Big Day Out, Claremont Showgrouns, 31 January 2010
Time is, as they say, of the essence. I have just realised how long it has been since the Big Day Out so it is time to write the review now before I forget completely.
Getting in
looneymoth , girliejones and I set out relatively early in order to catch some of the early-ish acts, but the traffic was definitely into nightmare-mode by the time we arrived near Claremont Showgrounds about midday. I was not particularly keen to get amongst The Young People, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil during summer festivals. Some of The Young People were already drunk and urinating by the side of the road as we crawled past in the line of cars. I was able to use my knowledge of local parking laws to ensure we found a place to park not too far away from the showgrounds without fear of copping an infringement*.
We made our way to the gates and were subsequently very pissed off by being made to empty perfectly good water on the ground, despite having checked and been assured by the website that sealed bottles were admissible. When we advised the security guard of such he just said “the website lied”. Not happy Jan. looneymoth fired off a complaint to the organisers the next day but the time is gone now. I guess I should be happy but the water situation was the only difficulty with getting in. I did see someone getting attention from security dudes as they found a baggie about his person.
Lisa Mitchell and merch
After being admitted we hot-footed it to see Lisa Mitchel on the Green stage as Girliejones was keen to see her. looneymoth and I immediately made our way to the merch stand to purchase Muse goods before they sold out ($45 for the shirt…. ouchy). I also considered buying a hat as well but they were $30 (from memory) and I didn’t find anything I liked that much. We re-joined girliejones and caught a bit of Mitchell on stage and her work was quite enjoyable. She is very small though and therefore hard to see from the back, so there wasn’t much going on visually. Her last song was Coin Laundy, which is very cute, particularly as she asked people not to throw coins on the state to her. Apparently it happened spontaneously when she first started singing the song, she tweeted about it and audiences have been doing it since.
Water dramas
At the end of the set we headed off to find water and everywhere seemed super crowded. I braved the line up to fill up my water bottle from the drinking fountains provided. The others judged it to be unhygienic so had to spend ridiculous amounts of money on water bottles. Well at least they had bottles, at RockIt last year there were no bottles. See at festivals, small things are important - water, toilets, food, queues. I just hate the attitude of organisers, it seems they deliberately make things inconvenient. Ok ok I’ve had enough of a complain so will cease and desist now.
After sourcing water we then headed back to see a bit of Kisschasey on the smaller stage, and none of their songs really stood out as remarkable but I did enjoy their set. While we were there T messaged to say that she was on the way so I left the other two and went back to the gate to meet her. The other two wanted to see Girl Talk and Itch-E and Scratch-E so they went off to the Boiler Room for those entertainments. T and I stayed a little while longer until Kisschasey finished they we went to investigate the main stage in time of Eskimo Joe (of course)!
Eskimo Joe
The Eskies took to the stage for the mid-afternoon slot, clearly covered in sunscreen but enthusiastic. To tell the truth, Kav was looking rather chubby, and his white suit wasn’t really doing anything for me. Also I don’t know what he has done (or not done) with his hair but it looks all “I work in an office” rather than “I do rock and roll for a living”. Perhaps it’s a dad thing. The others were looking handsome as usually, with Stu’s hair getting bigger every time I see them… I reckon he should try brushing it into a Wolfmother-style fro!
Eskimo Joe started off with Foreign Land (I think) and did a variety of songs from Inshalla and Red Fingernails and they did my favourite - From the Sea. They also did an old song from their yoof (Wake up) which I enjoyed also. No Sweater though. I don’t think people even shout out for that one any more. I know this is really bad, but I can’t remember their last song…bad fan. Oh well I didn’t write it down and the memories belonging to both T and J have proved unreliable.
During the Eskies we managed to locate J (some weak excuse about being late due to cleaning out a toilet… on his boat… no sympathy). We arranged to meet up with the looneymoth and girliejones and 4pm and had a little time before that to search for sustenance. There really wasn’t too much on offer. J managed to find a jam donut apparently, but I didn’t see any evidence of it by the time I saw him again! girliejones decided that she had had enough and was going to head home so she departed. I still think she got ripped off with not seeing MUSE and all, but she reckons she investigated online and wasn’t particularly interested (OMG heresy!). The rest of us rocked on and it was time to brave the crowd to get into the D.
Into the D
Getting into the D really wasn’t too bad this year, compared to my experience in previous. Firstly, bags were allowed in (yay!). On my last BDO excursion I had to get out of the line and go find the bag drop place and then re-join friends because all bags were prohibited. So that was good. Also the crush to get in was temporary and we were only squished for 10 mins or so and were moving forward for the whole time. So I had been talking up how difficult it would be and as it turned out to be weak as. Yes WEAK! What’s a music festival if its not hard? Oh well, back in my day…. As an aside, I did some reading of forums online to work out optimum time to try and get into the D in order to stay in for the final act. Consensus seemed to be sometime during the Dizzee Rascal set, so that is what we did (we started making our way in about 4:30pm). So my brother (R) swans about and eventually decides its time to get into the D maybe about 6pm or a bit after… bastard!
