The Big Day Out Ticket

The line-up poster

Pitchshifter at the Big Day Out, on the second stage.

J S Clayden of Pitchshifter, being taken out of the crowd.

July 10th 1999, Milton Keynes National bowl, 13 bands, 55,000 fans, 11 hours…

When I arrived at the Bowl I was 5 minutes late (due to the coach taking an hour for a toilet break…) so I missed the beginning of Mercyful Fate’s set. But what I caught was brutal, their first venture to these shores in 16 years. They hit the crowd with a with a raging force of thrash metal that won over a lot of people. They played a mixture of old classics with some newer material from their new album "9". Their onslaught only lasted 30 minutes but a lot of the crowd seemed gasping for more, lets hope it’s not another 16 years before they come back! Following Mercyful Fate’s onslaught was The Queens of the stone age. Now maybe if it was a sweaty pub they might of sounded half decent, but in a field to 55,000 people they just didn’t cut the mustard. Their songs are just to weak for such a big event. Maturity seems to be in a bit of absense in the QOTSA mind after telling the crowd to "go get smashed off your face on drugs" they later persist in attempting to smash Terrorvisions faces in, which results in bassist Nick Olveri being escorted away in a nice blue and white car and being showed the hospitality of the local police station cell. Over on the main stage Creed start things off. I wasn’t really bothered about seeing them as I was out for a happy time not seeing depressive bands, but I couldn’t help singing along to the "Unforgiven" and being overwhelmed by just how well they played to the crowd they shocked me with their greatness. All I really ask is why did they play "What’s this life for"? Back to the small stage we have ex-pop rockers Symposium. They belt out a load of new tunes such as "Bleach gets in your motherfucking eyes" and new single "Killing Position" they also thrown a few favourites "The answer to why I hate you", "Easily Scared" and "bury you", the results are predictable, the crowd goes crazy during the classics, and looks dumbfounded by the new ones, which are heavier then anything they’ve ever done, I think a lot of the crowd were dissapointed with the absense of "fairweather friend" and "Farewell to twilight", nevermind the new stuff sounds very promising. Sepultura seem to have been touring their "Against" album forever. Today is officially the last day of that tour, Derrick Greene takes to the mic wearing corpse paint (it wouldn’t be made by Max Factor would it?) and belts out the songs, with the rest of the band and the whole tribe behind him. Unfortunately they seem a bit tired after the long treck so some of the songs sound rough. Due to the fact they only had a measly 30 minutes to play, they could only fit in 2 classics "Refuse/ Resist" and "terretories", the effort was there but the exhaustion is showing. "Hello Milton Keynes", comes a voice from the small stage, "we’re Pitchshifter" after that a siren starts, "Get dancing you lay abouts," jokes Jon. Before they punch out a brutal version of "Virus" the fans that don’t know this song are in a gentle bounce, the ones that do are in a full bouncing frenzy, punching their way to the front and screaming along to the lyrics. Jon dives into the crowd, and is followed by a security guard who herls him out and back onto the stage. The following 3 songs (Microwaved, Genius, WYSIWYG) are delivered with sheer brutality with the whole band giving it their most, Jon shows aggression in his vocals possibly because of the rough morning he’s had, breaking down on the M1, and not getting to the bowl until 20 minutes before they were due to go on. Then we get a new song, "Un-United Kingdom" which is by far more tuneful and melodic then anything they’ve done and seems to be cut down on the dance beats and samples, quite triomphant. Then they come and finish the crowd off, "Please sir" hits the crowd like a Mortal Kombat death move blowing everyones heads off. Nice. I was really looking forward to seeing Ministry but I was really dissapointed, their newer "Dark side of the spoon" material is nowhere as good as their "Psalm 69" stuff, and although they treat us to a nice chunk from P69 (Psalm 69, NWO, Just one fix… although no "Jesus built my hotrod") the songs sound very rough. Al seems to be very rough on his feet and on the vocals, the conclusion: drugs ruin decent bands. I don’t really like Monster Magnet and today they do nothing to convince me they are good, is there something about them I’m missing? They play some songs like "Spacelord" and other boring stoner rock songs, it’s amazing all the people asleep I nearly fall over on my travels, they conclude their set by playing MC5’s "Kick out the jams" and setting everything on fire. Why? Because they only got half an hour to play. Ah, diddums. The majority of the bowl did not care about Ben Harper I did not care about him either, but I decided to at least check out his set. Now it isn’t really the sort of stuff I’m into, funky reggae, bluesy rock, but I can appreciate it as being good, I think he’s going to go far in the world, but to give him 45 minutes, was rediculous, most people were getting bored after 20 minutes. What was also rediculous was the bad tempered security guard who wasn’t even letting people sit on peoples shoulders, never mind crowd surf (hey, Apoclyptica got crowd surfers at the Dynamo…). They’re Terrorvision, they drink tequila, they make people happy. Good band for a festival then. I was expecting them to be good. How wrong I was. With the likes of "Discotheque wreck", "Josephine" and "Middleman" they were not good. They we’re awesome! Concentrating more on their forthcoming "Best of…" album as apposed to "shaving peaches" we basically got the best, "Oblivion", "perseverance", "Pretend best friend" but no "Tequila" (Perhaps a wise move people might have thrown things at them…). EMI made a foolish move by dropping TV, I wonder who’ll sign them… Placebo are cool, they have an excellent 2nd album, some brilliant singles and have toured with David Bowie. Unfortunatley today they sound rough, the songs lack a certain oomph. "Scared of girls", "Brick shithouse" and "Allergic…" sound excellent on album. But flat on stage today. They included an old B-side in their set, "Drowning by numbers" which didn’t please people, because very few people knew it. But from there the set picked up. But the crowd didn’t, dedicating "Bruise Pristine" to "50,000 crimes against fashion" was meant as a joke, but not everyone took it as a joke and thought they were being insulted. "Nancy boy" sounded good, but was missing a bit of a spike from somewhere. "Pure morning" should be renamed "Pure boredom" as I was virtually asleep by this point, and as for "Evil Dildo" I was off taking pictures of Dave Mustaine…

