Big Day Out 2014 review: The decider

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First thing first: why didn’t they move to Western Springs a decade ago? It’s the former site of, er, Groove In The Park, and the home of Pasifika. Ours is not to know, but if they’d stay put, and Blur had cancelled, we’d all be snarking hard right now about a debacle.

 

Instead, this was one of the most comfortable and spirited Big Day Outs in ages. Capital-R rock festivals are held in slate-grey stadia; this was a broad church held in a setting with shade and gentle hills. I reckon you could get anywhere in 5 minutes. This was the first time I’d seen punters turn up in wheelchairs and not been virtually marooned. 

 

The music was good too. There was a condensed hour of local acts who were well-received and probably had the time of their lives. It was one of the best Beastwars sets I’d seen, and it says something that the first international band to play, Portugal. The Man, felt like a reedy amateur hour. 

 

It was a day where the weak became heroes. I was looking forward to seeing The 1975, but I can’t pretend I expected them to be good. But their last four songs were stellar and impossibly full of shit and heartfelt, the kind of thing you stop dead for when you’re on the early afternoon roam. Everyone picked Ghost as the Slipknot of BDO 2014, but we all learnt they were eerie and ridiculous – five guys who loved the tropes of metal but had a melodic ear to make moments like these chime across the park. Ladi 6, if I didn’t make it clear in my live blog, put on one of the most generous and endearing sets I’ve seen at a festival, with the basic elements of a live band too comfortable to play the album and too disciplined to jam and therefore perfect. She was the best vocalist of the day.

 

Any lulls? Sure – The Naked and Famous were tentative outside of their impeccable pop singles. What I saw of Grouplove was treacly and homespun, a point aggravated by strutting on to N***as In Paris. I dunno if we got our money’s worth at the Blur exchange: I was perplexed to see The Hives sound oddly muddy and short of breath, and Beady Eye’s originals must have been marking time at half-speed until Liam Gallagher launched into What’s The Story (Morning Glory?). And Deftones were a band I’d revered but never actually heard properly having been scared by them as an 11-year-old. I expected them to sound like freezer burn, icy and clinical. They’re just some loud dudes.

 

But so many good moments. Arcade Fire, who chose Auckland to rehearse for their international tour, played virtually song for song their greatest hits – everything you’d want from them in one effusive burst. If Snoop seemed like he couldn’t be bothered towards the end of his hour, it’s not like anyone came home and muttered “he’s not the man I took him for” dejectedly in the hallway. Gin and Juice, Drop It Like It’s Hot, The Next Episode, Who Am I, and not too much Snoop Lion, #1 Selecta. We got spoilt. And Diplo made us take our shirts off, goaded meek Aucklanders to get topless to the sound of Watch Out For This and – importantly – left us all just as we ran out of steam. 

 

And I’m no anthropologist, but 18-year-olds really, really love Mac Miller.

 

And I’m still no anthropologist, but 40-year-olds really, really love Pearl Jam. I mean I can’t tell you anything about what they played beyond things on Ten, but you know, they sound pristine. They’re probably incapable of playing a Pearl Jam show, and if a band I was really fond of was doing a two-hour festival set, I’d come away beaming. I came away beaming anyway. Here’s to several more.

 

 

 

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