Dizee Rascal
Dizee Rascal was on stage when we got into the D, and we took a seat at the back to conserve energy. I was surprised to see two guys on stage singing, not sure but I guess Dizee brought a friend because they were both singing (plus DJ). Dizee does “geezer rap” according to J. I quite enjoyed the bounciness of it and the audience seemed to be in a good mood and bopping along. On the other hand, looneymoth thought it was very ordinary indeed. A common friend (that is a friend that we have a common…) texted both of us to see what the gig was like, and he got tow very different replies! I remember in particular I really liked Dance Wiv Me, Look Sharp and a song about cash (and how much money he has). He finished with Bonkers, which was famous enough that even I have heard of it. The Young People’s music and all.
Lily Allen
Next up was the indomitable Lily Allen. I am not really a fan of Ms Allen but I have found her songs amusing when heard on radio so I was happy to give it a go. She came out on stage in a glittering poncho type thing, very short shorts and very high heels and proceeded to prance about the stage, sing a bit and engage in banter with the audience. She did do the banter very well I think. With drink in hand, throughout the set she was variously sweet, funny, bitchy and sometimes just a bit weird (or it could have been drunk). She made several costume changes from shiny poncho to strapless jumpsuit thing, to casual singlet and short shorts and back to shiny poncy. There was not a terribly sophisticated system for costume changes - this consisted of people holding up towels at side of stage. Now I am not sure about this but there is a possibility that she might have also pissed in a bucket during one of those costume changes. Well before the costume change she was complaining of needing a loo break and she did get changed behind a towel and there was a bucket in the vicinity…. So I am putting all of these things together and calling it possible!
Apparently the strapless jumpsuit thing didn’t work so well and was falling off… there was quite a lot of enthusiasm for her to take it off but she called us all perverts and got changed again. She did all of her hit songs (and I am sorry I didn’t write them down so I didn’t get all of them) - including the one about being a young woman and then getting older, Fuck You and Everyone’s At It. However my highlight of the set was when she did a rendition of Womaniser and did a far better job of it than the original artist (IMHO). Incidentally I noticed a LOT of guys in t-shirts with an image of Ms Spears, and I can’t imagine that they were all fans so I am guessing some trendy t-shirt maker has cashed in on the irony. The pic of Spears is topless but facing away from the camera with head turned back over the shoulder and a bit of a pout on her face. Anyway, I think Lily Allen finished on Not Fair, but I am not completely sure of that now. I do remember her wearing the shiny poncho for the last song and throwing it aside as she left stage and revealing her bra for a brief moment before she was enveloped by security staff. She mentioned during the set that “this might well be my last gig ever” (or words to that effect), and I googled it when I got home and it seems that she is now planning to take up acting or some such.
The thing that got my attention during the Lily Allen set was that Matt Bellamy was watching from the side of stage… in a pink shirt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…. I managed tp snap a couple of photos of the Pink-chested Bellamy so that kept me entertained for much of the set. He seemed to be enjoying Ms Allen’s show and I enjoyed watching him so everyone was happy really.
The Mars Volta
Next band up was The Mars Volta and the less said about the better. Seriously they were an abomination and made our elderly ears hurt. The Volta are quite into very long songs involving bowel-moving guitar notes played at ear-bleeding volume with no regard to the audience and random lyrics in what sounded like Spanish. Oh yes and they also quite like big hair and 70s looking clothes. So lets just say we didn’t enjoy it and for about 40 minutes time seemed to go very quickly indeed.
Powderfinger
Woohoo…..everyone’s favourite person called Bernard took to the stage for the Powderfinger penultimate BDO act. They started with a couple of new songs and I haven’t invested in the new album so I wasn’t too familiar with them. The was a cool semi-circular AV display behind the band… lights… I like the pretty lights! After the new songs they did a great acoustic version of Love Your Way which melded into a cover of You Can’t Always Get What You Want and then Lost and Running. Next was a change of pace with a new song (I think) that involved a fight about money (unremarkable) but then continuing with The Metre (welcome to the saving grace). This was followed by two new songs, one taking your time and trying to be free. Finally they got around to what everyone was waiting for - These Days, My Happiness and finishing with Baby I’ve Got You On My Mind.
Personally I thought poor old Bernie was looking rather lacklustre and not too much energy in the performance (looneymoth agreed). However the sound was excellent and the band seemed pretty tight. The AV display was also very impressive. Bernard was getting a bit ironical with giving a special shout out to the Muse fans…. A massive crowd was waiting in front of the other stage and getting ready for Muse (and not taking much notice of The Finger), and just quietly I think Bernard might have been a bit jealous.
