Hard News: #BDOMemories
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
That's good to read.
Around these parts I see TV screens on walls beside lifts and in the headrests of taxi seats playing endless advertising (and nothing but advertising), ads trying to pretend they're really public service announcements in university toilets and once I put the car radio on to the traffic channel in the hope it might offer information on traffic conditions (which I thought was what it offered, considering how many signs it has around the road network advertising its frequency) only for my wife to yell at me to turn the bloody thing off cos it was nothing more than endless advertorial. At least Beijing Music Radio does actually play music (and quite a variety, and often really good) and very little DJ blether between its ads. My memory of NZ commercial radio has less variety and less good music, more DJ blether and the same amount of advertising. My last trip to NZ (Feb 2010) left me with the impression NZ TV is just as ad heavy as always (oh wait, remember when Sundays were ad free?). There's nothing wrong with either making money or advertising, but I do wish this modern world would allow us a bit more time and space away from the constant barrage of "Buy this!" and to simply enjoy ourselves.
Clearly I should spend more time at music festivals.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Tweet wasser...
Ah, but he did go to Sweetwaters that time.
I went to the first Ngaruawahia festival, Split Enz (Endz then), Blerta, Butler, Dragon, Fairport Convention and some heavy metal/rock band I forget (Black Sabbaff maybe?) - Earwig mag were producing a daily paper and I still have a scar where I cleverly burnt the end of my plastic wrist pass to stop it falling off, surprise, surprise, it dripped molten plastic on my arm- <DOH!>
Went to Sweetwaters twice - once with Toy Love as road crew and once when at Rip It Up, I wasn't going to go but when I realised I had a free ticket, a ride there and back, backstage pass and caravan to watch the cricket in, well... (or as the modern argot would have it - nek minnit!).
Mostly I remember the epic cricket game played between the backstage caravans, which even Talking Heads management couldn't stop, though at times the ball was replaced with members of the vegetable kingdom, players included 'Arry Ratbag, Doug Hood, Roger Shepherd, and many others, I'm pretty sure Russell was there - but I'm not gonna swear to anything this far beyond...
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Mostly I remember the epic cricket game played between the backstage caravans, which even Talking Heads management couldn’t stop, though at times the ball was replaced with members of the vegetable kingdom, players included ’Arry Ratbag, Doug Hood, Roger Shepherd, and many others, I’m pretty sure Russell was there – but I’m not gonna swear to anything this far beyond…
:- )Oh, I was definitely there for that. I have very fond memories of getting a demon delivery through the defences of Graham Cockroft of Netherworld Dancing Toys.
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Sacha, in reply to
If you don't like the guy's gig, don't fucking go to it. It's really that simple.
+1
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Russell Brown, in reply to
A couple of other memories from that Sweetwaters ...
1. Interviewing Jim Kerr in a caravan, and him being so coked-up it was a struggle to keep up.
2. Had sex. Also in a caravan.
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Jonathan Ganley, in reply to
The promised land. Backstage entrance, Sweetwaters. Caravan just out of shot.
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Jonathan Ganley, in reply to
There was mud, of course. But you had to go out of your way, right down to the edge of the Waikato, to find it.
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BDO True Story:
1996: One of my mates heard a promo on Bfm that said if your turned up to the gates and stripped off nude, they would let you in. So, he rocked up, and explained to the gate staff what the deal was. They hadn't heard of it, but agreed that if he took of all his clothes they would let him in. He got starkers and in he went.
Some other mates recognise a good thing and start taking their clothes off too.
Nek minnit, the cops turn up and threaten everyone with indecent exposure so they had to put their clothes back on. My mate was in and dressed at this point, so got in for free.
Nek minnit, the Bfm show turn up to promote the nude entry idea, only to be confronted by the cops.
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Anyway, enough of those black and white days … a few more #BDOmemories mostly from this decade … Being blown away by Soulwax, who appeared to tour with more guitars than Sonic Youth. The bloke from Wolfmother screaming “Gimme some LOVE!”. Aphex Twin, UNKLE, Afrika Bambaataa. Iggy & the Stooges, not once but twice. White Stripes, maybe better the first time. Finding that overlooked bar of Lindt 70% in my bag at 10pm. Kingsland Vinyl guy drops Jakob remix in the Boiler Room. MIA. Kora doing that ‘freeze’ thing. Drinking some quite good and strong coffees. James Hetfield: “Sing it to me, Auckland!”. The awfulness of the Hare Krishna foodstall last year. Billy TK Snr at the Lilypad. New Order playing ‘Ceremony’ and 'Transmission'. James Duncan playing “…of everyone around you” at midday as the sun beat down. David Kilgour, Dimmer, shivering cold watching the Clean at the Lilypad (1995?) …
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Crowd-pleaser, 2008.
It's gonna be hard to beat that one, Jackson.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
There was mud, of course. But you had to go out of your way, right down to the edge of the Waikato, to find it.
