'You should be publicly executed on Lambton Quay'
I covered the Big Day Out for 10 years. It didn't always go to plan...
It’s about time we talked about the Big Day Out. After all, I named this newsletter after the long-running music festival’s sweatiest stage. I loved it, I miss it, and it’s time to pay tribute to it, because it’s never coming back. This is a long one, but I think you’ll dig it. Let’s go…
You’d wake up absolutely ruined. Your head hurt, your stomach ached, your cramped legs wouldn’t work properly. You were sunburnt from your forehead to your feet, most likely hungover and definitely hungry.
You smelled terrible too. Your T-shirt and shorts were covered in dirt and grime and food stains and the accumulated sweat from multiple people in all of those moshpits. Your shoes were never the same. Your socks, dusty and blackened, just went straight in the bin.
As you lifted your head from your pillow, you asked yourself: Have I been hit by a truck?
It wasn’t that. You’d just spent the previous day going hard at the Big Day Out, and holy hell did you pay for it. It was so worth it. I loved that feeling of being absolutely maxed out after a full Friday in the sun at Mt Smart Stadium.
Above everything else, the Big Day Out was an endurance test. How far were you willing to go on a day that offered endless opportunities for exertion? How many bands could you see? How many miles would you clock up bouncing between the Orange Stage, the Local Produce Stage, the Lilypad and the Boiler Room?
How many moshpits could you endure? How many drinks could you fit in between Shihad and Soundgarden? How many friends could you lose, find, then lose again? How many times could you sneak into the VIP section? How many A-listers would you see mingling about if you made it backstage?
How the hell were you going to get home?
Lately, I’ve been feeling nostalgic, wistful, a little misty-eyed, for all of that. I’ve been yearning to feel that Saturday morning bodyache again. I wondered why, and then I realised: it’s just that time of year. For more than a decade, my summer holidays had the same familiar rhythm to them: make it to Christmas, celebrate New Year’s, then spend about a week back at work counting down to my favourite day of the year.
In late January, always on a Friday, the Big Day Out would begin. And it would be epic.
In 1997, a car load of mates and I drove up from Whanganui to experience our first one. Courtney Love flashed us. Soundgarden ruined us. The Prodigy gave me my first full-on moshpit experience. I fell in love. From there, I made sure I was at every single one. No matter where I was in the country at the time, I wasn’t missing out.
From 2005, I started reviewing them, persuading various media employers to let me live blog from the venue. Amazingly, they agreed. Every single time I arrived at Mt Smart Stadium with a laptop and a camera, I’d pinch myself.
I couldn’t believe my luck.
For the first one, I flew up from Wellington and texted bite-sized updates about Slipknot and the Beastie Boys back to the Stuff.co.nz newsroom. I tapped them out on my Blackberry while sitting under the East stand. How old school. At least I didn’t have to use a fax.
The blog performed well, but not everyone was happy. When I wrote something negative about System of Down’s stop-start main stage set, an outraged fan told my editor I should be marched down the street to be “publicly executed on Lambton Quay”.
Thankfully, she declined the invitation. That remains my one and only death threat. I learnt an important lesson that day: no one is angrier than a scorned metalhead.
Later on, I gained access to the media room, and I’d get to experience the joy of mid-2000 internet connections crapping out on deadline. You’d see a band, write about it, attempt to post your review online, fail, slam your laptop shut, then run off to watch another band play and do it all again. I was in heaven. It was honestly my dream job.
Until it wasn’t. In 2014, after what had been a hugely successful Auckland festival headlined by Pearl Jam, Snoop Dogg and Major Lazer, I was at work early one morning when a press release arrived. An American promotions company called C3 Presents had purchased the Big Day Out. It didn’t say the festival had been cancelled, but it sounded iffy, so I called C3’s American office repeatedly and finally got someone to confirm the news.
It was true. It was over.
Here’s what they told me: "C3 Presents is proud to own Big Day Out, one of the most iconic and established festival brands in the world. While we intend to bring back the festival in future years, we can confirm there will not be a Big Day Out in 2015. We love working on BDO and are excited about the future."
“…Proud to own the Big Day Out...” LOL. “…We intend to bring back the festival in future years…” DOUBLE LOL. “…Excited about the future...” STOP IT YOU BASTARDS YOU’RE LYING.
It gave me absolutely no pleasure breaking that news. I wrote that story through gritted teeth, with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes. Later on that day, I had to compose myself for an interview with TVNZ.
