Yesterday I attended the Sydney Big Day Out, and being there rammed two things home in a very strong manner:
1. Australia has a fracking harsh climate. We don’t do things in halves here, and the 43 degrees Celsius weather was testament to this fact.
2. Nothing makes me feel better than live music (well maybe one or two things, but that is not for the outside world to know)!
I went with the partner and my little sister and we met with random friends throughout the day. The event started with my sister having a panic/heat stress attack before we had even entered the gates, so she had to lay down for 10 minutes and drink all of our water supplies. Once we got in, we went to the big arena and I had a heat stress attack – I just could not cool down no matter how much water I drank and how much I fanned myself. The partner came up with the genius idea of heading to the water sprays which were at the entrance to the arena. Basically, I stood under them for 5 minutes and allowed my clothing to become soaked, which really helped a lot.
After two false starts, we actually got to see some bands! The stand out act was Muse. I have already seen them live twice (once at Big Day Out 3 or so years ago, and once at an indoor concert the night before said BDO) but they continue to blow my socks off with their precision and their epic sound. Matt Bellamy and his musical ability is as close as I will ever come to a religious experience – talk about sex on legs! If only he was a little taller 
We had the make the terrible decision between Muse and Peaches as they were on at the same time, but justified our choice by arguing that Peaches tours Australia regularly and she is cheaper to see at an individual show than Muse. I have seen her live before and she is spectacularly talented. I bought one of her shirts to show my solidarity and ongoing love for her crazy brand of music.
Other awesome acts were Girl Talk (so much fun), Kasabian, Groove Armada and Ladyhawke (for all you non-Aussie/Kiwis, check out our home-grown talent). Lily Allen was also in the mix, for curiosity reasons more than anything else. Her music is catchy but it isn’t something I would listen too at home for fun. She has a great voice live though, and she is super cute. We caught the end of Dizzee Rascal and Powderfinger which were both great. We also caught the start of Mars Volta which was amazing, and Midnight Juggernaughts which left a little to be desired. Overall though, the musical standard was awesome and we had a kick ass time!
At around 3pm a southerly change came through and brought pouring rain that cooled the dastardly weather down – it was delightful to say the least! We left around 11.30pm and got back home around 1.30am this morning, so I am a little vulnerable right now, but should be fine tomorrow. There weren’t too many incidents of dickheads asking me to kiss the flag or throwing beer cans at people of anything but Anglo-Saxon descent (a lot of Sydney BDO revelers have a reputation of being racist, bigoted asshats) so overall I would give this years BDO a big thumbs up! Oh, and how on earth could I forget to mention Cheese On A Stick? This gourmet treat is possibly my most favourite food in existence. Cheese, on a stick, deep fried in batter. Fuck yes. I am salivating thinking about it.
To learn of my past Big Day Out experiences and feelings towards them, read this post. It has pictures of Cheese On A Stick!