Is that Andrew Dickens?
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
A couple of other memories from that Sweetwaters ...
3. Steve Dab - hugely RIP - found the backstage booze tent. Went back with a stanley knife later that night and, slicing the canvas neatly, removed the management and media of the burden of having to drink it.
The image shows Steve with what may or may not be one of those cans in the company of Mark Newmatic and Rena Owen.
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I struggled in the one where it completely poured down after getting too cold.....but seeing the Jesus Lizard at 2 in the afternoon when the downpour started was amazing. Everyone cleared out and I found myself at the front of the stage for the only time in my BDO experiences.......he lost his wedding ring in the mud and someone found it 6 songs later. Superb.
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BDO also seems to have created a fair number of NZ fans overseas from various bands and their friends who heard about NZ because they had played at the BDO. Not so long ago (ok early '90's) travelling as a NZer the typical reference point was sports related people that they knew about from NZ.
More recently in the US I met some musicians who had played at the BDO and just loved being here. Indirectly BDO ran an unrecognised music based cultural exchange programme which is why so many bands actually like coming here.
Not so much Pure NZ but as the stories / memories show it was very much a 2 way exchange of goodwill.
Hats off to Lees & West - it is a very long time to be in the festival business and they went above and beyond in making sure NZ shared in the Aussie circuit.
I know a fair number of Aussies coming here for Homegrown in Wellington and BDO also gave a big hand up to many NZ bands here and in Oz that contributed to that and other festivals as it should.
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A criticism of the Big Day Out ...
It's never really done right by local hip hop. In part, that's simply because there physically wasn't a place for it: that benighted stage behind the Boiler Room was a terrible place to play.
But, to take this year as an example, they have @Peace playing at 11am in the tent. Whatever. The right call there would have been to give the Young, Gifted & Broke crew (@Peace, Home Brew, etc.) a late-afternoon slot on the alternative stage. They'd comfortably draw their own crowd and it would be memorable -- a lot of the best stuff on the #BDOMemories hashtag has been from local hip hop folks. They like a party and they deserved one.
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Although I prefer bands.music in smaller venues pubs, clubs, smaller arenas or theatres it is a shame BDO is gone - I hope "it" or something "like it" comes back - the Kids need to be able to rock..
The thing that put me off of "festivals" was the thowing of beer cans - it reached ridiculously dangerous extremes at Sweet Waters. Seeing The Angels guitar player bleeding profusely from a thrown can was more than bad - that he finished the show was remarkable.
Lou Reed played the Logan Campbell Centre and he had to stop the show and address the crowd to stop the can throwing.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
at times the ball was replaced with members of the vegetable kingdom
I seem to recall Ratbag sending down a watermelon.
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3410,
Iggy & the Stooges, not once but twice.
Yep, if you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be seeing more or less both the Raw Power Stooges and the Funhouse Stooges in Auckland, I'd not have believed it.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Lou Reed played the Logan Campbell Centre and he had to stop the show and address the crowd to stop the can throwing.
Wasn't that the town hall? 1977 or 78?
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Seeing The Angels guitar player bleeding profusely from a thrown can was more than bad - that he finished the show was remarkable.
I've got about 30 mins of The Screaming Meemees at Brown Trout Festival in Dannevirke, 83.
It would've been longer but Tony Drumm was hit hard by a flying beer bottle and we stopped the show. The culprit, a patched Mob member is clearly shown in the last seconds being targeted by the security. It then got uglier as we pulled the band off the stage as quickly as possible.
It was always an issue at many of the smaller festivals although mostly I don't remember it ever being a huge problem at Sweetwaters for most bands as the stage was simply too far from much of the crowd. Rather, it was an increasingly ugly crowd issue as hillsides pelted each in open warfare endlessly causing lots of blood and bruising.
The lighting towers were also primary targets.
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DexterX, in reply to
He also played Logan Campbell on the 19th Jan 1985 - the Chills were support. - we had eight tickets and two people didn't make it - we gave two tickets away, free, just before going into see Lou. I missed the Chills. Got there in a 1964 Morris Oxford that was overheating after doing a round trip, which involved the Bullock Track, picking up the other 5.
http://kiwiconcertdatearchive.blogspot.com/2011/07/lou-reed.html
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DexterX, in reply to
The Screaming Meemees
Do you remember the incident at the Takapuna Grammar School Ball or Dance??
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
He also played Logan Campbell on the 19th Jan 1985
I wasn't in NZ for that, but he also did the same show stopping trick in '77 (Oct 19th based on your link): he stopped the show, turned on the house lights, and insisted that the crowd behave before returning to the set.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Do you remember the incident at the Takapuna Grammar School Ball or Dance??
I was there and I do remember that there was something but the details escape me all these years later.
You'll need to remind me.
At the Kings Ball the band got in huge trouble for smuggling in girlfriends - I remember that one.
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At the Takapuna Ball, while the support band were playing, there were fisticuffs between hangers on back stage.
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