Bet you thought I was going to post the minute I got home from the Big Day Out, or at least the day after - well, so did I. Instead I've let not only the weekend, but three workdays home sick go by without so much as a 'THAT WAS AWESOME' or a 'MUSE RULE!!1!1!!'

Well I'm back at 'work' now, so I suppose there are no more excuses not to post :p As I mentioned, I've spent the last three days not at work due to an odd virus. Odd, cause it's not often something takes me out badly enough to miss three days of anything, odd cause I never actually felt all that bad, just enough to know if someone else caught it they mightn't do all that well, and odd cause it was nothing more than a niggly throat and pressurized ears. And it made me grumpy in the evenings, but New Zealand winning the match against England on Tuesday kinda helped with that (reverse the batting order, I say).

SOOO... the Big Day Out. The only band I was keen to check out early on were Eskimo Joe, but I'd then have had to wait a few hours before anything else decent was on, so I didn't leave the house till it was nearly two. Jumped on a bus from outside Real Groovy, arrived and did the epic walk from the bus stop to the stadium. It's like a tradition or something - and it's kinda cool hearing the bands get louder and louder as you get closer and closer, gets the apetite going and all.

The first indication I had the way the Big Day Out is being run these days mightn't be up to scratch was at the entry turnstiles. The BDO staff were confiscating unopened drinks.

Odd, because it's hard to go anywhere at the BDO without being reminded to keep hydrated, etc etc. Yet the staff were confiscating drinks at the point of entry. WTF was with that? Someone in the event's management needed a good punch in the face for that decision.

Anyway, I finished off my V before going in, and I soon realised I'd forgotten my schedule and map. I went to the information stall, queued up with everyone else who'd forgotten their schedule and map, only to be told they don't have any. WTF? Every single person in that queue was after a map, and they didn't have any?! That's two punches in the face.

And another for the staff member on the gates who told me to 'go away and complain to the manager' when I asked her if she had one.

So, armed with an envelope with the few bands I wanted to see and their times scribbled on it, I went in search of the Green Stage, in order to catch the Vines at 3pm. This is when I realised that 45,000 people is WAY too many for the size of the venue. The last BDO I went to was in 2004, so I wasn't entirely sure of the exact direction to go. I found myself in a river of people heading in the general direction of where I thought the Green Stage was - and got a little worried when the sounds of some shit-arse hip hop got louder and louder. Soon it got quieter and quieter though, much to my relief, and the river eventually emptied us into the field in front of the Green Stage.

The Vines sucked though. The sound was rubbish and Craig Nicholls wasn't so much singing as shreiking incoherently. I left after one song, and joined a river heading towards the main stage to see My Chemical Romance.

Unfortunately, bad sound seems to have been designated the theme of this particular BDO. That, and the lack of ability to swing a cat. It's impossible to say whether My Chem played well or not, as from where I was standing - direct line of sight, middle of the stadium - you could barely hear them. Seriously! Part of me seriously considered asking those around to be quiet so I could listen to the band. That's not really what you expect of a group playing the main stage, is it? Punch in the face for the sound guy (that's four, if you're keeping count). I went up into the stands to see if it sounded any better, it didn't, but I ran into Flik. We popped back down to the ground, chatted and stuff, she went one way to see Evermore, while I went the other to check out Kasabian (which entailed getting back into that river).

Kasabian were the first real highlight of the day for me. On the way there I tried to catch some of Lily Allen in the boiler room, but it was impossible. Pity, cause when she started it sounded so freakin' good compared what was happening on the main stage. Ah well. Kasabian kicked arse though, as ragged as their first album with the punch of their second. Had a decent sized crowd too - though it's hard to say whether that was an inevitable consequence of having so many people in such a small area, or there really were just as many Kasabian fans as My Chemical Romance fans... The singer told everyone to take drugs, of which many already were. Not me though. Smoking weed leads to drinking water, which leads inevitably to needing to pee, something you want to attempt as few times as possible at a BDO. They said there'd be more loos this time, but I didn't see any.

Same goes for drinking. I've never understood the people who spend the whole BDO in the fenced off drinking area. Firstly, it's Lion fucking Red. Secondly, I'm sure it's hell overpriced and watered down. Thirdly, you'd spend half your day getting to and queueing up for the toilet. And getting back just in time to need to pee again.

Anyway... I wandered around a bit for the next hour, had something to eat (surprisingly, the food wasn't as bad a ripoff as it usually is (I'll take back one punch in the face, thankyou), and sat to eat while watching Jet. Fuck they sucked.

Not as much as Scribe though. By this stage I was squashed in a mad rush to get into the area up the front of the stages. Supposedly this 'D' barrier is meant to assist in crowd control and safety, but all it did was cause a massive bottleneck and jam in a different spot. Normally you'd have the width of the stadium to find a way in and out. This year, everyone had to navigate their way through a five metre wide corridoor, which was insane. To make things worse, we were forced to endure an hour of Scribe mumbling his way through crap. Seriously, WTF was he doing on the main stage at 6pm? That's Shihad's slot. Punch in the face for whoever organised that atrocity!

It was worth enduring though, as from the second the Killers began playing, in addition to kicking arse, it was obvious something had been done about the sound, thank god.

Brandon Flowers took the bass guitar on for a couple of songs, I couldn't see from where I was standing what the actual bass player was doing at the time - probably laughing as hard as I was. They were good though, but the real main act was up next...

Muse were raw but hell tight, Dom and Chris and the synthesizers keeping the songs in order while Matt's guitar screeched, crunched and squealed all over the show. It was worth the price of admission alone ($133?!) just to stand in a sea of people screaming, 'you will pay for your crimes against the earth!!! You will burn in hell for your sins!!!!' while lights flashed about and the stadium sounded like it was going to explode. Or, more humourously, listen to everyone bellow out the verses of 'Starlight', then sheepishly wimp out on the falsetto choruses.

Caught a bit of Tool from the stands, they were loud. Freakin' loud. I wandered over to watch some Violent Femmes, till they began playing bluegrass. I was too tired to hang around waiting for them to get back to the classics, so called it a night.

So to sum up, bands mostly good, organisation and planning mostly bad. There were FAR too many people. I mean, it's always been pretty packed, but this was ridiculous. They need to split it over two days, 30,000 at each I think. It's not like the people on the second day are going to care the place has been pre-deluged in garbage and has no toilet paper; it was already like that by 2.30pm this year.

So in other news, as I mentioned earlier I've been off work the last few days with an odd virus. It's given me the chance to finish the concept album though, so YAY! That's two completed albums sitting on the hard drive waiting to be released, I suppose. After February I should have three, none of which bear any resemblance to the other.

HOMETIME! YAY!