As a man, I am highly proficient at losing things. My mind, the plot, rental car keys - all in a day's work for this little black duck. How we deal with loss is one of the most critical examinations of character which each of us have to face in our daily lives. For me, it's a matter of degrees; certain things I can handle losing, like football games (being a long-suffering Souths fan I have what we like to call fuck-all choice in the matter); however, there are certain things I have lost which I have trouble dealing with, such as losing the finer nuances of my hearing to a few too many rock gigs, or all of my early twenties to a research lab.
I lost something the other day which I'm having a little trouble 'getting my head around' (thanks very much Large William Mason). Quite literally, as it was a black Channel V beanie. On the face of it, nothing greatly mortifying in that, other than that it was a day cold enough to transcend even the usual references to witches' tits and brass monkeys' balls, and suitable headwear has its value. But it was more about how I'd come to end up with a beanie advertising a cable TV music channel unheard-of in these parts, which can be neatly blamed on an old flatmate, compadre and Origin sparring partner called Mel.
(Just so you know, this is one of those rambling, rudderless entries which wobble all over the place like a fat lady on a monkey bike, rather than slanderous Roy and HG-style rantings about the vagrancies of sundry sporting personalities. Yer were warned.)
Most of the World of Bollocks' core demographic (both of you) knows Mel. She was, and is, trouble. She came to Sin City as a wide-eyed sixteen year old first year med student, straight out of Somerville House, a pretentious Brisbane all-girls school with a uniform inspired by a '70s Laminex colour chart. (Hey, that hideously loud Kawasaki green dress really goes with your eyes...) I knew Mel courtesy a gentleman entitled Mr Appleby who was, and remains, equally dodgy. In any case we all flatted together briefly in Sydney's east, punctuated by memorable flat parties, Origin-fuelled punchups (she won, both on the scoreboard and otherwise), DIY bedroom renovations (this week on Better Homes and Gardens: create your own four-poster bed using four broom handles, a roll of fencing wire and some lacy curtain shit from Spotlight!) and general mayhem. Not to mention meeting half of the NSW Uni Theatrical Society camping on our truly grody couch (rescued from a street corner by Mr Appleby) most nights of the week.
Anyway consider that as an aside. In the Year Of Our Landlord 2000 AD I fucked off to Brisvegas to spend my early '20s at the Royal Exchange Hotel whinging about how shit my PhD was going. Later that year Mel turned up on TV. OK, it was only pay TV, but it counted. Technically. The context was that Channel V (sorry, [V]) was looking for two new presenters (sorry, 'VJs') to enliven their piss-poor excuse for programming (sorry, 'edgy and innovative music shows'.) Basically they held a big cattle-call and picked ten wannabes for a two-week on-air audition process. This was actually vaguely innovative given that this predated the post-Idol exponential proliferation of shitbox pick-the-winner reality shows for everything from INXS singers to chefs, boxers, superbike riders or really fat Americans.
The interweb never forgets. Be warned.Anyway Mel, being your average techno-Goth with a penchant for piercings, Nine Inch Nails (with reference to music not piercings), electric viola and recreational substances, maybe wasn't what the Britney-adoring core [V] demographic - the ones who get the bills paid rather than those who the channel wanted to be seen to be targeting - were going to warm to. But she gave it her usual two-footed challenge - think Roy Keane in bovver boots - and did pretty damn well. Hey, I voted for her. Largely because there was a prize for the home viewer with the best reason for voting for one of the contenders. Now, I didn't win. But I did score a Channel V backpack and beanie for finishing third. And Mel? She didn't win. But she did score a Channel V backpack and beanie for coming third. To wit, about as much as if she'd just sent the bastards an email voting for one of the other punters. Effort-reward nexus not entirely favourable on that one.
The winners, should you still be awake by this stage in proceedings, were James Mathison, who to this day is referred to as 'Mathison the Cock' by myself and close associates (such as Mr Bell, currently waving farewell to the back half of his own twenties in a research lab not too distal to the one which accounted for the front half of mine); and Yumi Stynes, who basically fitted the same target audience and ethnic diversity parameters as Mel would have, but had the added advantage of being able to suppress her gag reflex. When back-announcing Christina Aguilera vids, I mean. Yumi went on to bang Ben from Regurgitator and produced small wriggly humans; Ben from Regurgitator in turn produced and played on The Stalkers' thermonuclear EP
Rock & Roll, the most fucking kick-arse garage punk explosion ever recorded in a disused Valley warehouse.
