Big Day Out Review 2006

I spent all day working on CSS and page layouts, and although I could go on for pages about that excitement here is, instead, part 1 of my Big Day Out Review:

The Big Day Out 2006 will not be remembered as the greatest Big Day Out ever. Primarily, the line up attending was the weakest I’ve ever seen. Another factor was the amount I had to drink. Nevertheless, despite feeling slightly ripped off after the second announcement was made and vowing not to buy my ticket next year until after the announcements were finished, I assured myself I would have a good time. A good time I pretty much had.

Gerling
Gerling were the first band I saw. I heard some of Faker but I don’t think I glanced at the stage that often. Sam had wanted to arrive in time for Faker and orchestrated the trip to get us there 10 minutes after their set had started, y’know, in case the band hadn’t shown up yet.
But anyway, Gerling: Yeah, they played some songs and I stood around drinking. They played “Whose Your Daddy?” which was ok and the rest of the stuff they played I can’t remember mainly because of lack of interest rather than extreme inebriation which was to become a theme for the day. A couple of enthusiastic “weoahs!” and the distribution of three earth balls into the crowd garnered their set with some respect. And it’s not like I walked away or anything.
3/5

Mudvayne and a Steak Sandwich
At the conclusion of Gerling there was, surprisingly enough, no good bands playing. This meant it was lunch time. Lunch time at the Big Day Out is all about picking what flavour your greasy meal will be, and I picked steak because the place was out of burgers. The steak was pretty good, albeit intensely greasy. After finishing that off and watching a guy with make up DJ from a parked Ice-Cream truck I decided we should go and see what Mudvayne were like. My main motivation for this came from being introduced to DragonForce not long ago and figuring that some metal can actually be pretty rocking!
So off to Mudvayne we went and songs were played. I remember the storming kick of the bass drum the most, walking towards the stage. Also a lot was said about shoe stealing in the mosh-pit not being very respectful. I like the lead singers of metal bands. Some yelling and a delicious steak sandwich combined:
3.5/5

Wolfmother
The crowd then migrated to the right a little to the Blue Stage to watch WolfMother. One thing I’ve noticed about new Australian bands recently, they all have this kind of warbling, melody-less manner of singing over their music instead of to it. WolfMother are a band that seem to be a little above this.
Wolfmother would qualify as the first band where I actually knew what songs they were playing when they played them. WolfMother rock. They are a rock band so if they’re getting contracted for major rock festivals you’d expect they do this anyway. But they did. However another theme for the day was constantly leaving sets early to see someone else and that applied here. I would have liked to see the end.
4/5

End of Fashion
I have never really listened to much End of Fashion. I know I said to Sam during the show “hey, these guys are alright” but they were on the Green Stage which was right next to the Toohey’s Extra Dry tent and, well, you can see how my opinion might be swayed in either direction.
There was some song I think I liked, but it might have been played by Faker.
1125ml/5

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