Big Day Out 2014 blog

The Wireless is reporting live from the Big Day Out, as the festival returns to Auckland after a one year hiatus. Music 101 producers Sam Wicks and Nick Atkinson, and The Wireless contributor Joe Nunweek will be updating as events unfold at Western Springs.

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Tomorrow The Wireless will feature a wrap of the Big Day Out and tune in to Music 101 in the afternoon for a Big Day Out special.

12.20am: Hey! There's Lorde! - Joe Nunweek

"Auckland! Y'all brought it so hard you broke the Big Day Out!"

NZHerald.co.nz tipped it early - Lorde was on stage! We were actually wondering about this the day before in Wireless HQ, where it was resolved that she was meant to do Laneway originally and this would break all the rules. Honour amongst thieves, you know? But it's a "sort of" appearance, where Walshy Fire and Diplo drew Mac Miller on stage to join them in an extended, messy dance session. Mac Miller was knocking it back; L was not. Would have been great if she did Get Free but we got by with canned Amber Coffmann.

Canned Amber C twice, in fact. A few seconds in, BDO suffered a catastrophic breakdown at the Aroha stage and we were momentarily shrouded in darkness, not that the happy crowd noticed in what was a pretty stop and start affair anyway. The first half of the set felt like a kaleidoscope of Diploisms - a dancehall Royals, trap dense as a blastbeat, whichever Yeah Yeah Yeahs song he remixed last time around. I drew in closer and closer for a new song that was almost straight, trilling Studio One stuff before Pon De Floor got a 16-car pileup into the side of the Breathe by Prodigy, who I'm reasonably sure closed out the BDO dancefloor themselves, many ages ago, Confetti fireworks, a lazer show (duh), and the sight of hundreds of shirts cast aloft at Diplo's insistence. After the stage faded to black, we were implored to get home safe so we could make it to next year's. Cocksure, but well-deserved.

10.20pm: What's his name again? - Joe Nunweek

Snoop Dogg was tipped to be playing as Snoop Dogg last night and Snoop Lion here. Whatever the man's called as of this moment, he'd had a change of heart. The Snoop Lion presence tonight was limited to a huge garish Jamaican flag logo and a denouement where the DJ literally pressed play on Jammin’ and everyone walked off stage.

This is a good analogy for an hour with the man who perfected total zoned out ennui as art 20 years ago. Dude moves, speaks, even yells with the most complete torpor. You cannot parody Snoop, though plenty of people embarrass themselves trying. 

But how much lazy is too lazy? The hits come thick and full - but then we're treated to what's a full quarter hour of karaoke. Who remembers Biggie Smalls? Who remembers Tupac? Who remembers ... House of Pain!? For a moment I wonder if over at Pearl Jam Eddie Vedder is treating the crowd to rounds of Nirvana and Alice In Chains. "Who remembers Layne Staley?"

Pretty good set, pretty good highlights. Wish it hadn't ended with a rousing ringtone singalong of Wiz Khalifa's Young, Wild and Free.

10.05pm: Down at Chow Town - Joe Nunweek

I'm going to Chow Town on the proviso that the Big Day Out hasn't tried to put all the patrons' money where their mouth is. Dammit, alarming and undateable festival food is a human right, and so there's an abundance of tallow-yellow chips in paper flasks, and a hot mini donut stand with fake police sirens. Knowing that tradition is secure, I can go partake from Baduzzi, Mexico, the Blue Breeze Inn and any number of Ponsonby/CBD eateries.

Some said on Twitter before that BDO has too many queues! The memory cheats! I've been too about seven BDOs before this one where queuing for food wasn't completely horrible. I went at literal dinnertime and was feeding my face in five minutes.

I made a one-handed dive into Baduzzi's pulled pork muffuletta (one hand is still shaking my phone for remaining battery and 3G). It was the best and freshest thing I'd eaten at a music festival - ever. Even the focaccia, which you just kind of expect to be stale as par for the course at any kind of stall, was tops. I must have looked like the poor pig I was eating.