What was the point of all this? Ah yeah. So the other day I lost my Channel V beanie, which is a pity given its sentimental connection to the Artist Formerly Known As Schlong, who a few years back moved to Philadelphia to marry the guy who ran her favourite Nine Inch Nails fan site, and they lived/live happily every after. I know this because Mel
blogs - an actual, proper blog with actual details and minutiae of one's existence, as distinct from the disparate chimaera of rants, raves and actionable slander which you are currently trying to close given that your boss has just walked into your office. Where's that
Leisure Suit Larry emergency spreadsheet button when you need it?
The same day my [V] beanie went to the big hat stand in the sky (actually I think it's at the service station down the street and I'd go look if I could be arsed) I found out through Mr Appleby's
blog - yes all these people have blogs, it's the done thing in the modern world to write about yourself on the internet to save people having to talk to you in real life - that he's going to
Splendour In The Arse in Byron Bay. To which I say, bollocks to you, you bastard-arsed monkey-fucker. Actually I didn't say that, it was more along the lines of 'have a fucken tops time and chuck a half-housebrick at Lily Allen for me'), but the underlying sentiment was clear and undeniable: petty, miserable, cretinous jealousy. Because one of the things I've least enjoyed losing has been access to your common or garden variety Big Rock Festival. These days I'm both spatially and temporally removed from Splendour, BDO, Homebake et al - spatially for obvious ditch-related reasons, but also temporally in that (almost) thirty-somethings with young children just don't go to festies. And I miss my festies. And, more remarkably, I can remember them all, which suggests I wasn't trying hard enough to get monumentally off-chops when I was actually AT aforesaid festies.
With that by way of hugely over-elaborated preamble, the World Of Bollocks is moderately proud to present:
Dr Yobbo's Festival of Festiness 2000-05
Livid, October 2000, RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Headliners: The Cure, No Doubt, Green Day, Dandy Warhols, Lou Reed, Boss Hog, Muse and all the usual Aussie acts - the Spoon, the Gurge, the End, the Dirt, the Jar, the Kate, the Days (all 28 of them) et al.
Crew: A cast of thousands to numerous to mention at this particular juncture. (Translation: too munted to remember.)
Memorable for: Mel (the same) flying up to see musty old Robert Smith wobbling around for his pension cheque, as did every Goth in south-eastern Queensland. Which was great because it was the best part of forty degrees, 99.9% humidity, and there were forty-four thousand sweaty punters packed into that motherfucker; there's few things funnier than watching Goths melt in the sun. More liquefied mascara than a Kiss Army funeral procession. The locals rocked; No Doubt sucked; Boss Hog's Jon Spencer tried to bang his missus on stage at two in the afternoon; Quan from the Gurge busted out his hybrid '80s keyboard/axe while the kids bellowed the chorus of
I Will Lick Your Arsehole; the Dandys gave a heartfelt shout-out to the appreciable quality of the local skunk; and a good time was had by all. Particularly our Mel who we basically had to scrape off the concrete at closing time, having successfully consumed all the fun tablets she'd smuggled on the plane from Sin City in a jar of Vegemite. Apparently yeast extract fucks with sniffer dogs' skills. Don't say we're not forthcoming with the handy household hints, kids.
Livid, October 2001, RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Headliners: Fuck all really. Butthole Surfers, anyone? Rollins Band? Stereo MCs? Surprise surprise, no fuckers turned up.
Crew: Condensed operations team of Yobbo, Dr and Moffatt, T.M.D.
Memorable for: After the queues, crushes and aggro of Goth Invasion Livid the previous year, the chorus went up: 'Not a fuck are we going to that bastard again, etc.' But long-term colleague in league Agent Moff scored half-price tickets on Livid Eve and phoned your correspondent to mobilise operations. The result was one of the most unexpectedly fun festies I've had the pleasure of attending. No queues, no lineups, no crushes, no aggro. Largely because there was no crowd. But beers, burgers and slashes required no lining up; there was no pressure to get in the gate ASAP and stay until closing, having only paid fifty bucks a head to get in; it was a piece of piss to get front-and-centre at any set you chose; and the depth of Strayan Music shone through - best in show included Eskimo Joe, Even, the Superjebus (though neither of us even believed in Jebus, we certainly believed in Sarah McLeod), the End, the Gurge and the Cruel Sea, though Tex had clearly taken a set against the dude mishandling the front-of-house (either that or he was off chops on blow, probably a little from columns A and B inclusive) and kept hitting his microphone against things, like the floor from five feet up.
