Live Review: Big Day Out

Ticket sales were down this year for the Big Day Out and the grounds felt a little empty early on, but with a killer line-up and reputation, what more could organisers do? In the Boiler Room Ben Morris, Big Gigantic and Rufus ripped it up in the early hours of the afternoon. Outside the weather spattered and blew but the Boiler Room was hot, sweaty, dirty and a whole lot of fun. Stunning visual displays played on the giant screens behind the acts, Flume playing with his decks sitting on a flashing, fluorescent pink cube as cartoon film clips accompanied his biggest hits.

Out of the Boiler Room, past the various stalls and tents selling all kinds of weird and wonderful shit was the Orange stage. DZ Deathrays produced a high energy set to open the festival. A few hours later Tame Impala graced the same stage with double the crowd and reception. The set was mostly Lonerism tracks, with a few thrown in from debut album, Innerspeaker. Elephant got a great response, but it was still their oldie, Half Glass Full Of Wine, which seemed to translate best, particularly with a noticeable tweak and rearrangement of band members' duties. Kevin Parker and the boys don't offer much in terms of stage shenanigans, only a wall of psychedelic music that washes over you and holds you right where you are until the set is over.

The Hives apologised for not being Blur with tongue in cheek and were typically energetic. Nothing was wrong with their set; they probably deserved a bigger reaction, but for some reason Sydney just wasn't feeling it. At one point Pelle Almqvist had to let them know how it works: “We play music and you clap; when we're done making noise you guys make noise.” He said it with a smile, and hardcore Hives fans loved him for it, but the folks who didn't know who The Hives were probably aren't going to be rushing out to buy CDs today. The Swedish garage rock gods smashed out a reliably awesome set, stopping only once to allow the audience to sing happy birthday to guitarist Niklas Almqvist.

Next door at the Blue stage Bluejuice opened with vigour and let everyone know they support gay marriage by way of a huge banner that provided the backdrop to their set. Next The Naked & Famous drew a massive crowd and deservedly. With each new song people were looking surprised, saying “I know this one!” These Kiwis have seeped into the minds of Australians and are obviously building a solid fanbase.

The JBL essential stage was full of hidden treasures. The Jungle Giants early, followed by sweet sounding Aussie larrikins Loon Lake – it's bloody impossible not to smile at a Loon Lake gig. Kingswood and, later, Vista Chino were solid, but it was the Red Stage that took the cake on Australia Day.

Violent Soho rocked hard early, hours before Covered In Chrome was announced as #14 in the Hottest 100 they blasted it, and given the reception it's amazing it wasn't higher in the list. Fuck religion and give us marijuana was basically the gist of all crowd banter, and as was written on many a Supré shirt that day, grunge is not dead. California pop rockers Grouplove were vocally amazing and their energy was sky high, the chemistry between singers Hannah Hooper and Christian Zucconi electrifying. Itchin' On A Photograph and Tongue Tied were the obvious crowd favourites in an exceptional set.

Mac Miller fired out a funny and ferocious set before pulling up a chair side of stage to watch The Lumineers. Wesley Schultz has a Bob Dylan/Marcus Mumford stage presence. Lazily hanging a top hat on the end of his guitar for a slow track, Schultz seemed taken aback by how well the Aussie crowd knew his stuff; they even parted the crowd to perform on a tiny stage in the middle of the mosh, the highlight of the day for many.

Snoop Dogg came out to wild applause, boob flashes and weed smoking: all the things he truly loves. Unafraid to sample other people's track Snoop busted out Biggie Smalls, Tupac, 50 Cent and Akon, to name a few, adding his own rhymes to the verses. Onstage Snoop is one of the smoothest ever: calm, in control and every movement seems planned. Gin And Juice, Drop It Like It's Hot and Who Am I What's My Name (Snoop Doggy Dogg) were the three best rap songs this reviewer has ever had the pleasure of seeing live.

Major Lazer started with a huge mash-up of Afrobeats and pop hits, and a flying camera filmed the crowd, who saw themselves on the big screen and lost their shit. Major Lazer probably had a lot to do with the losing of the shit though: Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire were flanked by two gorgeous dancers who just didn't stop moving, bumping, grinding and twerking.

