We sent our new work experience boy Clint out to cover the Sydney leg of the Big Day Out. What he may lack in literary finesse and spelling ability, he more than makes up for in alcohol consumption, bad jokes and his own very special view on things.
Here's how his day ran...
On the train out to Homebush I was quite excited, I was a little bit late heading out there so there was no crowds of people, it was great.
Being my first Big Day Out I didn’t know what to expect. But when the train arrived at Homebush park station I got more first glance of what the big day out is all about. The mullet. It was amazing the amount of mullet and crappy tattoos I saw. You could almost pick where the person was from depending on the style of the mullet.
Heading towards the entrance of the BDO I saw a lot of cops and police dogs. I felt sorry for those dogs, they aren’t getting paid enough. Trying to sniff for drugs through the smell of the red necks BO or the large big mac meal they spilt on them on the trip from Penrith, I just don’t think its fair. Its borderline animal cruelty.
Entering the show grounds I couldn’t wait to get my first drink! But I had to.. about 20 minutes… All hopes of having a cheap day went out the window, 8 bucks for a bundy rum sends the shivers down any man spine. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, and some people put more thought into it than me.
It was great to see the 13yo kids running around with the hipflasks of vodka.
After sinking a few more drinks I went to see my first gig, Dizzy Rascal in the boiler room.
I have heard Dizzy Rascal on tv and parties before and I could tolerate it, its not my choice of music but hearing it live made me know why its not my taste of music.
It was absolute crap. Basically talking over some fat bass beat with no tone or even rhythm mentioning the same words over and over again. Every one in there wasn’t really getting into it even when the shaved ape tried to get the crowed to… “make same noise…” There was significantly a lot less mullet in in the boiler room, so I had to get back out side amongst it.
Got me some more drinks caught up with a few friends and went down to the main stage. We arrived to catch the first part of Regurgitator. I thought they were pretty good, It was much better to be out side where all the action is going on. I never got bored at seeing all the kids trying to chew their ears off on happy pills.
We just stayed in the stands drinking for the next hour waiting for Grinspoon to come on the stage where we were sitting at. After 4 more drinks they came on. Being a band I like I was really looking forward to it. The main reason I wanted to see them was for the song Chemical Heart. They came on and sounded pretty good even from all the way back where we were sitting. Towards the end of their set, disaster struck. The drinking of all the over price rum and coke cans came back at me.
I needed to get to the toilet so bad but didn’t want to miss the song chemical heart. It was either do it where I sat or make a quick dash to the toilet. I hustled arse and made my way to the toilet only to find a massive queue. As big as the queue was it did move pretty fast.
The organisers of the big day out were pretty smart and converted the sinks to wash your hands too urinals! They looked exactly the same as sinks you would wash your hands in and usually where they are but they were definitely toilets because everyone was pissing in them. If they weren't pissing in the sinks they were pissing on the floor.
The smell of mullets and urine all in a tightly packed room is incredible.
The jews didn’t have a great time in those gas chambers but I tell you what, If lived through those BDO toilets I could have lived through any gas chamber.
Just as I got to the toilet of course in the distance I could barely hear Grinspoon start their next song chemical heart… typical. Well for the first time seeing Grinspoon play live I was not disappointed,they were really good and all the crowd got into it.
We had another hour gap to wait for silverchair, so we filled in the time with more drinking, looking at mullets and people in a lot worse state than us. 1 hour passed and we moved down to the stage to get a better view for silverchair. Daniel came out onto the stage and the crowd went pretty nuts. He then took to the mike and said some pretty crazy weird shit.
Do not take drugs kids. They started playing with the song emotion sickness. They sounded great. His voice is pretty incredible not to mention his on stage presence. They finished up with Freak ,one of their old school songs and it was awesome.
I would have to say silverchair was the highlight of my night.
Next band on was Arcade fire. Ive never heard any of there stuff before but it sounded pretty good. We were in the same spot waiting for rage to come on, on the stage we were watching silverchair from so we didn’t get the best view or sound. But none the less they were pretty good. No matter what band was on before Rage Against The Machine, I would of wanted them to hurry up!
You could tell it was almost time for Rage as the mullets flocked towards the stage like a fat kid on a donut. After a long delay to build the anticipation and BO they came out onto the stage and the crowed went nuts. I’ve always been a bit of a fan of Rage against the machine and they definitely did not let down with their live performance.
For a band that broke up for such a long time they played like they never stopped.
From where we were it was hard to see the stage, people were pushing for the front constantly and I had this 5 foot tall dwarf girl in front of me who couldn’t see the stage and wanted to make sure I couldn’t by dancing like an idiot.
If you ever have seen a retard on a large doses of acid being electrocuted you know what I'm talking about. I was on guard trying to protect the next generations of Clint and this took a lot of the viewing of the stage away. Of course at the end of the show they came out back out for a encore and played the song we had all been waiting for, Killing in the name of. It was pretty awesome, sounded really great live and to also hear it and be able to see so many different types of mullets I thought I died and went to heaven.
So all up it was a good day out. I came home with the memories of some good bands and a lot of bogans BO.
Clint Humphreys - redbackrock.com
