eleventyone

“Wow!” sums up the exciting blur of fun I had at this year’s Big Day Out – the bands, the people, fun times!

My friends managed to get old of bed up early enough for fresh slap of wake-me-up music from Sparkadia, under the banner of their Aslan-like lion banner. It was only midday when I heard the band that made my day worth every penny – it was boppy Australian band The Grates and their great performer Patience Hodgson.

It felt like the entire crowd migrated to the Green Stage to see newborn stars the Ting Tings. I loved them even though I was so far back I couldn’t hear a thing and still don’t know her name. It was so crowded that people lined the grassy knoll edge of the stage towards the train tracks. Some entertainment was provided by a bogan dressed in a blue wig and an Australian flag, who straddled and humped the audio-mixer tent, encouraged people to throw bottles of water at him, caught a sunscreen bottle and pretended to drink it. Security eventually caught him.

One thing I do regret missing is the Silent Disco. People are given headphones in one particular tent and dance around to the music they hear. Watching from the outside is hilarious because it looks like they’re dancing to nothing.

I missed The Living End, but have seen them at every Big Day Out. Instead I heard the memorable electro-rock sounds of Cut Copy – a total chillax to the max. Then there was the English band Arctic Monkeys, who had the crowd moving crazy to great indie rock. Prodigy finished the night up by calling out to their Melbourne warriors to Smack my bitch up and become a Firestarter.

I’m an old hack when it comes to this music festival, but to me it was better this year. My last adventure at Flemmington was Big Day Out 2005, when I danced my socks off to The Chemical Brothers and System of a Down. This year it was different, because the entire layout of the stages had changed. The redevelopment of the Flemmington Racecourse has opened the area right up with large grassy areas. No longer did I have to squeeze between a tiny gate with hundreds of other people to get from old stadium to the main stages. No longer did we have stinky concrete toilets with huge queues, but instead had clean portables. No longer are the drinking areas located in old no-room-to-move concrete structures, but are in huge outdoor tents – and facing the stage! There were now huge non-drinking tents for people to relax and hide from the sun. There were also huge tents around the eating areas. It’s like they actually care that we don’t want to get sunburnt. They also didn’t want us to die from dehydration – at the main stages they watered the crowd down occasionally with a hose.

All the new prettiness came with a price. It cost $139.50 to get your hands on a ticket this year. This was perhaps because of the over-crowding problems last year. The Big Day Out didn’t even sell out this year, with only 40,000 people instead of the usual fifty thou’. The cost probably cased one of the biggest changes I have seen – the total lack of crazy mohawked punks, emo kids and goths sweating in the shade from black clothing in extreme temperatures. This year the usual attire was Australian flags and bogan wear, because it was Australia Day. Melbourne doesn’t usually get Big Day Out on Australia Day – Sydney usually keeps that day for themselves. For these reasons I’m itching to say what everyone says every year, but now I really mean it – Big Day Out has finally sold out and gone commercial, and perhaps even for the better – oh yes I did!

The crowd also behaved themselves this year, even when half of them were drunk or wasted on drugs. The police didn’t really try hard by putting sniffer dogs in front of the lesser used entrance to catch 17 people. People weren’t even that angry that the Big Day Out only sold Tooheys New beer. The only annoyances were on the trains going out. There were train delays due to vandalised signals. I witnessed a train fight at Flinders and train travellers forced one of the offenders out of the train, but he then smashed a window to try to get at the other guy. After fifteen minutes Connex security showed up and grabbed the guy, but he somehow showed up at Parliament and train travellers forced him away again.

This broken window on an otherwise fine day was counteracted by awesness of fun we had during the day. I’ll always remember the game of fetch we created, by attempting to throw a hat onto heads in the crowd from the beer tent, then when it fell on the ground, people walking past would bring it right back to us with a quizical look on their face, “is this your hat?”