Groovin The Moo (16/5/2009)

Apologies for this being so late.... seeing as it happened almost a month ago. But rather than make excuses, I'll just write about how it was a particularly awesome day....

That started at some stupid time in the morning. A music festival in Bendigo of all places meant leaving the real world at stupid o'clock in the morning. Luckily, Hungry Jacks breakfast wraps are the shit. (Stay tuned for 2010... 100Wraps). After the long drive, we ended up in Bendigo, prepared to tackle the unorganized mess that is the rural Festival. However, there was no such mess... we strolled in and found ourselves right in front of the stage. Superb. Time for band one.

For the record, I didn't take any of these photos.

The Darts

They were here because they one Triple J unearthed. I remember seeing this band last year at Pogo... or Wow... definitely a place with one word that 17 year olds can get into. Which works because these guys don't look like they could walk into a place full of people who were old without someone yelling "You're Young", or "Get out of here Youngsy". They played music that sounded like everything I've heard, but did it pretty well. White Stripes, Pixies, Yeah Yeah Yeahs etc. Pretty fun. Listening to their songs again I remember enjoying Killer on the Tracks. Ah... they're from Bendigo too... looks like the J's are a little cheap for a bus fare these days.

My Own Enemy

This band was here because they won Pushover. From what I can guess, it must have been a hard competition to judge... because if these were the winners. Whew. It's metal... I'm not impressed. There weren't enough middly solos to keep me interested. And wow... what is it about Metal bands taking themselves way seriously. Smile. That's all I can say. The crowd brewing for Tame Impala on the other stage was bigger than the crowd for this band. I felt bad. But then felt better. They all did this weird guitar pose... which I admit, I'd never seen before.... but it looked like they were doing poo. Strange stuff.

Tame Impala

This band was here because they rock my tits off. If you haven't read the stupendous review of their show by Pat earlier in May, do it now, coz it's better than something I'd write. But I am shocked by the amount of people who were watching Tame Impalas 60's garage inspired psych rock. How quickly the young electro crowd (you can tell them because the girls are wearing tights as pants...) changes to what's awesome. I just hope they don't ruin Tame Impala like they ruined TV Rock. The set rocked, although some of the crowd seemed a little bored during the wiggin out. An you know what that leads too.... Drinking solo out of your shoes. And Drenching your socks in solo then wringing them out into your friends mouth. Great time.

Children Collide

I saw these guys last on the eve of 100Gigs, so it's cool to have them finally mentioned for proper. It's really fun rock tunes. Every song is as catchy as the last, and everyone should go out and buy the album because it has a scratchy on the cover. For the record, I got the planet one. The set flew by, the growing crowd moshed for the first time of the day, and went totally spazzo for the song from the Hottest 100 (Farewell Rocketship). Which I like, but I prefer say.... every other song on the album. They finished the set with an awesome instrumental, but the crowd was sort of disappearing after hearing the popular one. After this set, I liked Children Collide even more than I did.

The Drones

Everyone knows by now that I love the drones... if not... look here. We got the usual Drones show, awesome as usual. Even people who'd never heard them enjoyed. We laughed at Dans wit then got yelled at by Gareth. Nail it Down was awesome. Here's a video. Not from where we were.

It was this point in the day when we noticed there weren't stupid lines everywhere, the bands were all playing on time, security weren't being dicks and the crowd was having a generally good time. It was groovy. Gedddit.

Mammal

Pat's seen this band a lot, but I never had, and I didn't really do much to change that by getting some lunch while they were on. What I did see was a guy jumping around in a red jumpsuit, poopooing K-Rudd and asking a lot of questions to the crowd. All over some kind of OK but not that great sounding metal. But the crowd was getting into it, and lead dude could have said anything and they would have got a cheer. My kransky in bread was tasty in case you were wondering (stay tuned for 2011... 100GermanSausages).

Awesome Helmet!

Miami Horror

Our next wise move was into the Moolin Rouge tent (geddit?) for some dancy dance. First in line was Miami Horror, who had disappointed me previously with what were decent DJ sets, but no live show. This time was to be different, my little guidebook assured me. The next 45 minutes was a fun romp through a bunch of Miami Horrors live songs and originals, played by a 4 piece band. Like a live DJ set... much like Soulwax do. Sadly though, I didn't get the same buzz from it, there were some cool moments, but it maybe lacked a little something. Can't put my finger on it... Also, they went overtime so we missed out on hearing Summerfest '86, which would have no doubt been the highlight. Decent show, but my expectations may have been too high.

