Hatebreed /System of a Down / Slipknot / Grinspoon / Wolfmother
Big Day Out
Gold Coast . Gold Coast, Australia

BDO (Big Day Out 2005) Gold Coast, Sunday January 23rd

Every year over here is Australia we have one festival that rules them all, one festival that attracts the cream of international and local music talent, we call it the Big Day Out. To give you some background to this, it travels around the capital and major centres of Australia, draws from 60,000 in the smaller cities to about 100,000 in larger, has a mix of all musical cultures and is played on 8 stages. Due to this being a metal website and my hate mail already being at an all time high, I will stick to the harder style played on the day and leave out the fact that I quite enjoyed Polyphonic Spree.

BDO ‘05 started the same as every other year, by 10 am it was 42 fucking degrees Celsius (about 107 in your scale) and once again I forgot my hat. A quick stop over at the merchandise store and I picked myself up a lovely trucker cap made in China for $30, there goes half my pocket money my wife allows me to have for the day.

11.00am After grabbing some $6 waters, we proceeded to one of the two main stages (Blue and Orange) and had the pleasure of watching a 30 minute set of local punk rockers Frenzal Rhomb. I would have rather seen my brother go to jail for molesting cancer kids. Watching this tripe and the 13 year old hardcores in the mosh pit singing “John Howard is a racist cunt”, gave me a feeling like you get when watching the ending of Vanilla Sky…”What the fuck is happening here?”

11.30am A quick look over at the other main stage (they are next to each other) and you would find the D4, a four piece dirty rock band from South New Zealand. We got about half way through this set before pulling the pin. It wasn’t that the music was bad, it was just the lead singer was so fucking annoying. Now I am not against singers talking during the set but they have 45 minutes to make their mark on the day and this cock just kept rambling about how “In six fucking month’s (Read this in a kiwi accent) fucking time you fucking fuckers are gonna beg us fuckers to play this fucking fuck stuff fuck fucking yeh alright!!” Two words mate, Fuck Off.

12.30pm Dallas Crane…..this day is getting very shitty, very quickly. At this point I am wondering if I can strangle the closest gate supervisor to try and get my $103 bucks back

1.00 pm One word. Wolfmother. Oh my fucking god. This 1 hour was probably one of the best live performances I have ever seen. These future gods of rock simply played the house down. Unfortunately they played under the Cat Essential stage which only allowed about 5,000 people in, next year if they return I predict main stage stardom for these lads. If you dig the likes of Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and the Doors, imagine all that shit rapped into one package and this is what you get. I could go on and on about the way they twisted and turned the crowd, the sublime vocal skills, the awesome blues rock guitar or even the god damned hairdo’s, but I won’t. If they tour within 10,000 miles of you, get there.

Skip forward, though some non-metal notables through this period, Deceptikonz and John Butler Trio.

4.30pm I don’t know if anyone outside of Australia knows about Grinspoon, but I believe Justin Credible used to use one of their songs back in his ECW days. These guys have been solid for about 10 years over here releasing great stuff to bang your head to. Not in the metal genre but definitely fits snug under the Aussie hard rock banner. Probably one of the most pysical, physichal, fizacl…toughest mosh pits going around due to the annoying habit of sideways motion. A lot of people go down, a lot of people freaking out, really not an enjoyable pit to be in. Get outside the barriers, wait for “Champion” to be played and snap your fucking necks.

We decided to take some shade and water in, it just happened to be right off to the side to the entrance of the moshpit to Slipknot. Due to the unfortunate death of a young lass here a couple of years back they now have the silly silly rule of letting one person in at a time to get into the main pit. Of course if you mix this with alcohol, drugs and angry youth you have a pretty volatile cocktail. The crown trying to get in was that huge, the only way you could get in was to crowd surf. Obviously some grew tired of waiting and decided to jump barriers. One of the good things about getting older is being able to predict what was going to happen earlier then our younger counterparts. Picture this…the barriers are 8 foot high, you can’t see what is on the other side, the standard human being jumps about 3 foot in the air from a standing start. Climbing on a crowd control gate to make the leap of faith gives you and extra 4 foot right? Easy! Wrong answer kids. Let’s just say the head injuries suffered when they realised that they dropped 10 foot on the other side were not pretty.

5.30pm
Oh yeh baby. SIC<SIC<SIC<SIC<SIC, Liberate - My madness
Liberate - My madness
I just want to...
Section off myself
Put a wall up/What the hell have I done
Keep the dog at bay
Survive by saving me!
Values and the game
Not a fuck-up - Not a part of your lie
I am one, I am all - I'm above and beyond!

At this point in time, I realise that I am now 27 and trying to mix it up with 18 to 21 year olds, have you noticed how fucking big and angry these young pricks are today? So here I am like a stupid deep sea turtle trying to poke my head out of the top of the sea of sweaty, 6 foot 2 inch teenagers and my fucking right knee decides to give way. I couldn’t stop jumping otherwise risk copping an elbow to the back of the head so decided to pussy out and slowly move my way to the back of the pack, neverless these young shits saw right through me. “Out already you fucking pussy!!” I thought I heard one young lad say, a quick laugh and “No fucking way, I am just getting my mate!” It was a lie and they knew it. When I got to the back of the pack I of course shouldered all blame to my friend. “What are you doing back here ya bloody soft cock! Alright I will wait here with you then.” The rolling eyes of a young sixteen year old blonde said it all. It was over; I was destined to sit back here with the grandma wearing the tattered Kill Em All shirt and the bloke who everyone referred to as “Look at that old cunt”.

Anywho, we were still in a large enough crowd to see and enjoy the whole set on a quasi mosh pit level. The last time I saw Slipknot was 5 years ago, they didn’t disappoint then and they didn’t now either. Even for those people who hate the guys for no apparent reason other then they do, all respect has to go out for their live shows. They packed everything they possibly could into 1 hour. Surfacing, Wait and Bleed, Eyeless, Maggots, one after the other. You either like them or you don’t, but the $103 was worth the pleasure of seeing these guys rip it up.

A quick run for water and we were back for...

6.30pm System of a Down. Best band of the day. I don’t know about the hair, but the goatees were long and Arabic and the sounds coming from that stage were top draw. It is so hard to explain to non-metal or hard rock fans the feeling that WE (as in you and me) get when these kind of bands play. It is though you are lifted to a higher sense of aggressive calmness (if that makes sense). My parents always called it angry music, but like most metal fans it works totally opposite with me. Fucking ace set. I was so pumped and happy, the temperature had fallen, the whiz had kicked in and I had just seen two of my all time favourite bands tear me apart.

8.30 Hatebreed. I feel like I am starting to ramble, so I am going to end this quick. If you have heard Hatebreed you have heard them live. Great performance, but it was going to be a comedown if we hung around any longer.

That was the end of it. The festival finished with the Beastie Boys and Chemical Brothers. How you can pack that many ecstasy victims in one tent without it turning into a fuckfest is beyond me, but it was all good. See ya next year BDO.


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