Look at this bearded, bespectacled “music writer” appearing on One News that night, disheveled and distraught about the whole thing…
We’re seven years on and the Big Day Out isn’t coming back. C3 admitted as much in this 2015 interview, calling the days of travelling music festivals a thing of the past.
But I still think about the Big Day Out all the time. I’m not the only one. Just last year, the ABC made an exceptional five-part podcast about the rise and fall of the festival. It’s Australian focused, but Jon Toogood’s in there. It’s essential listening.
Then, last Friday, I turned on the radio in my car and stumbled across Hauraki. The hosts spent the afternoon doing a really great job counting down the best songs from the biggest bands that played at the Big Day Out, while sharing their own memories. I was right there with them.
All that got me thinking. Would it be possible to boil the whole festival down to one moment? Was there something that happened at the Big Day Out that could sum the whole thing up, one thing that stands out amongst all the others?
That’s when my brain really started working overtime. I remembered the drunken performances, like Julian Casablancas being blotto during The Strokes’ set in 2004, or a drunken Mike Skinner ruining what should have been a euphoric set with The Streets in 2005.
I remembered when one-third of pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas failed to make it into the country in 2003, and when Odd Future got banned in 2012 but came anyway to play the greatest rap show I have ever seen.
I remembered The Mint Chicks using a chainsaw to destroy an advertising hoarding in 2005, and Randa absolutely raising the roof when they opened the 2014 event. I thought about Queens of the Stone Age blowing the speaker system in 2003, and having to come back and finish their set after The Datsuns later in the day. I remembered being absolutely stuffed but unable to tear myself away from The Flaming Lips’ triumphant finale in 2004.
There are too many memories to count - 17 years worth. Marilyn Manson ripping up a bible in front of a neon sign that said “DRUGS” in 1999. Nine Inch Nails covered in mud and absolutely destroying the main stage in 2000. Rammstein surfing across the crowd in a row boat in 2001. The Beastie Boys running through the D-barricade right behind me in 2005. Getting stuck in any of System of a Down’s hectic moshpits. Shihad’s ripper early evening shows. Every single second of The White Stripes’ headline performance in 2006. Rage Against the Machine owning us in 2008. M.I.A perched on top of speakers in towering heels during Paper Planes in the Boiler Room in 2011.
Yep, you’d better believe I saw Dizzee Rascal make the main stage crowd do this in 2010 too…
All of that. Give it all to me again. See? I could go on like this all day. It’s too hard to choose just one memory. I loved it all.
Or maybe I can. Sometimes, when things get hectic, it’s the quiet moments that count. Every year, before the big-name headliners started taking over the main stage, there’d be a lull. Around 4pm, I’d grab something to eat, secure a spot in the shade, and sit there and soak it all in.
I’d look out over the main stage arena, at the fans celebrating in the stands, the half-pipe full of skaters, the theme park rides going around and around, and the D-barricade fans moshing in the sun. Behind me, the Boiler Room would be pumping out bass, some nonsense would be going on at the Lilypad next door, and punters would be laughing and joking around as they queued to drink water straight out of a hose.
They were happy. I was happy. If I could have one single moment over again at the Big Day Out, it would probably be that one. Just sitting there, watching the mayhem unfold, enjoying some food, a smile on my face, experiencing pure happiness.
Last year, I met Etienne “ET” Marais, one of the Big Day Out’s main event producers, someone who worked at every festival and made the thing happen every year. He still works in the industry, doing the same thing for big festivals like Northern Bass, but he, like many others, still pines for the days of the Big Day Out.
Like me, he got emotional while talking about all those memories. Near the end of our interview, I asked ET if he still missed the Big Day Out.
“Oh yeah," he replied. "I wish it would come back tomorrow."
Amen, brother. Amen.
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Gosh I miss it too. There was one moment where I was watching Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes while sitting on the field eating the best burger I'd ever had. That is the BDO to me. Those moments. Also, no expert, but you might have misgendered Randa in there.
It was a yearly pilgrimage from Paraparaumu for me, from '97 through 2004 in Auckland and for a few years after that in Melbourne. I have many of those same memories. Also of note, Dave Grohl headbanging from side stage of the Hellacopters set, Peaches balancing on the barrier fence in the Boiler room in tiny shorts holding the hands of security guards. Getting posters signed at the Illicit stand and trying to keep them sweat free all day. Yelling out names of bside tracks at Brian Molko. Missing Muse because, well, Aphex Twin. Bouncing to A.D.I.D.A.S. Thanks for the memories!