The set had everything; Diplo ran out on top of the crowd inside a plastic sphere and stepped on more than a few heads. Flume and Mac Miller watched from side stage, until the Major Lazer boys made him lie down, soaked him with water and had the dancers shake their bits violently in his face; the usually ice cool Flume had never looked so awkward.

Main stage headliners Pearl Jam delivered an energetic and, dare we say it, fun set, belying their po-faced reputation. It possibly had something to do with the beers frontman Eddie Vedder said he'd consumed before the performance and his constant companion throughout the show, a bottle of red wine (towards the latter stages housed in an Australian flag stubby holder, courtesy of the crowd). They came out strongly with an opening salvo consisting of Do The Evolution, Mind Your Manners, Animal and Hail Hail. From there it was a mix of anthemic sing-alongs that they're known for (Better Man, Elderly Woman…), a mix of tracks from across most of their albums and a smattering of covers thrown in (including, perhaps appropriately on Australia Day, though not surprisingly, a solo Eddie Vedder performing Hunters & Collectors' Throw Your Arms Around Me). Judging by this performance, landing this so called white whale for the line-up was well worth the chase.

Over at the main stages, Portugal. The Man served up some progressive psych with plenty of tunes off last year's critically lauded Evil Friends, using a pretty lush production too for a band that should have perhaps been on later in the day.

Toro Y Moi was welcomed back with open arms, the prodigal child of funk-electro-pop fusion spreading out the songs from over his three albums, despite a presumption most would be from last year's '90s house LP, Anything In Return. Kingswood did their best to get perfect strangers in the audience to pash, but when that didn't work they just kicked out the jams with their brand of no-frills rock.

BDO regulars The Drones wasted no time playing the larrikins they are known for, and as they always seem to do were at times their own best and worst enemies, complaining that sometimes the reason they don't get to play all their songs is because they always go over their allotted time – this after Dan Luscombe spent considerable time telling people how dusty he was from the night before. Shark Fin Blues, The Minotaur and Laika went down a treat.

Grouplove is something that some people don't really get, but a MASSIVE and enthused crowd appeared to be loving every moment of their live sound.

One of the big drawcards for those that were around in the '90s was Primus, and the quirky anti-pop trio – the enigmatic Les Claypool on bass,  Larry Lalonde on the axe and Tim Alexander on drums – lived up to expectations, not only for playing the run of classics, John The Fisherman, Winona's Big Brown Beaver and Jerry Was A Race Car Driver, but Stealth from The Lumineers had his Christmases all come at once when Mr Claypool invited him up on stage for a piano accordion solo normally reserved for Lalonde… It was weird.

Northlane drew the loyal to the JBL Essential stage and looked to be the only “Hardcore Representatives” in the line-up, something they relished, delivering a loud and screamy set.

Fellow last minute men Beady Eye drew a modest crowd and managed to get away with a few Oasis hits sans Noel, the song What's The Story (Morning Glory)? being a definite highlight of course, along with the swaggering Liam surprisingly in key for every song and commenting that Australia Day was a good excuse to “avadrink”.

At the Headspace stage, CSS (aka Cansei de Ser Sexy) of Brasilia, despite being a modest group, played one of the most fun sets the BDO has hosted on a small stage – who said new wave and funk were dead?

One of the highlights of any Big Day Out festival would have to have been the Arcade Fire's main stage set, not only because the sound and production were spot on (filled out well with instrumentalists Diol Edmond and Tiwill Duprate) or that the songs The Suburbs, Keep The Car Running and Neighbourhood#1 were captivating live, but for the lone hype guy in the black knitted vest, who, starting out by himself on the outskirts of the main crowd and was dancing as if no one was watching,  literally had, within about five minutes 50 to 60 random people mimicking all his moves, all in sync and, amazingly, all spontaneously. It was hard to describe but we've never seen a collective group of people having the best time of their lives all because of one person's love of this amazing band. They were given an hour-and-a-half long set, the Grammy Award-winning ten-piece starting with Reflektor and then dabbling from all four albums. They wore semi matching Sergeant Pepper-style jackets and had three huge mirrors (or reflektors, heh) moving around them creating dazzling lightshows when hit with lasers. Win Butler sounded perfect and the nine flanking him were flawless, but if you aren't a huge Arcade Fire fan a 90-minute set was probably a bit too much.

Just when you thought it might be outlasting its welcome, the BDO again managed to surprise and satisfy and while a few things can be tweaked, it's certainly something we'll look forward to again next year.