Homebake, December 2001, The Domain, Sydney
Headliners: Hoodoo Gurus making their (first) big comeback; You Am I, Kate, Joe, Jebus, JBT, MGF, TISM and a cast of acronyms too numerous to mention at this or subsequent junctures.
Crew: Dr Yobbo and Captain Stupidity, recently retired from his crimefighting superhero career and having hung up the Purple Jocks Of Justice for good. Mel might have been there. Or not. Can't remember.
Memorable for: First interstate festy mission, partnered by the Captain aboard the Brown Hornet. For two long-term Gurus fans the sales pitch wasn't a tricky one - being a long-term stoner (and we ain't talking Casey), the Captain was also amped at the prospect of catching Skunkhour's final ever show. Sound bleed between stages was ridiculous; Your Correspondent was rank with flu and it drizzled half the day, but even so it was All Good. Best in show went to the old bastards - TISM, You Am I, and above all the Gurus - but the biggest shout-out went to the organisers for getting Tooheys to do the beer catering, making it a VB free zone. Give that man a New. Or even an Old, which was novel.
Big Day Out, January 2002, Gold Coast Parklands
Headliners: Imports - The Prodigy, Garbage, New Order, System Of A Down, The Crystal Method, Alien Ant Farm (who they?) and a young and emergent White Stripes. Locals - Chair, Gurge, Spoon, Kate, Bait, Dirt, Joe, the Vines and Shihad. (Well, judging by the number of cunts cheering for the ABs at the Bledisloe game in Melbourne, Kiwis count as locals.)
Crew: Agent Moff and assorted drunks, myself and Dawso inclusive. Mystic Meg was also in attendance, though through no fault of mine as we weren't dating yet; the bulk order Rohypnol hadn't turned up at Chateau Dodgy as of yet.
Memorable for: The utter, utter shitness of the venue. High thirties centigrade, baking westerly strafing dog-track grit into everyone's eyes, no shade to speak of outside the big top and the 'doof tent' (copyright TMD 2002-07) - BDO Goldie '02 set the tone for all Parklands BDOs to follow, as events you attended in spite of the location rather than because of it. With the Dropping Off The Twig of one teenage punter in the Limp Bizkit mosh at the previous year's BDO, this was the first year of the infamous D-barrier, which typically saw bands playing dolefully to sparse/empty crowds at front of stage within the 'D', with punters smearing themselves against the outside of the 'D' and doing themselves precisely the same amount of damage they would have done had security just fucked the metalwork project off entirely. I blame the crush at Garbage (yes, people wanted to go and see Garbage) for preventing me seeing the White Stripes' apparently legendary set (legendary according to labmate Loffinator, fellow PhD waster-of-twenties and flatmate of my future girlfriend, who'd been in the squishy confines of the Stripes' tent.) Best in show: the Monarchs, high-octane side project of Brad Shepherd (Gurus) who dealt a belt of the rock and the roll to a fair turnout of true believers. Go down to the obscure corner of JB Hi Fi and buy
Make Yer Own Fun. Now.
Livid, October 2002, RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Headliners: Powderfinger, Oasis, Spoon, Kate, JBT, MGF and a bunch of others which I'm trying to read off the stubbie holder which is insulating my hand from the arctic Speights to starboard.
Crew: Mystic Meg, Agent Moff, The Captain and Tennille (sorry, Dawso). The Captain established a new annual tradition of showing up halfway through the fucking afternoon and missing half the bands he wanted to go see.