I’d being hearing rumours that Marilyn Manson had been replaced by Fear Factory. I was not convinced that this was untrue until he took to the stage. The noise from the crowd was overwhelming, he was half way through "The reflecting god" before I realized he had started signing. "The reflecting God" is my favourite MM song, or at least it was… the version chucked out has changes to the music which removes the impact the album version has. I hate to say this but I was quite dissapointed with the set, the Mechanical Animals songs sounded as if they were being played straight off the CD… Thank God (or should that be "drugs"?) for the older stuff, Cake and Sodomy, Lunchbox, Sweet Dreams and Rock ‘n’ roll nigger we’re all on top form, and the new song "Astonishing Panoroma of the end times" was quite brutal. Towards the end of the set things got much better, after a triumphant "Lunchbox" was an absolutely gobsmacking version of "I don’t like the drugs…" with female backing vocals the works, absolutely amazing. The best however was yet to come, and absolutely top notch "Rock ‘n’ roll nigger" just when things were getting good some thick twat from the audience stots a bottle of Marilyn’s head, which results in the drumkit being smashed, and Manson going home, the rest of the band followed except for Twiggy who hung around for a few more minutes playing bass, it wasn’t clear whether or not Marilyn was coming back until the roadies came and dismantled the equipment, which is a shame really because the next two songs would have been "Antichrist superstar" and "Beautiful people".

They never stop they never quit coz they’re Metallica… A lot of people don’t like Metallica any more since they released "Load", a lot of people think they’ve sold out… That lot of people should have been at Milton Keynes then shouldn’t they to see Metallica rip through the bowl. Opening with a 1-2 of "Breadfan" and "Master of Puppets" it is clear Metallica have lost no edge. Ripping through classics like "For whom the bell tolls", "The thing that should not be" and "Of wolf and man" mixing with newer stuff like "King nothing", "memory remains" and "Fuel" (during which they had flares blowing up all over the stage…). They showed they are still in the premier league of rock bands. During "Seek and destroy" the sunsets and the darkness is amazing they then follow through with "One" (Amazing firework display) and "Fight fire with fire" (the flares return, the heat is unbelievable). They then start messing about with encores which includes "Sad but true", "Creeping death" and of course, "Enter sandman". Then to put the final blow they deliver a warp speed mind blowing "Battery" (Yes! Yes! Yes!). Metallica, a pop band? Hahahahahah. Metallica 1 Alternicrap 0.

Mercyful Fate 9

QOTSA 3

Creed 8

Symposium 8

Sepultura 6

Pitchshifter 10

Ministry 5

Monster Magnet 3

Ben Harper 5

Terrorvision 10

Placebo 6

Marilyn Manson 7

Metallica 10+