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Big Day Out
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The Big Day Out (BDO) is an annual music festival held in several cities in Australia and New Zealand in late January. It started in Sydney in 1992, spread to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth by 1993, with the Gold Coast and Auckland joining in 1994. As of 2003, it has featured seven or eight stages (depending on the venue) accommodating popular contemporary rock music, electronic music, mainstream international acts and local acts.
festival began in 1992 as a Sydney-only show with Violent Femmes as the headline act, along with Nirvana and a range of other foreign and local alternative music acts playing at the Hordern Pavilion.
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Encyclopedia
The Big Day Out (BDO) is an annual music festival held in several cities in Australia and New Zealand in late January. It started in Sydney in 1992, spread to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth by 1993, with the Gold Coast and Auckland joining in 1994. As of 2003, it has featured seven or eight stages (depending on the venue) accommodating popular contemporary rock music, electronic music, mainstream international acts and local acts.
History
The festival began in 1992 as a Sydney-only show with Violent Femmes as the headline act, along with Nirvana and a range of other foreign and local alternative music acts playing at the Hordern Pavilion. In the months preceding the event, Nirvana's Nevermind was released and became an international smash hit, therefore guaranteeing the success of the festival. Kurt Cobain was ill at the time of the show.
In 1993, the festival was extended to include Melbourne, Perth, and Adelaide. In 1994, shows in Auckland and the Gold Coast were added. In 1997 it was announced that that year's event would be the last. The following year, promoters Vivian Lees and Ken West organised a predominantly electronic and dance festival; however, the event was cancelled, and the Big Day Out returned in 1999.
American band Pearl Jam were booked to headline the 2001 tour almost 12 months in advance, as they had just started to do festivals for the first time since problems at festivals in the early 90s. On 30 June 2000 at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, they ended their set prematurely after the crowd surged forward, crushing and fatally injuring nine people. They pulled out of the BDO, claiming to never do festivals again. They did play Leeds & Reading Festivals, UK, in 2006.
Artist lineups
Each year since its inception in 1992, Big Day Out has attracted a large range of artists and acts to perform including Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink 182, Slipknot, and Metallica, and has been a launching platform for many Australian artists such as Silverchair, Powderfinger, You Am I, The Living End, Grinspoon, and Wolfmother.
Controversy
Flag ban
On 21 January 2007 a decision was made by the organisers to discourage Big Day Out patrons in Sydney from bringing and displaying the Australian flag. The organisers said the decision was a result of recent ethno-religious tensions in Sydney, complaints that the previous year's festival had been marred by roving packs of aggressive flag-draped youths, and recognition that some indigenous Australians take issue with celebrating the start of British settlement.
Sections of the community had strong views supporting or objecting to the policy. Prime Minister John Howard, New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma and Federal Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd publicly condemned the move. Iemma suggested the event be cancelled if the organisers could not secure the safety of attendees. Main stage act Jet performed in front of a large backdrop of a black-and-white Australian flag cut-out of their name, with lead vocalist Nic Cester adding, "I can't tell anyone else what to do but we as a band are very proud to be Australian and we don't want to feel we are not allowed to feel proud".
However, other people including Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats, sports writer Peter FitzSimons and members of the hip hop outfit The Herd expressed concern that the flag was being misused by a handful of aggressive attendees in a jingoist manner, and that rock concerts were not the appropriate venue to be waving a flag.
Drug usage and death
Drug usage is commonly associated with the Big Day Out, with police searching suspected users and dealers by placing sniffer dogs at some entrances of each venue and patrolling the event. At the 2008 festival in Sydney, police made 86 drug-related arrests. In 2009, 258 suspects resulted in 107 people being detained for drug violations. In Perth (2009), police made 59 arrests for possession of drugs, including four with intent to sell or supply. 129 tablets of Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy), two grams of methylamphetamine, six grams of cannabis, 75 joints and 21 tablets of dexamphetamine were seized by police.
At the 2009 Big Day Out festival in Perth, 17-year-old Gemma Thoms collapsed after allegedly taking three ecstasy tablets. She died 12 hours later in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, after being transfered from the event's first aid post. The girl and her friend reportedly took a tablet each whilst at home before the event. After arriving, she reportedly saw police near the entrance - panicked, and swallowed a further two tablets. Police later denied responsibility for Thoms' death, noting that there was no sniffer dogs being used to search patrons at the entrance she had used. Thoms had been driven by car and had not taken the train to the station where police were searching. Police didn't make any arrests but officers did raid a house in their search for the dealer who had supplied the ecstasy.
Compilation albums
External links
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