The Twelves

After Miami Horror, the tent emptied fairly quickly, obviously nobody had heard the awesomeness that are Brazilian DJs the Twelves. Anyone but me that is. And they killed it... playin predominately their own remixes (The Reckoner by Radiohead is excelent - which you can hear above), plus chuckin a bit of Beatles made it one of the best DJ sets I've seen all year. The crowd had rejoined by the end of the set, and a big yellow munter danced until he was thin.

Little Birdy

Hardly saw any of this, but I do remember hearing their cover of 6 Months in a Leaky Boat. Which I think is rad. Everyone thinks Katy Steele is a hotty, but I don't really. Didn't see enough of their set to warrant a picture, even to verify if said singer is a hotty.

Architecture in Helsinki

Back on the main stage, we battled through the what was now a largish crowd to check out AIH, who I'd surprisingly never seen live before. I'm not a huge fan, their songs seem to be a little too all over the place for my liking. BUT..... They did a cool cover of Womack & Womacks 'Teardrops', which had everyone singin like a stupid. It was fun... then they played all their other popular songs, That Beat was fun, but the songs just don't seem that great. I prefer the US version, Still Flyin... which I think are their best buds or something.

Ratatat

I think my highlight of the day, back in the dance tent we were treated with two guitarists playing some mean psych-electro-hip hop, with creepy videos from Predator and of Abba's faces melting. Ratatat are an instrumental duo that I once said that if you'd heard one song, you'd heard them all. How wrong I was. They played through most of their latest LP (LP3) as well as the popular tunes from earlier two albums. Everyone needs to check out the song Seventeen Years... I had a hair standing up at the back of my neck moment.... something I can't remember happening for ages (which then happened the next night at Tame Impala funnily enough). Excellent excellent band.

The Grates

Wasn't really paying attention, except they played the one song I like off their first album, and I think Patience looks nicer now with Blonde hair rather than brown. I still really don't like the sound of her voice though. Not worth the ctrl-v it would take to put in a picture.

With what was to be a long drive home, we didn't stick around for the shitness that is The Living End or Hilltop hoods. While in the dance tent Infusion and Muscles were to play, it didn't seem enough of a drawcard to warrant me driving off the Calder at 1am.

Organisers take note... this is the way a day festival needs to be.

Big Day Out '09

-By Pat


Big Day Out '09 Overview
My first Big Day Out (BDO) since '07, but it seems longer than 2 years. Not much has changed, the line-up was arguably excellent, the organisation was superb and the overall experience; close to perfect. Time tabling was done excellently (only 1 bad clash) and I was able to see at least a little bit of every band I wanted to see.

Flemington Racecourse
My main gripe with the racecourse as a BDO venue is that it's not as well set out as princess park (long walks between stages - absence of a second set of twin stages). OK so I did paralyse my quads playing laser tag for 1.5 hrs on sunday, forcing my to walk around like a zombie for the day but there was a lot of walking! As usual it is an all ages event and therefore has drinking pens, but it's always so hot and expensive to drink booze that I don't think it was such a bad thing. I did have to miss the annual Triple J (non-commercial alternative radio station) Hottest 100 countdown party because this year BDO fell on Australia Day (aka: Hottest 100 day, invasion day, etc.) in Melb and not Sydney as is usual practice. I dare say it might have actually been as good as that party (that coincidentally my co-blogger hosts anually).

In the reviews below a (P) next the band name implies that I only saw Part of the band's set. also due to the nature of big day out and the popularity of the bands I'm not going to give many details about each band but I will encourage you to google it.

Trial Kennedy (P)
Only caught the end due to the Melbourne public transport system's failings but it was ok because I caught a song I knew of theirs which I thought was from guitar hero but have found out it wasn't. I came expecting punk, but it was much more interesting. It encouraged me to investigate them further. Great on-stage energy considering they were first off the ranks for the day.