Memorable for: Being just about the best festy I've had the pleasure of attending, along with 'Bake '03. This was the first (and sadly the second-last) of the 'One Day Series' Livids which traversed the eastern seaboard in order to give the promoters enough critical mass to book a decent enough lineup to attract the punters (c.f. Livid 2001.) Cue Oasis and the Finger (previewing all that wonderfully and atypically hairy-arsed
rawwk from their upcoming Vulture Street CD) who were both fucking tops to close the night. As we left, in a moment of madness, drained by the day and with far too many beers under the belt, Dawso suggested we go see The Streets. Thankfully we managed to beat that sentiment out of him before it took hold. Best in show went to a little-known Kiwi band called the D4, who introduced themselves to an Australian audience by playing a thunderous set which could peel eyeballs at twenty paces, frosted by guitarist Dion scaling the main support pylon inside the Big Top, looping an elbow through the scaffolding and soloing while hanging off by one arm. A true two-fisted-metal-salute moment. The impact of said set can be summated concisely: next day was Bathurst Sunday; your correspondent risked missing race start in order to mission into the Brisbane CBD and rifle through the only music shops open for trading in the city to get hold of their CD
6Twenty as soon as physically possible.
Bit pissed off I missed the Stalkers' set though.
Homebake, December 2002, The Domain, Sydney 
Headliners: Alex Lloyd (actually he played most of the above as well, but I've ignored him so far - serves him right for his great one-hit-wonder getting turned into a Ford Territory commercial), Radio Birdman (the second annual Homebake Old Bastard Band Reunion Show), Grinspoon, Kasey Chambers (no, I don't know why either), Jebediah, You Am I and some band listed as 'Pacifier (AKA Shihad)' - thank Christ that little experiment died in the arse soon enough.
Crew: Comprised of myself, Dawso and the Captain. I know Mel joined us for one of these but not sure whether it was '01 or '02 - it was definitely one of the 'Phil' Homebakes though. I have a clear memory of Phil haggling an E out of her for purely medicinal purposes (he claimed he'd overdone his daily dosage of Valium and was merely equilibriating his neurochemistry to appropriate levels).
Memorable for: The support acts, primarily. Being a new and fervent disciple of the Church of D4 I pestered the lads until they surrendered and came to watch their set; the Captain recommended sticking around to see Rocket Science and I owe the gentleman a debt of gratitude for that, as they were in fine form and at the peak of their powers in that and subsequent years (at least until Roman Tucker banged his head and forgot who he was, let alone how to write decent tunes.) And of course, Homebake is often the festy where young, upcoming bands get their first big show. On cue, first act of the day on the back stage, an unknown Victorian band called Jet. Not that we saw them play of course - we were having a beer in town while the ludicrous entry queues fucked off.
Big Day Out, January 2003, Gold Coast Parklands 
Headliners: Foo Fighters, Jane's Addiction, Queens Of The Stone Age, Millencolin, Deftones, PJ Harvey, Kraftwerk and Underworld for all those reliving the '80s, Xzibit (long before the idea of pimping one's ride became fashionable) plus the usual Strayan mixed grill, including the then-uber-fashionable Vines, who got in a punchup with Preshrunk when the latter attempted to smash their gear to prevent them going onstage and defecating in everyone's eardrums (more anon.)
Crew: Various Goldie types plus Mystic Meg - which while obviously fantastic, did put an dampener on the six-festies-old traditional perve-o-rama that was half the point of going to festies in the first place.
Memorable for: Being the first festy I'd shared with my future life partner. Awww. Soppy stuff out of the way. And so much for 'never again are we going to go to that fucking windblown dustbowl at Parklands'; BDO, not for the first time and not for the last, simply put on too many good acts in one place at one time to drown out the argument against. You can't argue with the Foos and that lot on one bill. So we didn't. Handy hint: don't wear contacts to Parklands BDOs. Best in show: the Foos, the D4 and the Frenzal Rhombs, who played so early in proceedings half the crews were still unpacking crates from Auckland, but did manage to air the first public performance of the greatest song ever written,
Russell Crowe's Band Is A Fucking Pile Of Shit. Speaking of which - worst in show: the Vines, pursued by daylight and lots of. I could scarcely believe a band could play any worse than that and still be recognisable as music, and yet the eejit teenyboppers in the front row just screamed on. We said 'Bollocks to this' and fucked off to watch You Am I, who were Sound As Ever. Tim Rogers even offered his own handy hints in terms of relationship advice: "Girls, don't trust guys. Guys are cunts."
Livid, October 2003, RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane 
Headliners: The White Stripes, Jurassic 5, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Frenzal Rhomb, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pacifier, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and the End that was and indeed is still Living. And Linkin Park. No, I've got no fucking idea why either.
Crew: The Captain (who turned up just in time to miss both Pacifier and Rocket Science), probably Moff, probably Mrs Moff, probably Dawso - it's all getting a bit fuzzy by now.
