Today’s aim is to basically extend on my Big Day Out review with a few personal afterthoughts – if you haven’t read it you can by clicking right HERE (pics and videos are included as well.) Last year was my intended final year of going to the BDO. My first one had been in 2001, specifically to see Rammstein and a decade later they had finally made it back and I started to question why I would ever need to go again. I was getting old (in my mind). Anyway this years first announcement comes out and while there was no one with the significance of Rammstein I still went ahead and bought a ticket anyway. It’s become an automatic routine, like smoking. This year though, while I had a great time, it was the first time I ever really questioned why I do this. Not in a bad way at all. I love music festivals and I hope to never stop attending them but the BDO is a big hit to the hip pocket every year. It’s typically worth it, don’t get me wrong. Anyway I’m rambling so let me get back on track - here’s a few facts and thoughts that would have made my review seem too personal.
- A Bra is not a top – put a fucking shirt on.
Now many people reading this have probably already heard me say it on social media. It garnered a certain amount of support but also I think confused people. People think ‘but Javid, you’re an aficionado of all things sexy, surely you love seeing the jubblies out!’ This is my reply – if you want to go for that look, wear a bikini top, as many girls did. Sure I still don’t really go for that look either but at least it looks practical. A girl that’s at a festival in a bra is merely pointing out the fact that she’s NOT CREATIVE and also, more often than not, a SKANK. There is no back up shirt for most of these people. Maybe in the car but who sees you then, right? You’ve already got short shots on that might as well not be there – why aren’t you naked? Far out it’s just unbelievable – and most of these girls are teenagers! As you can see this is one of the things that led to me feeling old. I won’t go into further graphic detail about the thoughts that made me feel old… not yet, anyway.
- Drugs
This is another thing that made me feel old, but in an entirely different reason and not a bad or a horny one. Ever since my second Big Day Out I’ve been attending on one form of quite possibly illegal substance at the time, from speed to pills to acid. They all make for interesting days and absolutely horrible weeks after as you enjoy the horrible effects of the comedown. Both years with Rammstein (3 BDO’s in total) I went without, but Rammstein were a drug enough for me. This year, really, without the Germans, was my first BDO without any form of illicit substance and I’ll tell you what, I remember why I did them in many ways. If you get there early, it is a LONG day. If you walk between 14 different acts over the course of the day like I did, you’re buggered. If you forget to get cash out and eat very little throughout the course of the day, except for a diet of cigarettes and water like I did, you’re REALLY buggered and you’ve got a headache by the end of it all. This made me feel old, but also angry at myself for the things I forgot to bring. I can tell you now when you are taking drugs to a festival you never forget to bring anything, because everything is so meticulously planned as you freak out about concealment and sniffer dogs.
The other funny thing about drugs that I witnessed was the amount of kids who were obviously doing things for the first – at absolute most, the second – time. They were munted and loving it and looking spaced and I looked at them smiling, knowing exactly what they were going through. I had been there and come out the other side while these guys were just entering the tunnel of recreational Class A use. It made me remember back to the times where I would be just like them, and it then made me remember how fucking LONG ago that was. I don’t do that anymore, the pills, the speed. I’ll still occasionally take a tab if the opportunity presents itself but it doesn’t often. I’m not talking about pot here, that’s a completely different topic for another day. Seeing these kids off chops and the nostalgia it created were good in a way that once again drills home how old I feel nowadays. Hell, watching them freaking out before you go through the gates you can tell who’s carrying. It’s surprising the cops don’t. Obviously not enough of them got on drugs at festivals in their youth.
- The Target Demographic
The announcement of Kanye West as headliner for the festival, only months after he’d played at Splendour, was an interesting choice. I’ve written about it somewhere else previously but many of the other acts that followed, and that played throughout the day were targeted at the multitude of kids that are now becoming festival goers. The clearest picture of this was presented to me in the evening at the time that both Foster the People and Soundgarden kicked off. My goal was to catch the first 25 minutes or so of Foster the People and then catch the last 40 minutes of Soundgarden. Waiting with my friend Pauly for the former to start, the crowd was immense. It was relatively crowded from Architecture in Helsinki beforehand but we slowly became more and more surrounded by a dense wall of people. By the time the band took the stage the crowd went back further than you could see.
After the first three songs and helped by the fact that kids kept getting up on each others shoulders near the front, completely blocking the view, I went to Soundgarden. I rationalized this by thinking that Foster the People will be back many times, Soundgarden probably won’t. I stumbled backwards through the masses for what felt like forever and when I got to the main arena I was confused. The crowd, compared to Foster the People, was miniscule. The people in seats around the arena were significant but I won’t count them for either Kanye or Soundgarden. They played a great set featuring all the classics (except Spoonman) and by the time they’d finished the arena was packed. I wish this could have been attributed to Soundgarden but we all know it was primarily the kids who had come from the end of Foster the People into the main arena to see Kanye. This makes me wonder a few things. Were people just not that keen for Soundgarden? Or is it that the majority of people who would come to see Soundgarden wouldn’t attend because of Kanye and the type of people he would bring? Either way it was interesting to see that those who had come out in droves were the kids. The older people are becoming more disillusioned and obviously not compelled to fork out the money for one or two bands. But at the same time if this happens the announcement of bands will change even more no doubt and the next thing you know we’ll have another Parklife.
It’s a bit of a situation that confuses me and I think that’s conveyed in my writing. Part of me wants to keep going, to fight to keep good bands on the bill and stop it becoming another rave full of chicks in bras and dickheads. Part of me thinks that maybe its time to start thinking about another festival. The crowd that I once, and still (for the most part) DO loathe are now becoming the next generation of festival attendees, and I’m getting old. What happens next? I’m not sure, but thanks for coming along. I’ll see you at another festival sometime in the future I’m sure, but I may need you to score me some drugs.
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