THE
OFFICIAL BIG DAY OUT AFTER PARTY @ OXFORD ART FACTORY, SYDNEY
January
26 marks the coveted birth of our country and the time of year we herald to our
favourite pasttimes in a concerted effort to celebrate our glorious nation's pride.
January 26 means the cricket… possibly the tennis… and of course, the
Big Day Out.
Taken, BDO didn't fall exactly on Australia Day
in Sydney this year but it marked the beginning of a weekend coloured with true
blue celebrations of the great discovery date and everything else time has led
it to entail. This year, the skies shone as blue as the mood of the nation and
dealt out some of that inexplicable Aussie heat. Meanwhile, the talent of the
2009 BDO festival itself was hot enough to cause sublimation. Superband Fantomas,
Mammal, Cut Copy, The Grates and Lupe Fiasco represented a new heat wave while
the classic sear of the Prodigy, Serj Tankian, The Living End and Neil Young sealed
the deal for what was set to be an absolute scorcher.
Heat
wave maybe. But all the dehydration, sunburn and sweat stained shirts in the land
could not stop the official and exclusive BDO afterparty from burning into the
wee hours of the morning. The only way to get in was courtesy of a AAA pass from
the day's festivities. That's right, no cameras, no phoneys and no groupies. The
only heads behind these closed doors belonged to the performers, the who's who
of the Australian music industry and of course the backstage crew that keep the
show on the road and at the top of its game. After the massive exhibit these people
set up, pulled off and at some point would have to pull down, they deserved a
beverage… or four…. Maybe more. Australia Day means a very big couple
of weeks out for these puppies and even the fifteen thousand dollar bar tab did
little to quench their thirst. The colour black, skinny leg jeans, and converse
shoes dominated the red carpet, accessorised with candy coated hairstyles, tattoos,
piercings and numerous rounds of Jamieson's whisky - it really was oh so rock
and roll…
One of the most intriguing performers who made
it back to the afterparty at Sydney's Oxford Art Factory would have to be Mike
Patton from Fantomas. Patton's macabre genius is responsible for writing a new
direction in rock and roll with his brainchild Fantomas pulling off some remarkable
stage performances that are nothing short of a subterranean spectacle. The amazing
voice that was Faith No More has resynthesised in combination with nineties rock
legends Buzz Osbourne, Trevor Dunn and Dave Lombardo to create a new breed of
eclectic lividity which escapes the definitions of rock as we know it. Compared
to his stage persona, Mike was amazingly subdued behind closed doors, his intensity
tailored to a charming politeness. Who would have supposed a true gentleman lurked
beneath that screaming rock god?
The entire wall that housed
the party hub had been especially transformed by art collective Oh Really and
depicted some sort of surreal graffiti hybrid of Sponge Bob Square Pants and the
Transformers. With all the haze whipped up by the music greats studding the hall,
every inhabitant seemed to melt into the mural. Even the super popular bop-rockers
the Arctic Monkeys blurred right into the walls with the rest of them. It would
have made for a picture perfect portrait of the music artists of our time, from
dance to rock to hip hop - the whole spectrum just doin' their thing but there
was no way any flashes would be going off in this space.
To
top off the eerie hallucinatory dream feel of the place, the performance collective
What Makes Men Blush backed up there big day out recital with a private show that
pushed the boundaries of Burlesque - hard. These three ladies delighted in the
shock their perverted, sexy and quite frankly bizarre barnyard plot caused on
bewildered onlookers. This particular performance featured three little piggy
ladies fake banging and suckling each others bits… but, in a case such as
this, only a picture could properly suffice the scenery. DJ's kept the beats burrowing
towards the break of dawn as the AAA group finally got to relax and partake in
some serious drinking... and then some. There's not much more that can be said
about what happened next. What goes on tour…stays on tour…
Jordan
Faires
