CONCERT REVIEW : THE BIG DAY OUT 95 - Adelaide, Australia (Friday 3rd Feb 95)

- Martin Bate

Big Day Out '95, Australia's version of Lollapalooza, rolled into town recently. What you get for your $50 Aus (that's about 25 quid or 35 US dollars) is a full day of music split over a main 'arena' featuring international and national 'alternative' guitar bands, two stages of local and national 'alternative' guitar bands, and 'The Boiler Room' which features the techno, dance, rap and industrial bands ie everyone who doesn't have a human drummer. Because,as we all know these people have to be kept sepaate from the rest of the stages in case they shrivel up in the sunlight or open some people's minds or something.

So, first band of the day for me is Adelaide's MARK OF CAIN on the main stage, who's brand of Big Black meets Joy Division intensity is as brutal as ever. Comparisons with Helmet are all too easy but this three- piece have been doing it longer and what they *really* share is that stop- on-a-dime tightness where you can hear everyone hold theirbreath for a split second. Henry Rollins will be in town soon to produce their third album and a crack at the US market must be coming.

Next up is LUSCIOUS JACKSON, who ultimately prove to be a glorious breath of fresh-air before the main arena is taken over by white-boy guitar bands for the next 8 hours (!). Needless to say, the crowd is fairly disinterested in their gentle collision of 70's funk and hip-hop until 'the song they recognise' comes in and wrecks shop in the same way the rest of their set would have done if people had been paying attention. Criminally overlooked genius.

YOU AM I are one of Australia's big hopes. With their debut album and soon to come follow-up produced by Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo and Soundgarden taking them out in the US after seeing them last year on this stage their time may be coming. Frontman Tim Rogers is a star - equal parts John Lydon and Pete Townsend with a raw emotional voice - and their material is the kind of driving guitar rock now lodged in the 'alternative' pigeon-hole. I still feel that half of their material is bona-fide classic and the other half bona-fide average - there's no inbetween and it makes for a patchy impression - but hey, maybe its just me.

Next up SCREAMING TREES, late replacements for Oasis who cancelled because "Liam Gallagher has a throat infection" which is patently bollocks as he seemed to be singing fine at the re-scheduled Glasgow date four days after the cancellation. Don't they think people here read the UK press ?

Anyway, Trees singer Mark Lanegan hobbles on stage supported by a walking stick and sits down to sing but all doubts are wiped away as soon as he opens his mouth and lets out that magnificent whisky-soaked rasp. In effect, his predicament gives him even more the air of a wise middle- aged man. But half way through, through no fault of their own my attention starts to wander. Their sound isn't a million miles away from You Am I before them, and I decide its time to check out pastures new.

Over in the Boiler Room things are quieter and cooler away from the large crowds and baking sun. There's some ultra-cool video screens chucking out visuals at an epilepsy-inducing rate and Aussie techno-heads BOXCAR are turning in a lively performance of their trance techno. At the end of the set everyone files out to leave the between band DJ's to their own devices, part of the problem being that the DJ's are being given far too short a time to build up any atmosphere or get people hooked.

So its back to the main arena for me to give OFFSPRING the time of day (which is more than I'd do for Green Day). The verdict ? Completely average, although the huge slamming crowd obviously would disagree with me. Think of all the punk bands of the last 20 years, from the sneering arrogance of The Sex Pistols to the buzz-bomb politics of The Dead Kennedys and the blitkreig hardcore of Minor Threat and Bad Brains, to the punk-plus-more of Fugazi and The Clash. And who do the US record buying public finally decide to make into stars ? Offspring and Green Day. Well, cheers folks!

I mean lets face facts, "Self Esteem" is basically "Smells Like Teen Spirit" re-written and "Come out and Play" sounds like The Cult circa their big rock-out period. The whole thing appeals to the lowest common denominator with the crowd cheering heartily at Dexter Holland's suggestion that Axl Rose, Steven Tyler, and Jon Bon Jovi "really need to die". Err....Dexter you *do* realise that half of your audience were probably wearing G'n'R t-shirts up until not long ago and have Get A Grip nestling next to Smash in their CD collections right ? When guitarist Noodles starts getting the crowd to shout "Motherfucker" I leave for the Boiler Room before my sides split.