9.35pm: Arcade Fire don't disappoint - Joe Nunweek

Arcade Fire are, I think, my mum and dad's favourite new band of the past ten years. Thing is, they're probably the favourite band of the last ten years for plenty of people my age and younger. If it's true that they're a pastiche of some constant rock crit touchstones - Talking Heads, Springsteen, New Order, Neil Young - then they're doing it with proficiency and wit. I think they're great. And live, they don't disappoint.

They're total maximalists of course. They're incorrigible. There's about five percussionists at any given time, huge papier-mâché heads, and confetti cannons. And that's not counting the songs themselves. Not all of the band's “state of the youth” anthems fire, but for this 70 minute set, they've essentially distilled the ones that do, creating a nice unity of motifs and purpose. Kids, ‘burbs, religion, death. Win Butler figuratively and literally sweats the small stuff, casting his giant six-odd-foot frame around the stage, caterwauling and riffing on Blur's Song 2 for one acrid moment amid the cheer. 

Stuff this size is always going to show creaks, and a couple of numbers see roadies rush on to turn things up and rescue the song. The new album material, freshly rehearsed, is yet to fully sing. But I loved it. They're a band I've wanted to see for a decade, and it's a chapter closed.

6.19pm: A few words with CSS - Nick Atkinson

Brazilian guitarists Carolina Parra and Ana Rezende are celebrating 10 years in the business with their wild Sau Paulo born four-piece CSS. The band have been to Auckland often enough to have favourite cafes and sushi joints. It's their fifth visit for today's Big Day Out and they're both beaming in the shade amongst the wondering mallards and pukekos. 

After growing up on a steady diet of local punk the pair are incorporating some of the more typically Brazilian rhythms into their sound. It's almost inevitable as the ever present samba proves inescapable in their hometown mega city. Like her band mates Ana kicked up against her Portugeuse parents more traditional tastes. Carolina has Italian heritage and lead singer Lovefoxxx brings her German roots to a party that also incorporates Jamaican and African meters.

The band are preparing to rock the Lakeside Stage and they've developed a pre-gig ritual that's moved on from a habit of listening to dance music before strapping on their instruments. Now Carolina and Lovefoxxx have tea. Licorice is the preferred flavour. Ana likes a beer before they get together and talk for a few minutes. 

Eventually, they'll put their hands together like a volleyball team and the formalities reach their conclusion as they chant the word "vagina" over and over again as loudly as possible. 

Carolina tells me that the producer of their most recent album Planta, TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek, reckoned the group used the word vagina more than anyone he'd ever met. It reminded me of a posse of boys constantly referring to their junk. This band of Sau Paulo musicians are a supremely joyous gang and they'll ruffle a few feathers down by the Lakeside where Ladi 6 and P Money have just lit up the crowd. For P Money Western Springs is basically home turf. 

Time to check out Arcade Fire! This venue is the nuts!

6.13pm: Man behind the mask - Joe Nunweek

I just spoke to A Nameless Ghoul of metal band Ghost. No mask right now, so no photographs please. 

Like so many metallers he's considered, courteous, and friendly. He describes the tension between wanting to be "another guy with a amp in a tee shirt" and the group's urge to put on a show that comes close to a ersatz (but very tongue in cheek) religious experience. 

"I don't think we're here to save metal," he concedes. "That's something that means too many things to too many different people for us to claim that". 

The first big influence on Ghost? Star Wars. "We pictured the Emperor Palpatine - the semi-human but monstrous face - with his masked army behind him. Every kid wants to grow up to be a stormtrooper".

5.02pm: The immensely talented Ladi 6 - Joe Nunweek

Ladi 6, who's got a relatively high billing that's totally deserved, is where I’m at. R&B (and hip hop in general, arguably) at the BDO has relied on good turns by the NZ contingent. It's terrifying and gratifying to imagine the same timeslots at the Australian ones - if you've ever heard Australian rap music (Hilltop Hoods, etc) you will feel me.

