Big Day Out Review 2004

We got in around just about 1:30pm after waiting in line around 20 minutes. We went straight to the boiler room where Salmonella Dub was setting up to do their set. My ears went ‘spick’ at the start and they played some banging tunes with loud bass and live instruments and it was all very kiwish. I enjoyed them. 4/5.

After that, Friendly came on. Friendly is an Aussie DJ who used to make some fun/cool dance stuff but now has moved on to breaks, which is good, because he was the only breakbeat dude there. He started off with some dancey stuff and got the crowd into it and mixed all right. He then started playing some breaks and chose some good songs to begin with. However, after mixing in Zer0’s rockin’ tune "Emit/Collect" for a good two minutes he managed to skip it right at the peak of the songs real start, which absolutely sucked. He looked pretty embarrassed too. Then he played a breakbeat remix of Born Slippy with "Satisfaction" as an acapella which was kinda lame because everyone thought he was going to just play "Born Slippy" but the breakbeat remix of it was slower and more flat. He closed his set by playing the hip hop classic Jump Around, which I thought was pretty cool until he fucking skipped again. I thought he was supposed to be a resident DJ at some high profile London nightclub but the skipping pretty much ruined his set. He was using house decks, but... everyone else used them and no one else skipped at all. Good songs, poor delivery. 2/5.

PNAU started up but we decided to go and checkout the rest of the Hilltop Hoods set. We got there and the hot house stage was completely full and people were crowding around outside trying to get in. We could hear fine though, and listened to the last 15 minutes of the set which sounded pretty tight. They closed with "Nosebleed Section" which the crowd went off at. Then we moved on to Gerling which could have been all right, had it not been so fucking loud that the only thing audible apart from the reverb was some screeching. So, we went back to the Boiler Room where PNAU were just finishing up and Pee Wee Ferris came on to spin. We were in the first 10 rows, and after ten minutes we sort of realised that we were the only people in those rows who was under the influence of something solid and seeing that that’s about when hard trance sucks, we decided to go rectify the problem.

Two $7.50 Jack and Cokes and a urination later we arrived to see the start of Sonic Animation, who honestly did rock the fuck out of the Boiler Room. Live electronic drums and computer everything else but the basslines where huge and the guys know how to put out a song that people will love. They did it really well, playing an old song which everyone knew and could go nuts too, followed by a new one off their upcoming album which would rock, then an old classic again and repeat. Excellent set, one of the day’s best. 5/5

Straight after Sonic were the Audio Bullys, one of the main reasons I’d spent so much money on a ticket in the first place. I got down to the front and watched the two dudes DJ. They played a good set with solid mixing however the audio levels were kinda crap so I couldn’t hear the majority of the rapping/talking done. They played a lot of new songs too, in fact they could’ve taken a leaf out of Sonic’s book by playing a similar combination of old then new songs. Basslines and tunes sounded good, it just was hard to get into them. One stage they played their remix of “The Sound of Violence” by Cassius and everyone sang along but other than that it was just enjoying the basslines. 4/5

After Audio Bullys we went and bought an overpriced yiros and skipped David Holmes, which turned out to be a good thing seeing as when we got back with 10 minutes left of his set no one was even dancing, everyone was just standing around waiting for Aphex Twin and Luke Vibert to come on. They did, but the yiros made me sick so I went outside and got some air for a bit and missed the first thirty minutes of the set. I got back filled with fresh air and enjoyed the rest of the sit though it was a bit trippy and drum and bass isn’t my thing. However, you could tell it was good stuff and by no means did I not enjoy it. High energy and well professional. 4/5

Felix Da Housecat then DJ’ed for ninety minutes while Basement Jaxx set up in the background. Felix Da Housecat played some funky electronic tunes, with a mix of just beats as well as a few classic anthems to keep everybody interested. It was a long set but enjoyable. He did have a habit of breaking the beat down quite a lot, but I didn’t mind that too much. 4/5

Basement Jaxx then spent another 10 minutes to finish setting up. They had full live instruments including drums, percussion, guitar and bass and the two dudes using the computers. They put on a theatrical show with lights and pyrotechnics and around about five different singers who had costume changes and bounded all over the place. They played songs off Kish-Kash mainly, with a few of the old favourites to make the show complete. There was only two tracks off Kish-Kash that they didn’t play. They used the same singers for all the songs, obviously, as all their celebrity guest voice stars wouldn’t be available to sing in Adelaide. It wasn’t at all noticeable though as the singers did a good job. The only weird thing was when they did Lucky Star and they got a woman to sing the part of Dizzee Rascal, which was confusing because hearing a female rap reminded me of Eminem and I realised it and laughed. The show continued and the Boiler Room was so packed they stopped letting people in. At some point they played a cover of "Seven Nation Army" which the words told me was called "Get your club on" which rocked the bass socks. They ended the set with a small, dark, suspense building silence before playing "Where’s your head at" really loudly, which every sang along to and went nuts. Then, in the obviously pre-planned encore they did Jump’n’Shout and the guy from Arika Bambaataa came from nowhere and did the vocals and it was cool. Very good, high energy show. Great way to end the night. 5/5

Comments

Jarrad

You've always been a harsh man. Two skips and you get knocked down to 2/5.

June 10 2007 - Like
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