Newsgroups: aus.music
Subject: Re: The Big Day Out in Melbourne
From: dougcc@brt.deakin.edu.au (Douglas Miller)
Date: 26 Jan 93 23:24:22 EST
Organization: C&CS, Deakin University

As a venue, the Showgrounds were pretty drab and uninspiring.  The giant
inflatable gorillas and dinasaurs didn't really succeed in transforming it. 
The layout of the arenas, grandstands, and stalls was too convoluted.  
There were too many bottlenecks for the large numbers of people constantly
moving from one part to another.

The alcohol/dry segregation was pretty much a farce.   There were was only
*one* place were you could get armbands to prove you were overage, and it
was completely swamped for the first half of the day, with no queuing
organised.  The segregation was both under-enforced (plenty of beer was
being drunk in "dry" areas) and over-enforced.  Being 33 years old, I was 
rather hoping I wouldn't have to spend an inordinate amount of time getting
an armband to prove that I was older than 18.  No such luck at at the first
place I tried; the security man was quite sure I needed your actual
coloured armband to prove my adultness.  Later I went in via a differnet
entrance with no problems.

Having got those whinges off my chest, I have to say that the organisation
was adequate where it counted.  The sound was fairly good overall, and acts
kept pretty close to the (necessarily) tight timetable.

Carter USM were better than I thought they would be --- they put a lot into
their singing and guitar playing, so it didn't seem to matter that the rest
of the music was pre-recorded/sequenced.  Jimbob's "I want to introduce the
band" segment was great too.

I hadn't seen the Meanies perform before, and was impressed.  A lot of fun
to watch, and some good songs.

I didn't like Helmet.  I don't know whether it was the songs or the
performance, but they seemed like a band "afraid to rock".  All I heard was
furious riffing that never quite managed to connect.

This is Serious Mum made some serious headgear for the occassion: helium
filled constructions approx 1mx3m.   Being now 5m tall, TISM nearly didn't
fit on the (second biggest) stage --- they should have probably demanded a
slot on the main stage!  Their set overlapped with Sonic Youth, so
naturally Ron Hitler-Barassi exhorted us to "Go and see Sonic Youth!  Go
now!  Over there on stage 1.  Go to Sonic Youth!  They're from New York. 
We're only from Glen Waverley".  Good point, I thought.

Sonic Youth did mostly Goo and Dirty material.  It was a great performance;
they were definitely playing on the edge, taking risks with the songs. 
Inevitably, they fall flat some of the time, but this doesn't matter when
they manage to pull off electrifying performances (like they did with Kool
Thing and Disappearer).

Mudhoney played a rescheduled set after problems with mislaid equipment
cases.  They seemed pissed off and played a short set noticably short on
crowd-pleasers.

Now I know why Iggy Pop calls it the "Raw Power Tour '93".  "Recent
material?"  I don't think so.  The songs I can remember were: "Loose", "I
Wanna be Your Dog", "TV Eye", "Search and Destroy", "Raw Power", "No Fun",
"Real Wild Child", "The Passenger".  Even the two newies sounded like
Stooges songs.  He sounded great, he's still got a torso like a twenty year
old athlete, and he bled for us.  What more could you ask?

Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy put on a dynamic show: dancing, rapping,
metal-grinding, live drums with bass/jazz guitar.  And good lyrics, well
presented.  Oh, and Michael Franti (sp?) admitted that he does watch
televison sometimes.

Not Drowning, Waving seemed below par.  They also did about five new songs
that didn't impress on a first listen.  However I was intrigued by Helen
Mountford's new toy --- an electric Cello.  "Is Nick on yet?" asked David
Bridie.  "He's from Caulfield; half this band are from Frankston."  I
suppose I should have a look then, I thought, and left the 50 people at NDW
to join the 10000 people watching the last few songs of Nick from
Caulfield.  Good performances of "Tupelo" and "The Weeping Song", a couple
of others, and it was all over bar the encore singalong of "Black Betty"
fading in the distance as I started the long walk to the Showgrounds exit.
I resisted the temptation to hang around for the Painters and Dockers
wind-down spot.