Memorable for: The best of all the major festivals ended forever (apparently) on October 18, 2003. Personally I blame the M1 festival - that corporate rock spankfest which Triple M ran in competition to the Livid 'One Day Series' along the eastern seaboard - but the roots of the problem dated back to debt carried over from that misfiring 2001 festival where only half the budgeted punters showed. So this was the last of the best, if not the best of the last (if that makes any sense). Best in show of the last of the best were the White Stripes, who busted out a deafening set which defies description, so I won't bother. The Captain missed two great sets from the 'Fier and the Rocket Scientists, though we only wished we'd missed the set from the Black Rebel MCs who sounded like they were four foot underwater gargling potting mix. And, surprisingly, Frenzals put in an average shift, spending more time bantering dishumourously with their 'Australian Fuckwit' judging panel then actually playing their fucking instruments. Still, that venue outflanks any other in the land, whether for Livid, the National Festival of Beers (also sadly goneski) or anything else. RIP Livid, 1988-2003.
Homebake, December 2003, The Domain, Sydney 
Headliners: Nick Cave, The Vines, Something For Kate (hopefully Prozac as she's a gloomy whinging bitch), John Butler and his Trio, 1200 Techniques, Frenzals, the Notsosuperjesus (having lost two lead songwriter-guitarists in the space of a year) and the Church, sweatin' for the oldies.
Crew: Mr and Mrs Moff co-helmed Elvis along with your correspondent for the road trip down (epic enough in itself), joined on the day by Dawso and Kurt, plus the infamous Grotboy, sibling to your correspondent.
Memorable for: That fucking hilarious road trip. Best summated by a bumper sticker seen on the back of a truck somewhere on the F3: 'if you can't stop, at least smile as you go under.' As for the festival itself - let's be charitable and call it Best Fest Ever. Probably as much for the crew as for the bands, but this was great entertainment from the get-go. Best in show: the Casanovas - another case of Dr Yobbo getting obsessive about a new rock band (having seen them with Mr Bell and the Challenger at the Waterloo in Brisbane, blowing headliners the Donnas off the stage by a score of 2 to 1 - Challen was the dissenting voter because he had the hots for the drummer) and dragging everyone along to watch them kick arse, which they most kindly did for everyone's entertainment. Later in the night, with drizzle descending and the Vines droning through another hideous trainwreck of a set, and yours truly moping about with a heavy heart for the future of Strayan music (if shit like this can be misconstrued as a Good Live Show), I reluctantly wandered over the back to see if Frenzals were going to be as 'av' as at Livid. Their first act was to publically apologise for talking so much bollocks at their Livid shows and not playing any songs; their second act was to promise to shut up and play some fucking punk rock, and their third and subsequent act was to do exactly that. Including but not limited to some of the coolest, obscurest shit that they never, ever play live that only a Rhomb tragic would appreciate. I appreciated, the Rhomb were rehabilitated, and everyone went home happy. To start drinking all over again next day. OHHhhhhh my head.
Big Day Out, January 2004, Sydney Olympic Park
Headliners: Metallica, The Dandy Warhols, Muse, the Mars Volta (must have been a lot of drug-fucked cunts on the band selection panel that year), Jet, the Hoodoo Gurus, Black Eyed Peas, The Darkness, The Datsuns, The Flaming Lips, Kings of Leon, The Strokes, etcetera, etcetera
Crew: Me and Megs. BDO ticket was her Xmas present. Not mine, hers. I'm such a dick.
Memorable for: Those BDO bastards pulled their old stunt again: 'We know Parklands is shit but you just try and stop yourself turning up with THAT lineup kiddo...' So we just went to Sydney BDO instead. This was the year that Sydney ran two BDOs back to back - needless to say we were at the second one, which sold out in not quite as ludicrously quick time. And needless to say, the new Sydney Showgrounds shat all over Parklands from a great height - from the ease of getting to and from (notwithstanding the sniffer dogs) to the permanent bar facilities, well-set-up performance sites, and noticeable lack of trotting-track grit up the nose by the end of the day's play. Best in show: Jet, the only big act to underpromise and overdeliver. The Gurus and Datsuns were good, but I'd seen them play better elsewhere; the Darkness' main success was in encouraging girls perched on their boyfriends' shoulders to get their tits out; the Kings of Leon were OK but had to follow Jet so that was them munted; Metallica were fucking turgid and the Dandy Warhols had clearly figured out some way to get stuff past the sniffer dogs because they were royally off-chops and sloppier than Lara Bingle. Like all BDOs I'd seen to date, this one somehow amounted to less than the sum of its parts; good, but not great.