Her live show is just wonderful, by the way. She's got a twitchy, off-kilter presence, like someone half-cut dancing with their mates in the kitchen or in front of a bathroom mirror. If this sounds like faint praise, it's absolutely not - dropping the artifice and being an immensely talented goof on stage is one of the hardest but most generous things for a performer to accomplish. It brings out an ease in the fans, and the result is one of the best vibes I've ever felt at a festival. 

It's all really “Auckland” as well - that rare moment when we get this fluid, easy identity we're often too neurotic to let out. Amazing vocoder funk screams to close, just superb. If there's a utility to live blogging something other people can't see it's this - go see Ladi 6.

4.09pm: At the Metro tent - Joe Nunweek

Checking out Metro magazine's pop up, it’s effectively the thespy/literary Lilypad - like the quiet port in a storm. Are the same people who thrilled to Puppetry Of The Penis a decade ago into the future of journalism? I hope so, because Steve Braunias is currently going HAM against the state of the print nation. Up for singular attack: Rip It Up magazine. Noelle McCarthy MCing, Duncan Greive chipping in.

 

 

3.58pm: The Naked and Famous return - Joe Nunweek

Time has been pretty kind to The Naked and Famous, who did a whole lot of unorthodox things like charge $20 for their first gig and make impeccably hip and well-judged singles that mapped themselves onto the indie bangers of the time (the Silver Scroll winning Young Blood is like a less aggravating Passion Pit, All Of This is LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends without the thematic baggage). We've seen Kimbra and Lorde take similarly adroit paths to the big time, so they're not an outlier anymore.

This is their emphatic return to the New Zealand festival circuit, but mainly when they're sticking to the reliable gold of their debut. It feels like they're still feeling their way around their difficult second album live, with moments of imposed hard rock strut alongside atmospheric moodiness, the sound of an act both reaching out and resiling from being mega pop music. The end result feels a little tentative, but they warm up fast and the crowd response warms with it. 

The vibe here is very good overall. I just hung out with a bunch of gangly Christchurch teens who are up solely for today. They're excited for Mac Miller and Pearl Jam, artists separated by at least two generations by my reckoning. The pilgrimage element of it is pretty important, something you lose sight of when you're in Auckland and local entertainment options are served to you on a platter. 

3.51pm: Kody Neilson and SJD - Nick Atkinson

Before SJD fire up Kody Neilson and his father Chris work through the former Mint Chicks' Devils repertoire. In the absence of the usual waterfowl that populate Western Springs, this set is as loose as a goose, in part because advertised brass and percussion player Kim Patterson is not in attendance. The man on tenor sax is clearly new to the ensemble. Chris’s superb muted trumpet playing atones in part for the chaotic arrangements and Kody is magnetic as ever as he punishes his drums and periodically yelps into a microphone. All the while SJD's backline is assembled.

The song Superman kicks off SJD's set showcasing the vocal firepower of Sandy Mill and Victoria Kelly with bass player Mike Hall also chipping in with backing vocals. They then leap straight into a brand new tune which is typical of Donnelly's new cannon, insofar as all of the new songs can be played unaccompanied on acoustic guitar. The set draws from his past recordings with highlights like Beautiful Haze and the rarely performed Southern Lights before letting guitarist James Duncan take flight on the brand new cut Helensville, about the moody and sometime gloomy town to the northwest of Auckland.

Julia Deans joins Sean onstage for another new tune, Little Pieces, and the band wrap it up with rollicking version of Tree People with Sandy again punchy singing lead vocals. Voila!

3.21pm: Meeting The Hives - Joe Nunweek

Just spoke to Howlin' Pelle Almqvist and Vigilante Carlstroem of The Hives. The band members can reveal ahead of their set that their impeccably coordinated costumes have been updated to a summer 2013/2014 season. For the Hives, this entails mariachi costumes.

