Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand
Jan 22 2005

Review: Big Day Out 2005
22 January 2005
By CHRIS SCHULZ

In the end, the granddads showed everyone how to do it. Hip-hop
golden-oldies The Beastie Boys, oozing old-school cool and displaying
amazing technological prowess, saved the 2005 Big Day Out from being,
well, a little disappointing.

This year’s sun-soaked event lacked the pulling power of, say,
Metallica, and while the 40,000 crowd found plenty to enjoy, by the
time 9pm rolled around there seemed to have been something missing.

Thank God then, for The Beastie Boys. Their fantastic main
stage-closing show featured four giant TV screens and began with a
Lord of the Rings video piss-take and a thrilling introduction by the
band’s DJ, Mix Master Mike.

Dressed in matching orange tracksuits and displaying an exuberance
that defied their age, the B-Boys set spanned their entire 20-year
career, included a lounge bar intermission and at one point had two
of the trio running through the moshpit barricade. Not bad for men in
their forties.

Thanks to the new East Stand and several traffic flow innovations,
Ericsson Stadium didn’t appear to be as busy as past years. But that
didn’t stop the front row security barrier being tested by System Of
A Down, who were in a very strange mood.

Just what guitarist and vocalist Daron Malakian had been up to before
their performance is unknown, but he seemed to be completely out of
it.

It didn’t help that the Armenian-American metal giants tried to
re-interpret their ageing back catalogue using keyboards and a voice
decoder. Very prog-rock, guys, but don’t you have a new album coming
out?

And when the show had to be stopped for a moshpit injury, Malakian
took this as his cue to go wild, repeatedly shrieking ‘man down’
before launching into an impromptu acoustic anti-war song. Easily the
most random act of the day.

Over at the Essential Stage, British act Mike Skinner pulled a huge
crowd and rewarded them with an upbeat interpretation of The Streets’
brand of urban poetry.

The set was a little loose – it may have been the four months Skinner
has had off or that glass of beer constantly in his hand – but Dry
Your Eyes had the entire crowd chanting and by the end of it there
were a few blurry eyes.

No one was crying when Slipknot hit the main stage in the early
evening. They probably would have been beaten up if they were.

The masked metallers, in their first New Zealand concert, put on an
awesome – and terrifying – display.

It takes a while just to take it all in, and at first the band seem
slightly contrived. There’s nine of them, they all wear horror-style
masks and the clown’s only role seems to be to hit a keg with a
baseball bat as hard as he can.

Still, there’s a certain kind of danceable groove to their music, and
anthems like Duality and The Heretic Anthem saw the day’s biggest
moshpit bouncing high. Wise folk stayed well clear of it.

The Polyphonic Spree were the perfect antidote after that kind of
hostile environment.

Around 20 of the robed band played under a ‘Hope’ banner in the
Boiler Room, bringing a sense of 60s psychedelia to proceedings with
their trippy choir-backed pop music. But it appeared they were a
little too weird for most punters, who emptied out of the tent and
sort solace elsewhere.

Local acts also burned bright. Scribe’s main stage performance proved
he has come of age. His album is ageing but he relished playing to
such a huge crowd and Not Many resulted in a huge ovation. As did the
Blindspot guest appearance on the nu-metal version of Stand Up.
Shihad, The D4 and Steriogram also proved popular.

Lowlights? Powderfinger’s brand of Aussie pub-rock left little
impression, while the hip-hop stage was – again – overcome by noise
pollution. When will they find a better site for it?

And, as usual, it’s impossible to see everyone you want to,
especially when the crowds make travelling between stages difficult.
Sorry RJD2 and Kid Koala, I’ll catch you next time.