MUSE
So with Powderfinger done we were primed and ready for the main gig of the day. The anticipation was building…. building… They waited about 15 mins after the end of Powderfinger before getting on stage… I am sure it was just designed to make us want it more, and oh we wanted it more! I could see them moving back and forth behind a door at the back of stage so I knew they were there (start dammit)!
Eventually MUSE took the stage and started with Uprising from their new album. The stage was set up so that the band so their images were projected onto some towers behind them on stage and also sometimes onto the speaker stacks at side of stage - a very impressive technological set up (but I would expect no less from them!). Opening song Uprising had a very Soviet and Orwellian feel to it with band members appearing kind of like cosmonauts and faux-cyrillic script (it wasn’t cyrillic, it was english).
The revolutionary sentiments of the song (and also words on the screen) really seemed to get the audience onside and everyone was really getting into the choruses (they will not force us, they will stop degrading us, they will not control us, we will be victorious). From political revolution they launched straight into space with Super Massive Black Hole with those awesome dancing robots. Next up was a fantastic older song Hysteria and the AV screen had the buildings/towers behind the band falling brick by brick. That lead straight into a frenetic rendition of Stockholm Syndrome which I loved because it is so much heavier than their more recent pop-ish songs. looneymoth is much better than me at remember song names and lyrics (during the gig she would think of the song name and I surreptitiously made notes… yes notes, I wanted to get it right ok!), but all of us were really getting into the show (including T who was unfortunately in a lot of pain). J, Looneymoth and I were all trying to guess which song would be next, and usually I wasn’t right (apart from right at the end).
Moving on, next song was Undisclosed Desires, which is the only Muse song which I actively hate. Yes I will go that far, seriously that song shits me, especially the slap porno bass. And also the film clip where Bellamy bears frightening resemblance to Tom Cruise. But both looneymoth and T really loved it so I think that says more about them than me! I was distracted by the laser show during the song and I really quite liked that. Next up was another older song Map of the Problematic which has always made me think of a thunderstorm, and there were fantastic images of lightning going on behind the band. It got frenetic, so dam good! Then it was time for new song United States of Eurasia, which had great piano sections and sounded like Queen as ever. The screen had very political images of war and personally I found that quite confronting and again reminiscent of 1984 (as is the whole of The Resistance). A small thing that was quite annoying during the song was the “sha” at the end of “Eurasia” but I don’t like that on the album version either so no surprises.
Finally they got to my favourite song - Starlight of course! Again I love the piano melody and uneven beat (it’s no easier to clap along in real life). There were cool coloured hexagons on the screen too, linking it to the most recent album (although the song is from Black Holes and Revelations). They followed up with Time is Running Out which was also great - loud guitars and kick-arse drums! However, the one down side was the disturbing AV display - a drowning person who slowly stops moving… well creepy. I tried not to look at it and just listen to the music instead. Next was vintage Muse song Plug In Baby, a fantastic treat for vintage Muse fans like us… Bellamy did some Hendrix style playing as well which was fun and then they finished the main set with Unnatural Selection…. I want the truth… I WANT THE TRUTH!
Given that they went off stage about 9:40 (20 mins before the scheduled end of the show and noise restrictions kicked in), the encore was a given so going through the motions seemed perfunctory. But hey, you have to do it! They returned to the stage with Nick from Jet and did an absolutely fantastic version of Back in Black, tight jeans, man falsetto and all! It was a bit weird seeing the Muse fellas take a bit of a back seat as Jet dude did the strut but it was such a great version of the song and the audience loved it. I am going to the AC/DC concert at Subi Oval next week and cannot wait, its going to be grand!
Finally, at the end of the set and there was one obvious omission. As soon as the harmonica started I knew it would be Knights of Cydonia. They did a massive intro and the whole song had a spaghetti western theme. Very cool. But the best thing was the whole crowd shouting in unison NO ONE’S GOING TO TAKE US ALIVE! Indeed. The time has come to make things right. You and I must fight for our rights. You and I must fight to survive. Cue --> massive head-banging riff. Fucking awesome. I loved the gig, I can’t wait till Muse do their own gig sometime later in 2010.
The journey home was uneventful except for some punk who banged my car on the way past. Being hungry after a long hot day, looneymoth and I stopped at a deli on the way home and obtained ingredients for nachoes, which were promptly snaffled on our return home. Thankfully we were not too sunburnt or dehydrated and in the end it was a very enjoyable end to a (mostly) fantastic day and unforgettable MUSE gig.
* A good tip to remember is that the signs only apply to the road unless they specify verge as well. Thusly, a sign which says no parking/no standing refers only to the road and its usually ok to park on the verge. The only exception to this is if its outside the house and the householder rings the council to get your car infringed (believe me, they do that), so it is best to avoid residential areas and go for public amenities. Lets just say Claremost Golf Corse is ideal if you don’t mind the risk of a stray golf ball compared to just about certainty of getting a fine if parked unlawfully.