Their stage crew are equally kitted out, albeit for stealth rather than style. I asked what it took to get on board. "Ten years of ninja jujitsu training, one week of learning to tune a guitar." That's me stuffed then.

You'll hear more from The Hives on Music 101 tomorrow. 

And I just saw the tailend of The 1975's set, which was tailored for maximum great grey Anglican melodrama. Pitched somewhere between The XX and Savage Garden, they hit a sweet spot between youth gateway angst and critical disbelief (compare to My Chemical Romance and Enter Shikari, two previous BDO highlights).

1.47pm: The young and the cautious - Joe Nunweek

Contrary some predictions based on the lineup, the BDO attendance is young, hip and impeccably turned out. It's hardly crowded here at this stage, though that might be the more spacious layout.

Tips on arrival:

- This year's layout is kind of a three leaf clover deal. There's a central nexus pointing you to both sets of big stages, and then the Lakeside, which will be your Boiler Room today. The map doesn't really demonstrate this well. Choose your own adventure when you come through the gate.

-   The D section is back for the stage which will be hosting Arcade Fire, Pearl Jam, and others.This time you're not allowed bags or backpacks inside. There's a cloakroom to the south, which you may want to get in on early.

The first hour has belonged to the locals. The Lakeside is still waiting to fill up a bit, and Randa's still at the stage where a personal, gritty and unselfconscious stage persona is at odds with opening slots in front of larger audiences. It's a pity the crowds are quite tame and cautious, but she's handling it with aplomb.

Elsewhere, of course Beastwars perform like they've played stages like this for decades. They instigate the first mosh of the day, and attract my kind of BDO fashion (stifling black Killing Joke shirts, 666 basketball singlets). I think this will go down as one of the better performances of the day. 

Villainy's altrock isn't quite my thing, but they're hyper competent, and obviously stoked to be here in the first place. Also some thought about how to get their sound right, which is a notch above the slightly murky Portugal. The Man set.

1.27pm: Warming up for SJD - Nick Atkinson

Sean Donnelly is one of our most prolific songwriters. In the past he's described himself as a "conduit" for songs, but more recently he worried that he was sometimes just a "blocked pipe". Today at the Big Day Out he's debuting new songs and a new band.

While his tried and tested "pipe unblockers" guitarist James Duncan and drummer Chris O'Connor are on stage, they're joined by Nightchoir's Mike Hall on bass and a couple of brilliant vocalists from another slumbering  Donnelly project called The Bellbirds. The esteemed tonsils of Sandy Mill and Victoria Kelly (fresh from a brief global sojourn with Neil Finn) will support Donnelly's new tunes and a few hits from his previous six albums.

Apart from the new songs it'll be wonderful to see Donnelly perform with a band again. The previous SJD ensemble of Dominic Blazer, Paul McClanney, Sandy Mill, James Duncan and Chris O'Connor was one of our more dexterous and dynamic local bands. Their instrument swapping adventures exploring Donnelly's roomy and always evolving tunes filled floors around the country, but the group's been all but dormant for the past three years as Sean retreated into a solo synth-pop cranny that formed his most recent Tate Prize winning album Elastic Wasteland. He performed that repertoire solo, barricaded by computers and key-boards, dressed in black wearing his trade-mark inky fedora.

We eagerly await his 2.35pm Big Day Out performance!

You can hear more about SJD's preparations for Big Day Out here:

12.48pm: In amongst it - Sam Wicks

Led Zeppelin. Bob Dylan. The Stones. Kiss. Natalie Umbruglia. They've all packed out Western Springs in years past (actually, Natalie's audience didn't make a dent - top show though). Now it's home to the Big Day Out, and Beastwars is currently consecrating hallowed ground with a mainstage performance, competing for punters with Prowler, playing over on the Tamaki stage. A soundclash to kick off Big Day Out 2014.

