Feel free, To feel free.
So we jetted into mount smart stadium fairly early on, managing to hear the back end of a very good Antagonist act and the entire Die! Die! Die! set, which was also very good, especially for an opener.
The next hour was full of Sarah freaking out over the crowd size/ and sound, and searching (eventually finding) earplugs and her family and then my first most wanted act came on, Anti Flag, they didn’t play rank-n-file as Mike and I had fantasized, but turncoat, one trillion dollars and the press corpse would have to do, they’re a band I’d prefer to see indoors, with a smaller crowd and a better tuned sound system, like NOFX and Pennywise in years gone past.
I meet up with the White Knight in the grandstand towards the end of their gig, and we headed in to see Tiki Taane, who was obviously having a stonker of a gig, because it was packed, so packed (and we are talking the green stage here) infact that I couldn’t manage to enjoy his set at all, I emptied two bottles of h2go, and Sarah disappeared for the rest of the day with Dianne. We wandered for a while checking out various things, the start of The Bleeders, the End of DJ Octagon and a bit of Spoon eventually making out way back to the main stages to catch a bloody good Grinspoon set, they really stood up and proved that they still have it.
Pluto nearly put me to sleep and at this time I had glued my buttocks to a seat high up in the grandstand, near the dastardly Superloop once again, this year was at least 5-10 degrees hotter than last year and I just didn’t have it in my to move about any more, the D pit was getting scary anyway, infact the entire sports field was accumulating for the huge evening acts, and the D pit was just swallowed up.
On came The Arcade Fire, who played a bulky set full of Neon Bible tracks, and probably the second best stage show of the entire day, yes I’ll get to the best stage show soon, but first of all I should mention Shihad, who, like Grinspoon, proved you don’t have to be fresh, or big in the states to send the crowd into a frenzy, if only the bothans organizing the show didn’t fuck it all up by throwing Bjork in right after them.
Nothing against Bjork mind you, As I said to Jason, Bjork can do and awesome gig or a shitty gig, no matter what shes going to have a fucking crazy sideshow, as it came to be, the entire crowd (who had just been surging to John Toogood) stopped and stared, and then fell asleep.
In Reality Bjork should have played before The Arcade Fire, so artisans who’d actually appreciate the gig could wander into the D and see her, instead you have the entire pit full of rock thirsty youths falling asleep on your hands, and the biggest act is about to walk out.
In short Bjork played a shit set (other than pulling Hyperballad out) but without a shadow of doubt, had the best stage show.
De La O’ talks to the Auckland crowd
Best all around would still have to go to Rage Against The Machine, the songs they pulled out are and always will be, timeless jewels in the crown of political activism, a kind of smart anger?
The set just rocked, Ive never seen the crowd move like that, Tool was insane last year, RATM blew it out of the water, crazy and intense.
It was really music everyone in the crowd (wither you spent the day checking out rock gigs like me, or checked out electronica and Hip Hop in the boiler room/ smaller stages) wanted to hear – knew the words too – were willing to go crazy about.
Thats the music post, one more B.D.O update to go, and that’ll be on my personal experiences/ complaints/ how to make it better next year, this post will have all the juicy info, from people powerchucking to how overpriced the beer is.
-Sunburnt and loving it
