But the festival business has changed: there are more, smaller festivals.

Quite – and I don't think "narrowcasting" is necessarily such a bad thing. Is it just me and are there a lot more acts nowadays who are touring here off their own bat who back in the day would?

The?

And there is the problem in a nutshell. I think the BDO has lost its way in recent years.

Through a poor choice of headliners this year, the BDO has been hoist by it's own petard. I mean, let's?

That makes sense to me – as I said, "narrowcasting" – as opposed to trying to do a bit of everything – isn't always a bad thing. Bigger isn't always better, and while things like?

They're actually the big drawcard though. Personally, I get them no more than I did in 1994.

Kasabian, My Chemical?

Isn't it subsidised by wealthy god-botherers, possibly using diverted tax money?

(I'm told it's quite tolerable if you drop acid, that being the drug-of-choice as it's easy to smuggle and take discretely).

As for?

I just hope they don't forget their roots. Or their family, for that matter.

...

I'll get my coat.

Big Day Out lineups by year

Apart from BDO, Splore and Laneways, in the first three months of?

Gin, yeah.?

Yeah, good point. That's a lot of scarce entertainment dollars right there. New Order alone are $95.

"...From the NZ promoter:
"People are saying that they aren't appreciating this line-up – that strikes me as strange. I think it's strong. For whatever reason we're not selling tickets. We haven't got a roll on."

For?

If they're the target?

truly a man of the people

Memories? Neil Young played what I think was the greatest Auckland Big Day Out show, rivalled only by the magic of the Flaming Lips. LCD Soundsystem were blinding, twice, and Hot Chip were gorgeous. There was Lady Saw at the Lilypad, and The Stooges, with Ron Asheton peeling off licks?

Over the years, the Big Day Out essentially mapped itself onto the Mt Smart venue and its facilities, to the point where actually running it was a matter of following the handbook.

Yeah, having seen how the guys worked backstage at the Boiler Room (fun anecdote: one year,?

In the last 10 years, complaints about BDO's?

Russell: not a Gotye?

Yeah. As in 's spent his pension and needs more drug money. Book him for the BDO.

That is a hell of a line-up alright.

Pitch Black we always great to see, as were Shihad. I quite like my bombastic rock, so very much?

Billy Bragg played a lovely, cosy set in one?

That year must have an entry in the Freak Weather Almanac. I was there in the morning to do Hard news on bFM and we couldn't believe how hot it was?

AKA the mysterious but discerning 'Edward Zimblis and Syndicate'.

(Fall tour poster by Chris Knox)

Steep contrast to today, where they seem hopelessly disconnected from this generation.

Yeah, this. I remember snippets of acts I?

Quite. My best memories?

Highlights here.

Me too.

We were safely up by the East Lounge and?

They decided to make up a name in case it all turned to shit..

But that Fall tour was before the Birthday Party, so I'm wrong there.

I think the Zimblis tour?

Does Speight's still make ads like that?

But that Fall tour was before the Birthday?

you have to wonder who's been lobbying for even lower standards

Wow.

Depends how much of a nostalgist you are. If his album was any more influenced by the 1980's, I'd expect to see Michael J Fox driving past in a DeLorean every time I (or rather, my wife) sticks it?

To fair, Sacha, putting together a schedule doesn't always mean things fit together the way you'd like. Know it's not a precise analogy, but at the Film Festival last?

...but I do remember being stunned that The Birthday Party?

While I admire your fairmindedness, it was quite deliberate. The organisers put one of the biggest recording artists in any genre at the time – and certainly in their lineup that year – in a tent?

They were falling apart ? Mick Harvey had already cried off, hence Des Hefner standing in on drums ? and Nick Cave told me when I interviewed him that they?

Thank god, or whomever, for people like Jonathan and Ian. Seriously hope your posters are Ok Ian. These would make a great coffee table book. Or submit them to some free online encyclopaedia, provided they still exist.

Cheers, Nick. I?d respectfully submit that at the time if I wanted to see belligerent junkies implode I didn't need to pay for it.

I remember after Theatre Corporate and Mercury collapsed (showing my age!), the CW was that we'd never see a professional theatre company in Auckland again. Aren't we lucky ATC and Silo didn't get the memo? :)

Annabel expressed surprise at having not been told of?

I have no problem with 80s influences. I'm made out?

