Big Day Out
Wholly Schnikees! What a sweet non-sponsored-just-bands music festival. I spent my day off on Monday (Australia Day for most, Invasion Day for others - it’s like Columbus Day) walking around the Melbourne Horse Racing Track watching many bands play:
The Darkness - just plain ol’ Rock and Roll from Oz
Salmonella Dub - a NZ dub group, dread head magnets!
Black Eyed Peas - shuttup already
Something for Kate - like the Samples, depressed
Dandy Warhols - heroin is passe, by the way
JET - more Oz R&R
The Strokes - older than I thot
Metallica - Hetfield is really a nice guy live, he kept thanking the audience for inviting them to play BDO
THE FLAMING LIPS - huttah and more huttah. Basically, the best art show I’ve been to since Rabbit in the Moon. Animal costumes (on the band and on the dancers on stage), 3-6 foot balloons for the crowd to bounce, a White Stripes cover, much video in the back, and a puppet Nun leading everyone in a chorus of “Yoshimi”
Other news: found eels in the lake in the Royal Botanic Garden. Jess the Pizza chef at BT introduces me as the “Most unAmerican American” he knows - and he means it to be a compliment, which rocks.