Days gone by
January 20, 2006
On the eve of its 15th birthday, Craig Mathieson explores the dark history of the Big Day Out.
THE Big Day Out is many things: a musical melting pot, a logistical triumph and a multimillion-dollar business. It's also an annual event where you can don a bunny suit on the main stage or do business with a gangster rapper.
Here are a few of the many stories that trail one of the biggest days in Melbourne's musical calendar.
1993 -Wally Kempton and the Meanies get an unexpected billing upgrade
"The Big Day Out was only on the east coast, having started in Sydney the previous year. Beforehand, Mudhoney had played their show in Adelaide, then flown to the Gold Coast to start the BDO. Melbourne was up next and at about one in the afternoon, (co-organiser) Ken West came up to me and said, 'Are all your boys here?' I said that they were. He goes, 'I need you to do me a huge favour - Mudhoney's gear has gone back to Adelaide, because of old baggage tags. They're here, but their gear isn't, can you please take their place on the main stage at 4.15?' I said I'd ask everyone, but inside I was gleefully going, 'You bloody beauty!'
"We were scheduled for the skate stage, which was a dicky little stage - basically an experiment - that year, which had already been rendered half-useless by a mudfight during the Cosmic Psychos set. So we walked onto the main stage, rain coming down, said, 'We're not Mudhoney', and ripped into a set in front of about 15,000 people. The mosh pit loved it. There was steam coming off the crowd. We walked off on cloud nine."
2000 - Michael Aldrich of Sony meets an unlikely cricket fan
"Sony Music used to put on a barbecue on the banks of the Yarra every year for all the company's bands taking part in the Big Day Out. The Prodigy drove by in a Tarago once without stopping and then sped off towards the Docklands. Mudvayne arrived one year with no make-up on, so no one knew who they were. Rage Against the Machine nearly came when they thought some local Aborigines were going to perform. But our favourite was Crazy Town: they rocked up with a heap of teenage girls and were great guys.
"The highlight was their guitarist, Trouble, who arrived wearing a full cricket uniform - he had pads, gloves, a box and was even carrying a bat. He had never seen a game before but was spun out by the gear when he passed a sports store in Swanston Street, so he bought some and wouldn't take it off. Naturally, we started playing when he arrived, but he refused to join in, preferring to hang by the sidelines, just chilling with the bat and adjusting the pads and box every now and then. He was a strange guy."
2000 - Jebediah manager Heath Bradby sees the band improvise
"Jebediah were doing the main stage at about 2.30 in the afternoon, absolutely killing it, when all power cuts out. No amplification, no PA, no nothing. The Jebs were standing there, wondering what to do with 30,000 people. They played a game of leapfrog onstage for a while and when they got sick of that they started a crowd singalong of Waltzing Matilda.
"Because there was no PA they had to start the people at the front singing it and hope that it spread. And it did. It was pretty cool. The power was off for like five or six minutes, but it seemed like six months."
2001 - Luke Roberts manages Queens of the Stone Age tour
"I first went to the Big Day Out in 1993 and I pretty much saw every one in the '90s as a fan and then I began to work as a tour manager. It's a different animal seen from the inside than the outside, so I feel lucky to have seen both sides of an amazing phenomenon. Queens were totally on a roll when they arrived, they'd just played Rock in Rio and sacked their tour manager on the way back to Los Angeles.
"I met their manager beforehand and he said, 'You're going to be a busy boy.' They were playing in the mid-afternoon, so they got to unwind after they played, but I had to hold it together. I was a little bit out of my depth, but the band were really regular guys: if they said, 'We wanna get on it', they got on it; if they said, 'We wanna go out', they went out. As a tour manager you get a kind of employment contract and under duties it says, 'As described', but there's nothing described. Really, you have to keep everybody happy. They had a good time - by Adelaide, Nick (Oliveri, Queens of the Stone Age former bassist) was playing in the nude."
2003 - 1200 Techniques manager Andrew Parisi encounters a rap icon
"1200 Techniques were on the Big Day Out nationally, alongside a prominent American hip-hop star. On the Gold Coast there was a record company dinner, so we met his posse and then we asked him if we could borrow one of his members to do a vocal track. I had a conversation with the main dude and we agreed on a fee. We were on the same label, so the company was to transfer the money into his account, so that was cool. We recorded the track in Melbourne, on the Thursday prior to the Melbourne BDO, which was on a Monday.
"On Saturday we were all back in Sydney and I got a call saying, 'Where's the money?' I explained again that the company would transfer it. On Sunday he rang again - he didn't realise that bank transfers didn't happen on weekends. The Monday was Australia Day, a public holiday, and 1200s were on the main stage at about 6pm, directly before the hiphop star.
"We were all backstage getting ready and I got a call from my man again and he says, 'Andrew, where's my f---ing money?' I explained that it would be in his account at midnight and he said, 'I'm on my way there with my boys and we're coming after you, unless you give me a briefcase full of cash'.
"He hung up and at that point I just quietly shat myself. It was total gangster tone. I confirmed that the money would be there at midnight, which thankfully was going to happen, so I went to the BDO accountants and explained what was happening. They were very accommodating and advanced me $1000 cash.
"At 6pm the 1200s walked on stage and backstage the hip-hop star turned up, with the boys. He had a fairly aggressive tone, so we went into our bandroom and I said, 'I don't know what kind of shit goes on in the US, but this doesn't play here. You'll get your money at midnight - here's a thousand bucks to sort out any small debts you may have to settle immediately.' In the end, he was OK, the local tour manager pulled him up and said he couldn't do stuff like that here. The vocal? It was great - it was worth every cent."
2004 - Julian Tovey joins the Flaming Lips on the main stage
"I'd made it my mission to wear one of the animal suits during the Flaming Lips set. My former band (Riff Random) played earlier during the day, so I had a backstage pass and could hang around, and when they arrived I introduced myself to Wayne Coyne, their singer, and said I was a fan and asked what the chances were of me and some of my friends getting the animal costumes?
"He said that if we helped him blow up some balloons he'd get us in. So we spent half an hour helping him blow up balloons and then I got the bunny suit. We were on stage for the whole set, except the first song. There were about 20 of us and there were lines taped on the stage that we couldn't cross, but within that we could do whatever we wanted - we danced and sang along.
"It was amazing to see a sea of people reacting to the show. It was the first time I'd seen them live, so it was quite an experience to be on the stage. Afterwards I was exhausted - that bunny suit was hot."
2005 - Melbourne BDO co-ordinator Susan Forrester meets her idol
"As well as being with the BDO, working on the Melbourne show and handling immigration, I've been involved in hip-hop for 15 years, from rapping to turntable stuff to producing music. I've seen them all come and go, but I never thought I'd see the day that (Beastie Boys DJ) Mixmaster Mike would play the Big Day Out.
"In Melbourne, one of my co-workers took me backstage, past catering to where the Beastie Boys were. My co-worker says, 'There's someone I'd like you to meet.' I was like, 'It better not be someone who needs a free ticket!' I had on a $2 orange staff cap and I took it off to wipe away some sweat and out comes Mixmaster Mike. I went from Susan Forrester, event manager, to Susan Forrester, teenage fan.
"I could not speak a single word. He was very kind and then took the hat out of my hand and signed it. I've met heaps of people over the years, but when my time came to meet the man who influenced me so much, I couldn't say a word. The cap is still above my desk. It says, 'To Lady Crunk, love, Mixmaster Mike'."
