are ouch but I am so fucking satisfied. It was a great damn day. And surprisingly fuckwit-free.
Main impression of the BDO this year? ROCK. Other main impression? LOTS OF PEOPLE. It seemed like there was a fuckton more people this year, or maybe it was just the new D. It seemed smaller, and the new entrance/queue thing seemed more suckful, but maybe I just feel that because we queued for quite a while, got not very far, and then they closed the D. Futile rage!
My day looked like this:
The Incredible Beatbox Band: were the big surprise of the day. There's always at least one "discovery" about the day (or else you're not doing it right) and these guys were it. They were made of awesome. Three crazy Japanese guys making a cappella dance music. Yes, beatbox noises with their mouths. For the rest of the day, whenever the band made a particularly rock noise, we'd say, "Yes, but the Beatbox could do that without instruments."
Then we acquired food, water and a sense of direction, before settling in properly.
The Herd: were a lot of fun, even if their bass did make St Lisa queasy. They had an odd tendency to announce their songs with elaborately scripted lead-ins, but they were a heap of fun and "Unpredictable" went off about as much as we expected it to.
At this point we encountered a problem. The plan had been to hang around outside the D for the first half-hour of My Chemical Romance and then scamper over to catch Kasabian. But the tent for the Converse and Green stages was PACKED FUCKING SOLID, so we ditched that and went to plan B, which was to cram our way in there and stake a claim while Little Birdy distracted people. The Male and I did that. Lisa, being the dedicated fangirl she is, went to watch My Chem.
Who apparently went OFF, btw. I'm sorry I missed them. But not that sorry.
Little Birdy: were the second big surprise of the day, because I had no idea they were so rock. I'm not going to rush out and buy their albums, but like Sarah Blasko last year, they were a damn fine way to kill forty-five minutes. Watching Miss Birdy tie herself up in the microphone cord was gigglesome.
Kasabian: pwned. They were awesomely rock. Complete tossers, but oh they can rock. They really encouraged crowd antics - Tom is so here to be a rockstar, fuck responsibility - and the crowd didn't disappoint. We went from packed in tight to having a bit of space around us purely on the basis of crowd-surfers being evicted from the front. And our mosh-pit feng shui was really good, because it was psycho nuts ahead of us, crazy to either side, but we were in a little island of well-behaved, which helped. Which wasn't to say we weren't rocking out, because we were. They were great.
And then the tent emptied. So we committed ourselves for a bid for the front for SFK.
Salmon: were fucking grand. We saw them obliquely, being camped in front of the Green stage, but they were a rock outfit. Dave Graney was up our end, and rocking his mellow shit out. Every now and then he'd point in our direction, and we'd all go \mm/!! back at him. (For the unintiated - Salmon have about six guitarists and two drummers; there are no words, just rock noises off.)
Something For Kate: are always welcome. Paul Dempsey really doesn't get any less delicious, all scruffy shirt and jeans and bare feet and HAIR IN HIS FACE OMG. And Steph is always gorgeous and Clint is always a Fraggle. We were in a rowdy knot of old-school fans rocking the fuck out (the first time I actually get my mosh on in the day, and it's SFK...) and singing along at the top of our lungs. And they played a heap of older stuff - Electricity, Anarchitect, the Last Minute - that, as the Male so eloquently put it, stalked up behind the newer songs and dacked them in full view of everybody. But I do like the new album, and California rocked out.
At this point Lisa and I bailed out and left the Male to his Drones and You Am I while we went for an ice cream and a loo break (an epic odyssey at that point of the afternoon) which meant that we were a little later hitting the D queue than we really wanted to be. We listened to Jet while we shuffled our way closer to the rock inner circle, but then they closed it while we were still a few metres off. So we fucked that off and went to find a suitable spot.
Muse: went fucking off. We didn't get a great spot in the crowd - we couldn't see the stage, but we could mostly see the big screen - but we were in amongst a bunch of people who were tanked and thrilled to be at Muse. They were singing along, dancing and moshing with gay abandon, so it was a happy, bouncy, brilliant place to be. It was a fucking awesome set, though it really did highlight that Starlight is just not as rocking a song as some they have produced - "Muse in a box" I described it as. But man, ROCK.
And then - AND THEN - we made a push for the barrier. Aided by a whole heap of people bailing out, and our grim determination, we ended up in a pretty good spot, about three back from the barrier and with a pretty much unimpeded (if distant) view of the stage. Upon which there was then...
TOOL: !!!!!
I mean, dudes. What else is there to say? They fucking owned everything. They turned out a best-of set that pantsed the entire day, with Maynard skulking at the back of the stage, silhouetted against the lightshow in all his rocking-the-fuck-out glory, shirtless and writhing and doing very saucy things with his hat. And occasionally saying snide things like, "Sydney was louder." It was fucking brilliant. They played Sober, and 46&2, and Swamp Song. And they finished up with Vicarious (making me a happy girl, because I love that song) and, bringing the fucking rock finish, Ænema. By that stage Lisa and I had pulled back a little bit, because she was feeling a little queasy again, but that was just as well because you need room to headbang properly to that song. Which we did.
So. Fucking. Rock.
\m/
My neck's sore and the backs of my knees are ouch but I am so fucking satisfied. It was a great damn day. And surprisingly fuckwit-free.