Nick and I are hunting for audio to turn around a BDO special for tomorrow's Music 101, so we bussed in early to get the lay of the land. The new site is a giant step up from BDO's old venue, Mt Smart Stadium. It's spitting distance from downtown Auckland, with plenty of green space and room to move - at least for now. We're going to get our bearings on this new site, then we'll be checking in through the day. See you in amongst it.

12.30pm: In the right place - Nick Atkinson

The Big Day Out's underway under beautiful, breezy blue skies and folks of all ages are streaming in. 

Prowler are first up with their feedback-laced guitar thrashing. Black jeans and t-shirts lope urgently towards the sound and the gig has begun.

The gourmet food outlets have been much lauded in the lead-up to the event, but stop the press - legendary downtown pie-cart The White Lady is here! Make mine a king burger! It's unusual to be consuming one of Auckland's delicacies during daylight hours as The White Lady is the ritual of the gig-goer once the shows finished and the bar's closed.

They say the stomach has a long memory and with that comforting thought I stroll to the Lake Side stage set near the actual Western Springs, a glorious, if shallow stretch of water that used to provide Auckland town with fresh water. The swans and geese have been usurped by Randa who puts the boot into her beats and rhymes, luxuriating in the grand setting of a large stage set in a tree lined field. Seeing this on such a cracker day makes you wish that past BDOs were held here. Fingers crossed this will be the first of many.

I'm still grinning after Snoop Dogg's brief and hit-packed show at the Power Station last night. That same set will light up the event later this evening at this supremely brilliant venue. It's far superior to Mt Smart Stadium.

Let's compare compare their respective neighbours. At Mt Smart you have car-yards and concrete surrounded by sweltering industrial estate. Here at Western Springs, Jordan Luck lives over the road and you only have to cross two streets to get to Che Fu's house.

The Big Day Out is home.

The night before: Joe Nunweek

It’s Big Day Eve as I write this! There’s still a heady dose of unreality from the Big Day Out’s well-orchestrated demise and return. It’s easy to forget that it’s only really skipped a year (and that it’s done this before). I’m still half-expecting Campbell Smith to come on stage singing Send In The Clowns before being joined by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bette Midler, and Tool.

The most novel change is already being felt. The show’s not being held on the industrial periphery anymore, and that meant workers, shoppers, joggers and celebrities as far afield as Ponsonby could hear Arcade Fire do their run-through on soundcheck. And it sounded really good, with a pristine and generous helping of stuff from The Suburbs and Funeral (the Big Day Out has never really been a proving ground for ‘difficult new albums’). This might be a bit of gamble, as it’s the first time this many people who are considering going tomorrow have been able to hear bits of it for free at their relative convenience. On the other hand, it’s a savvy last-minute advertisement – if sales needed an eleventh hour boost, this might help.

To look forward to, beyond the bands: Smith and others keep dropping cryptic hints about a “happening”, which generally denotes some form of organised chaos using a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers who are willing to endure makeup. At least one person in The Wireless’s extended network is applying zombie goo for the day. Chow Town, the designated food zone of the day, appears to be batting Silo Park leagues for fast-food aesthetics. Traditionalist that I am, I’m probably going to eat a battered hot dog and then flip the Food Truck. And I’ve heard that the Metro magazine pop-up tent is going to feature Russell Brown, Duncan Greive and Henry Oliver in conversation about Home Brew, which is bordering on price of admission territory.

Ones to watch: Beastwars, The 1975, Arcade Fire, Major Lazer, Snoop Dogg.

Ones to avoid: In all honesty I feel like I’ve grown out of getting really exercised about bands I don’t like, but I think we can all roundly agree that The Lumineers are The Enemy.

Check back for more from about midday.

And you can listen to stories in Radio New Zealand's Big Day Out archive.

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