Homegrown is 15+

Only the English version, which I find odd. Aren't they protesting proposed US laws? the USA doesn't have an official language, and there must be millions of people in the US who can quickly and easily bypass the blackout by switching languages.

when the owner of the festival doesn't reinforce what they think it is then they feel betrayed and anger is expressed?

people are strange.. as we love to complain but very rarely ever thank those that risk it all promoting such things cause that simply doesn?t occur to most of us

Yeah, the negative article that got on my goat most yesterday (no links) was written by someone who?

It would be nice if that didn't seem so unusual these days. Are such people really a dying breed? Because it all seems to be about the money these days. I'm now actually a little sad?

Ah, but he did go to Sweetwaters that time.

You'll be pleased to know I've spent the summer teaching my 2-year old to say 'NAAT' (not), in best Wayne's World fashion. Also 'Nek Minnit', and how to throw the goat.

I wholeheartedly agree with him about the year-after-year presence of The Living End. They are one of the dullest, most ordinary rock bands I've ever seen.

But?

I find it best to avoid the comment threads on NZ's mainstream media sites. They leave me thinking our compatriots are mean-spirited illiterates. Much better to hang out here where the commenters can write and nastiness is very?

I don't think so. Most of the people running the other summer festivals are decent folk, and the ones who aren't have come a cropper. There are more genuine music fans?

Around these parts I see TV screens on walls beside lifts and in the headrests of taxi seats playing endless advertising (and nothing but advertising), ads trying to pretend they're really public service announcements in university toilets and once I put the car radio on to?

+1

1. Interviewing Jim Kerr in a caravan, and him being so coked-up it was a struggle to keep up.

2. Had sex. Also in a caravan.

1996: One of my mates heard a promo on Bfm that said if your turned up to the gates and stripped off nude, they would let you in. So, he rocked up, and explained to the gate staff what the deal was. They hadn't heard of it,?

It's gonna be hard to beat that one, Jackson.

Is that Andrew Dickens?

3. Steve Dab – hugely RIP – found the backstage booze tent. Went back with a stanley knife later that night and, slicing the canvas neatly, removed the management and media of the burden of having to drink it.

The image?

It's never really done right by local hip hop. In part, that's simply because there physically wasn't a place for it: that benighted stage behind the Boiler Room was a terrible place to play.

But, to take this year as an example,?

The thing that put me off of "festivals" was the thowing?

I seem to recall Ratbag sending down a watermelon.

Yep, if you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be seeing more or less both the Raw Power Stooges and the Funhouse Stooges in Auckland, I'd not have believed it.

Wasn't that the town hall? 1977 or 78?

I've got about 30 mins of The Screaming Meemees at Brown Trout Festival in Dannevirke, 83.

It would've been longer but Tony Drumm was hit hard by?

Do you remember the incident at the Takapuna Grammar School Ball or Dance??

I wasn't in NZ for that, but he also did the same show stopping trick in '77 (Oct 19th based on your link): he stopped the show, turned on the house lights, and insisted that the crowd behave before returning?

I was there and I do remember that there was something but the details escape me all these years later.

You'll need to remind me.

At the Kings Ball the band got in huge trouble for smuggling?

Back in those days everyone at B was called Andrew. It was compulsory.

Later it was Matt. I can think of at least three. Two of them Jones.

There's also been a guy called Jackson pop up recently. Chances are he wasn't born when I was there.

The BDO was discussed on Radio One this morning. Host Aaron Hawkins said the best comment he'd heard was that the end of the BDO was like putting down a much-loved family pet: it's all, new, young, vibrant?

__Old people envy the young all their vigor and rhythm?

but either way, the question remains: why does she dislike old people so?

old, dribbly, toothless = not nice
own good (ie the convenience of others) = death

If attitudes such as this are common (although admittedly not?

The ?s? being right next to the ?d?, yes it is a Dexterous slip rather than Freudian – my fingers are just so big and my mind is well in a word addled, it should be?

Andre, I was probably underneath the plywood with you in 96 at the Big Wash Out...

I see Messrs Baillie & Kara have listed their top 10 BDO moments in?

The Chilli Peppers getting the crowd to take a single step back in unison due to people getting squashed up front.

The year some sort of weather bomb hit, and the people using planks of?

It was almost knee deep in the NW corner of the field. People were making paths through it out of upturned bread trays.

Laughing along to Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes in 1997.?

Friday was weird and fun...

They were amazing on Friday. Quite intense, but amazing.

and follow with?.. BDO 2009. NEIL YOUNG!!
andArctic Monkeys, Bullet For My Valentine, Cobra Khan, Elemeno P, Ladi6, Luger Boa, My Morning Jacket,, Nesian Mystik,?