Splendour in the Grass, July 2004, Belongil Fields, Byron Bay 
Headliners: Franz Ferdinand, PJ Harvey, the Spoon, the Bait, the Dissociatives (aka two talentless cunts with an overinflated opinion of their own worth, Daniel Johns and Paul Mac), Jurassic 5, Electric Six, Snow Patrol, Eskimo Joe, Rocket Science, Ash, and in pensioner-related news, the surviving members of the MC5.
Crew: Day one - me plus the Moffs; Day two - me plus the Dutchies (Annemiek and Tjarco). I think the Famous Nev was involved somewhere in there as well.
Memorable for: And now for something not quite completely different. Facing into a Lividless future, we decided to check out Splendour, Byron's two-day midwinter mayhem. Best in show: the Spoon, from just down the road in Lismore; Electric Six, who followed up on their threat to start a nuclear war on the dance floor; and the Bait had their their awesome
Tonight Alright set to power through. Just like the Dandy Warhols at Livid 2000 during
Bohemian Like You, Franz Ferdinand's tent got awful busy for the duration of
Take Me Out (though not so much before or after) proving that everyone loves a one-hit wonder. The MC5, with Evan Dando and Tex Perkins alternating on lead vocals, were a bit old-school for the Triple J punks in the crowd but I liked 'em. I was retro since back in the day. Snow Patrol were arse, Eskimo Joe were showing off their new direction (i.e. away from the upbeat stuff that made them popular in the first place, which they were pompously refusing to ever play again) which was equally arse, and Roman had just recovered from hitting his head so it was pretty close to lights out for Rocket Science. Still, Splendour kicked bot-bot. It wasn't Livid at the Ekka Grounds, but then again, it wasn't BDO at fuckin' Parklands. And the Heineken-fuelled mission down there on the Sat was worth the price of admission alone - resulting in one festy-related beanie I
have managed to hang onto.
Homebake, December 2004, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel 
Headliners: Jet, Spiderbait, Grinspoon, Regurgitator, Rocket Science, Missy Higgins, Eskimo Joe, former Reds reserve centre Peter Murray, the D4, End of Fashion, Kasey Chambers (again, still not sure why) and some lot called Wolfmother opening on the back stage, not that I got to see them because the security cunts only had two people on the gate and it took fucking ages to get in, fuck them all with a bent stick
Crew: The Doctors Yobbo, and reprising their roles from Homebake Road Trip 2003, the Moffs. Flew down this time but. Kinda foreshortened the fun, but we had jobs to do.
Memorable for: Not being quite as epic as the previous year. Probably because we had far too much to drink the previous night and were carrying it all through the next day - to the point where we couldn't be arsed staying for Jet's show-closing set as (a) we were fucked and (b) we'd already seen them twice in the past year. Best in show - I'd go for the Gurge, who were out of their self-imposed Bubble and were cranking through the good stuff. The Band In The Bubble was a worthy experiment; pity it sent Jabba mad, but he got his shit together eventually. All the acts you'd expect to fucking rock, did so (the D4 et al); even sore-head Roman Tucker managed to figure out the Scientific plans for his Rocket.
