Highlights for me were Porch, Immortality, Dead Man, Golden State and Hard Sun.There was also a brilliant new version of ‘Better Man’ that was quite difficult to pick at first. Completely new melody and rhythm to freshen up a familiar song.

Only got one photo (during the final encore [featuring Jimmy Barnes' daughter, who was one half of the support act]) as the venue staff were very attentive to enforcing their ‘no photography’ rule in the section we were seated in. Posted on Twitter as per Dicker’s request.

Right, I’m off to bed. Not too much tinnitus this evening for once.

And because the BDO organisers didn’t sell enough tix to the 2nd Sydney show they made it “bring-a-friend-for-free” deal, so Pete and Todd came with.

I haven’t been to the BDO since 1996 when it was at Moore park so wasn’t sure what to expect of this one… I must say, I was expecting it to be filthy hot and crowded but thankfully it wasn’t… nice!

I must say I did feel somewhat out of touch not recognising many of the bands that were playing the BDO but it was refreshing to realise I did know some of them (heard on JJJ) and just didn’t realise I knew them… And it was good to be introduced to some new music and see what BDO youth culture looks like nowadays (maybe I should claim the ticket on tax each year as youth research? hmmmm…).

Of course I wore my tried and true concert going out fit – cut off cargos with zip/velcro pockets to keep your stuff secure in the mosh, black tee, sneakers, and hat (because after 96 BDO I’m more sensible about sun protection). However, I soon realised that I was probably the only one in such an outfit… seems the modern male concert goer where’s board shorts, singlet or no shirt, or they wear skinny jeans… how they stop their stuff  falling out of their pockets in the mosh? Easy, they don’t really mosh. Sure they get right up the front and move a bit (I was there for Tool, Deftones and Rammstein) but the mosh is soft if you ask me… dudes stand there with their iPhone, digital camera and handbag doing squat… soft I say.

And the modern female concert goer… well lets just say some super tiny cut off jean shorts and a bikini top or bra will get you by with the status quo (there must’ve been a memo about female concert uniform… you’d be hard pressed to find anything different).

Anyway, enough of fashion… I went really to see the Deftones and Tool, but I was glad I caught Children Collide, Paul Dempsy, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Washington, and (surprisingly) Rammstein… yes, that’s right Rammstein. I’m as surprised as you are.

Now I’m not really a Rammstein fan (they’re quite frightening!) but man they put on a good show! I’ve never seen such theatrics or pyrotechnics from any band ever. Certainly there were some vulgar theatrics (those who were there, you know what I’m talking about) but by and large they were super entertaining.

I’m not going to get their albums or become a big fan, but I certainly wont miss their show if I happen to be at a music festival where they’re playing.

I stayed to the end for Tool as well and because I only really have one of their albums I knew all but 2 of the songs they played… but they were worth it just to see the drummer Danny Carey who is AMAZING! (youtube him). I would’ve loved if they played Forty Six & 2 (my Tool favourite) but they finished the set with Aenima and Stinkfist and that was great.

All in all, a good day out! And I even escaped sunburn, woohoo!

I might even go next year… I’ll see…

I went to see Faith No More at the Hordern Pavilion (my favourite venue!) last night with James. The last time I saw them was 13 years ago at the same venue with Pete, Matt, Chris, (Spiro?) and some other 16/17 year olds.
Old.

I remember the concert in 1997 was really wild (might’ve been the first concert I crowd surfed at…?), and FNM have lost none of their rock. Neither have their fans.

It was the usual story down near the front where James and I were. Lots of guys mixed in with guys and their petite girlfriends taking up the space where you want the crowd to go crazy… I was ready for more disappointing crowd lameness… BUT! The lights went down. FNM played midnight cowboy (slow instrumental song) and built the anticipation. Then BOOM! First song, the crowd surged, the mosh pit went mental (pro. men-ull) and the girls and lady-boys came running out like squirrels from a bush fire.

It was great. No fear of treading on the precious and fragile, just free, crazy, uninhibited jumping, heading banging, and slamming! I was 17 again! Except now I’m bigger framed and 30kgs heavier, so the pit was not the intimidating “I might die here” place that I remembered.
I just let loose. It was great.

And at the end there was the nostalgic familiarity of being soaked with sweat and partially deaf. The sweat I can live with, but I do feel regret for not protecting my hearing better… I’ve come to realise that hearing is not only worth protecting just because you’ve got, but because I feel stupid when I have to ask people 3 times to repeat themselves or have my phone speaker set at 50 decibels above normal… next time.

I’d never heard of the support band “Eagles of Deathmetal” before but they put on a great show. I think they have the same drummer from Queens of the Stone Age… either way, they were much better than the Jesus Lizard who did support for the 97 show. If I remember correctly, their lead singer was wasted and he pulled out his old fella on stage…

Anyway so on the masive 8-15min drive to and from work I get to listen to some AM gold and today they played a song!! Doesn’t happen often, and it surprised me, it was Ben Folds Five, which I thought would have only came out on CD so not sure how they were able to play it but good on them!!

This may come as no surprise to you guys who have listened to AM since before it was cool… but I didn’t know a) that they played songs, and b) that they’d play Ben Folds Five

I’m happy with this, much easier to listen to then play school songs or the like.

Him and his little brother really get into it too, pretty funny at times.

The youtubes won’t let me embed it, so here’s a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHakCQN0Ss

Peace out.

I’m loving punk Christmas carols!

RAGE

I’ve seen it on Twitter a fair bit, with quite a few famous types promoting it. I hope it works, I can’t stand all that bubble gum plastic music marketing crossover stuff.

(Even if I see the irony in a whole lot of people all chanting about “not doing what they tell me” at the same time…)

On another music related note, if you’re interested in hearing some great new tunes, you can go to this website:

BLALOCK

This guy puts together a monthly ‘mix tape’ of new music by indie bands, and lets you download the MP3s from his site. A lot of the bands see it as free advertising and are quite keen to get themselves onto his ‘compilations’ each month. It’s apparently very good for your indie cred.

Watch the video here:

I just love this.

I installed the Genius feature on iTunes pretty much when it became available, not really thinking that I’d use it or knowing what it was but hey if Apple thinks I need it then chances are I need it.

So I’ve left it there and pretty much not touched it, until the other day when someone said to me ‘how cool is that Genius thing in iTunes’, to which I just awkwardly replied ‘yeah…’ thinking that the only thing it seemed good for was to try to get you to buy more music from them. But he was referring to the fact that you can choose one song and tell it to make it a playlist.

It then consults the great Apple database in the sky or whatever and pulls together these songs which it somehow thinks are songs you’d like to listen to based on that one song… and it seems to be right…

This is like choosing random on your whole library and seeing what songs are played and having that happiness that comes when a song that you forgot you owned, or haven’t thought to play in ages, comes on. But without (well mostly) having to listen to songs that are completely random in your library and you loaded on there because one day you might listen to them but you don’t really see that day coming…

It also means you can choose one song in a style that you feel like hearing and rather than having to think to pull a playlist together Apple does it for you.

Thanks Apple.