Children Collide
I only knew one of their songs going in, but according to the hottest 100 lots of people know more than that! They put on a good, solid performance. They didn't stuff around, played the sh!t out of their songs and it sounded good.

Birds of Tokyo
Considering their music is all over comercial radio the crowd weren't half bad. They had the first massive backdrop for the day, looked quite spectacular - some kind of monochrome artwork that has significance to a fan, I'm sure of it! As for the BoT (heheheh) they were pretty good, I knew about 5 more songs than I thought I would (zero).

Cog
Ultimately (and sadly) dissappointing, was hoping a bit more than usual for The River Song given the presence of Ezekiel Ox (singer of Mammal) at BDO (I have previously seen a Cog set where Ox jumped around the stage doing the spoken word section of the river song - in my top ten live moments of all time). They basically played a trimmed down version of the same set I saw at Solar, good but I'd seen it before.

Bullet for my Valentine (P)
Excellent live performance and I'd even go so far as to say that they were biggest surprise of the festival. It was obvious that they too had studied up on their hair metal and knew all the moves; my favorite being the one where all the guitarists line up at the front of the stage facing the same direction with one foot up on a speaker and solo-ing generaly. It is a moment in rock, and a most excellent one at that! They also told the crowd to make one of those massive running/tumbling circles, the crowd obeyed and it ended up the diameter of the stage width (50m?) but they cant get everything right.

TV on the Radio
Good Show; it didn't occur to me until I was standing in front of them how many similarities exist between them and the dandy warhols. They opened with Young Liars then continued to play the majority of their latest effort Dear Science as well as throwing in the yelly song (Wolf like me) and I liiiiked it! Then a strong finish with staring at the sun, such a great song.

Pendulum
Another surprise here, I'd previously heard some pendulum and was expecting a DJ with some mad skillz but no! There was a 5 piece (I think) band playing the remixes...which got me thinking at what stage does a band just become a cover band? Save that debate for later, Pendulum rocked the grass I was sitting on...and it was fun! (edit: I assumed they were remixes at the time because I recognised them and in particular Voodoo people by the Prodigy but have since found out they were mostly originals - nice!)

Simian Mobile Disco (P)
Saw 10 minutes of their set, not sure how many songs that was but they were rocking it old school with upright synths and many cables that needed re-plugging, Respec!

Tex Perkins (P)
While Simian was on we thought we'd see what we were missing over here, we managed to locate the entire over 40s crowd. It was fun, not ground breaking but it was fun to see some local cameos (the jet and magic dirt singers).

Mammal
Funk metal up-and-comers mammal are always awesome live. Ox managed to bully a tired, sun dazed crowd into singing for long periods of time and waving their hands in any direction he wanted while constantly reminding us that he could see us... These guys have an excellent live show that I would recomend to anyone that likes live music.

Hot Chip (P)
Didn't see much of this set due to time tabling issues, only 2 songs. A couple of these guys looked particularly nerdy, the crowd loved them!

Arctic Monkeys (P)
Hardly worth mentioning, but I did see about one song while I munched on a dagwood dog. (Advice for festival goers: if a dagwood dog is available go for that over the hotdog, it's more australian, cheaper and tastier) I really cant say much except that they were palying a song I didn't know.

Fantomas (best!)
Awesome: Fantomas are so crazy, Mike Patton is a legend! True to the rumors they performed their 2001 release 'The Director's Cut' in full and they did so with a four piece band (!). Excellent performance with the missing performers replaced by machines controlled by Patton. Not an empty sounding moment yet completely live - including pauses in reactions to crowd yelling. Excellent performance and I would say the best of the day.

Neil Young (P)
He was playing for ages, I was watching for about half an hour and only noticed 1 break between songs. The lights weren't as fantastic as previous years headliners, which was a little dissappointing. Judging from youtube clips of his hayday, I think time has tired him but the music still sounded good.

The Prodigy
Packed out the Boiler room tent as the final act of the night, the crowd loved it. They gave a different performance to the last time I saw them (BDO '02), the two main guys had ditched the instruments and spent the entire show running up and down the stage singing and posing for the cameras, at which stage you could see what rock does to the body - almost 40 year olds looking as wrinkley as 60 year olds. But these guys are rock, don't let their prancing about fool anyone they've done the hard yards to earn at least that.