Big Day Out, January 2005, Gold Coast Parklands
Headliners: As usual, lots - wouldn't have fucking gone otherwise hey? Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, System Of A Down, and a bunch of bands I actually
wanted to see - the Donnas, the Hives, Blues Explosion, Powderfinger, Grinspoon, JBT, Regurgitator, The D4, Frenzal Rhomb, The Mess Hall, Dallas Crane, Spiderbait and Wolfmother
Crew: Myself, Grotboy and his band of no-goods
Memorable for: Being made an offer I couldn't refuse by the BDO organisers. That lineup constituted pretty much every band I was hanging out to see at that moment in four-dimensional spacetime. So even though it was Parklands - dusty, gritty, shitty Parklands - I bought myself a ticket. (And Ben, since it was Christmas.) The fact that Megs and I were leaving the country in a few weeks to move to NZ did probably factor into the equation somewhat; if this was going to be my last Big Festy on Strayan soil it may as well have been a good one. And given that Ben and I have not a lot of common musical ground (and that he and his mates were all over the place like Britney's underpants) this was the first festy I've had where I could just wander around solo and watch the bands I wanted to in my own time and space. Best in show: everyone. But particularly Wolfmother, who packed out that same tent which the White Stripes had filled to overflowing a few years before, and gained a lot of new friends. They were decent - wonder whatever happened to those guys? The Donnas were great - Challen was wrong though, it was the guitarist who was the hot one - and the Hives were great fun, battling the intense Gold Coast sunshine in monochrome suits and ties while their mad lead singer Howlin' Pelle channelled late-sixties Mick Jagger in a way that couldn't fail to amuse. And Frenzal, soon to head into semi-retirement with their front pair having to haul their arses out of bed at five to get to Ultimo for work, cranked through a retro set that did ten years of effort suitable justice. For a Parklands BDO - and I hesitate to say this - it was actually pretty fucking kick-arse. And for a farewell to festies for yours truly, likewise.
Since then, while spacially and temporally disconnected, I've also been musically disconnected from the Australian festivals. The NZ music scene is remarkably independent of that across the ditch - traditional festy stalwards the Bait, the Gurge, the End, the Spoon, and the You Are Him are barely recognised over here; Jet, Wolfmother and the Finger are heard of, but not oft heard-from. There's no J's and no Triple J equivalent, and the most prominent 'alternative' or 'student' bands are the reggae-dub outfits like Fat Freddy's Drop or Katchafire (who seem to play Otago O-Week every fucking year.) And to be honest, the lineups for BDO, Splendour and Homebake over the past few years haven't left me envious, nor have they compelled me to want to jump on Freedomair.com (after first jumping on eBay to get a ticket, as now seems compulsory - t'weren't like that in mah dey, m'lad.) Tool? The Killers? The latest insubstantial iteration of Silverchair? Nah I'm good. Cheers but.
Until now. That Splendour lineup... admittedly, it's not brilliant, but it ain't bad either. Sure Lily Allen is just Mike Skinner in a wig and Powderfinger's new album is weaker than American beer, and the Bloc Party make me want to cave my own face in with a shovel. But... it's Splendour. Two days of drinking in a field. And the Spoon are playing, they never fail their loyal local audience, even if Phil Jamieson's still smoking P and ain't all right. And Hilltops are usually a good live show, even if (like me) you think Aussie hip-hop is what you do when you're barefoot on bindi-eyes. The Arctic Monkeys would be worth a watch, likewise the Kaiser Chiefs (though I prefer the Orlando Pirates if we're going to have a serious discussion about South African club football... oh we aren't. Sorry.) OK Go look like fun and their album's pretty decent. The Cat Empire still have one good song in them - pity they've just been doing variations on it for the past four years, but at least 'Hhhello hhhello' allows one to gob on other punters indiscriminately without recrimination, if that's what you're into. And then there's Ash (as per Splendour '04), the Bait busting out some nu shite (ditto), the Gurus on another comeback, that AC/DC cover band Airbourne who all the record company A&R people have been spanking themselves silly over, and a whole bunch of 'The' bands who I vaguely know to be 'So Hot Right Now' but couldn't pick from a lineup if they were wearing matching fluorescent Hypercolor T-shirts, like the Klaxons, the Panics, the Shins and the Horrors. Always important to judge for oneself what all the the fuss is about...
Half your luck, Appleby. And whether it's Splendour, BDO, the Falls or the Bake, have a good one, festy punters everywhere. May the beer queues be with you.
The Doctor is OUT.
PS After all that self-indulgent navel-gazing about the symbolism of the lost [V] beanie signifying lost (or misspent) youth... found it down the back of the driver's seat in the Astra. And having said all of the above, I'm not entirely sure it's fair to say my twenties were 'lost' - I'm beginning to think they were occupied just about as usefully as anyone could hope.
Thank you and good night.
Powderfinger, Dream Days At The Hotel Existence
The Have, Back To The Burning Wreck
Crowded House, Time On Earth
John Butler Trio, Grand National
The White Stripes, Icky Thump
The Fratellis, Costello Music
Guitar Wolf, Jet Generation (1999)
Iggy And The Stooges, Raw Power (1973, remixed by Iggy 1997)
The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious (2000)