And boy, I'm glad I did, as I arrive just in time for Aussie techno-terrorists SNOG. This is where hardcore industrial meats hardcore techno like a car-crash and creates the biggest mind-fuck of noise all day. OK, so the singer looks like a bit of a spare-part when not required to supply his baritone monotone to the sound but few notice as they get sucked in by the flashing video-screens super-imposing dollar-signs on top of Jesus and such like at the speed of sound. Their 160bpm finisher has me and a couple of hundred others dancing like idiots for possibly the first time in the day.

Next up in the Boiler Room is Sydney chart-stars, SOUTHEND who are like Utah Saints with the pop skills and nifty samples replaced with your embarassing sister on vocals and bad dancing. Not a *great* swap I'm sure you'll agree.

I give PRIMAL SCREAM a miss as they may come from my home town of Glasgow but I have zero patience for their Rolling Stones review show.

I catch the last half of THE CULT which is their 'greatest hits' bit. Astbury is looking lean and mean and singing like the bastard child of Jim Morrison and Lucifer even if the rest of the bands polished polite approach is taking the edge off the songs. Now if only he had been in this kind of form when The Cult were still relevant instead of the bloated mess that screeched his way through the Electric and Sonic Temple tours.

Headlining the main arena is MINISTRY for the simple reason that no one else would be able to follow them. Al Jourgenson is still looking and singing like all four of the horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into one and they basically race through their Psalm 69 set despite their imminent new album. Good move - no one wants to hear 60 minutes of new material at a festival. They shred despite an initially mushy sound which blurs the precision guitars and buries the samples. The feeling I got though was that they could do this show in their sleep even though they looked like they were having fun.

And thats it - the only band left to play is FUN^DA^MENTAL in the Boiler Room. I duly rush over to make sure I get in. I shouldn't have worried - despite a healthy build-up in the local press the place isn't even half full, the huge majority of the crowd choosing to head home. At 10:30pm! I'm sorry, but what's the excuse ?

Anyway I'm pleased to report that they all missed the band of the day as Aki, David Watts, Mushtaq and Dennis put every ounce of soul and energy into an hour of righteous anger. Middle-eastern B-Movies and archive footage of English colonialism provided the visual backdrop to tribal breakbeats, string samples, hip-hop scratching and the most animated performers of the day - Mushtaq and Dennis criss-crossing the stage and rapping straight at the audience, David Watts (aka Blacka D) headbanging over his turntables before coming stage front to aid in the rhetoric and beam a torch into the faces of the audience and Aki (aka Propa-ghandi) alternating between huddling over his keyboards and whirling his arms like a man posessed, only his eyes showing from beneath his bedouin head-scarf. Their impassioned pleas for unity ("Humanity is My Religion" read the t-shirts) and pro-woman message dispelled any reservations one might have that their Nation of Islam and Farrakhan name-checks might come with some attendant suspect views, although the confrontational nature definitely led to more than a few leaving - young Australians on the whole are possibly *the* most apolitical people I have ever met. Those at the front however are jumping up and down as if their life depended on it even if you get the feeling that half of *them* aren't listening to the message either.

So that was the Big Day Out. It was pretty much what I expected - a polite mini-version of the UK summer festivals and a Lollapalooza without the pretense that they're trying to change anyone's attitudes. Having said that, the line-ups should be mixed more across the stages. There's little reason why bands like Fun^da^mental and Snog shouldn't have been forced on the radio-listeners in the main arena.

My only other complaint would be that this years line-up was a little short of international stars on the ascent or at their peak with previous years featuring bands such as Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Smashing Pumpkins, The Breeders and Bjork (admittedly Sydney et al got the addition of Hole to the bill). This year's line up undoubtedly suffered from the withdrawals of Oasis and Orbital both of which would have hadded an extra spark to the festival but hey, we all had a good time. You can't ask too much more than that.