Music News - Big Day Out 2008 First Announcement
02 October 2007 - 0 Comments
Summer’s a knockin’ at the door and the icebergs they are a meltin’…
That means it’s time to announce our first instalment of international and local artists to join our annual travelling jamboree.
We are extremely proud of the quality and diversity of the talent in our first announcement and honoured to be welcoming home one of the most dynamic and passionate acts that have ever performed on the Big Day Out as well as an artist we have always dreamed of bringing over to the Auckland Big Day Out after her 1994 performances in Australia.
Of course we are talking about Rage Against The Machine (BDO 1996) and Bjork (BDO 1994). But don’t think it’s a two horse race, these shows are gearing up to be the most ambitious series of festivals in the event’s 16 year history.
So please read on and if you make it to the BDO or to any of the other festivals this summer remember to take care of yourselves and others around you.
We have also made some important changes to the way tickets are sold from when they go on sale on FRIDAY 12th OCTOBER.
In an effort to ensure that our tickets are available to genuine punters at the price we have set, there will be a ticket purchase limit of four per customer and every customer will need to read and agree to our Conditions of Sale and Admission before they can purchase tickets. These can be viewed on our website now and will also be displayed in all agencies and outlets.
So enough with the housekeeping, here’s the invitation list for the pool party…
Where will the re-united RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE play their first shows outside of America? At BIG DAY OUT 2008, that’s where. Eleven long years since BIG DAY OUTers last pointed their middle fingers heavenwards and declared: “F--- you, I won’t do what you tell me!” Los Angeles, California’s RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE return to take the power back. Killing in the Name, Guerrilla Radio, Bulls on Parade, Know Your Enemy… Songs of rare power from a once-in-a-generation band. Witness the power and the re-ignited passion of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE at BIG DAY OUT this summer.
In 1994, she took her big time sensuality as far as the Australian BIG DAY OUT. Countless incarnations later, BJORK returns for BIG DAY OUT 2008 and we made certain New Zealand wasn’t going to miss out this time. Backed by big beats and an even bigger brass section, the singular Icelandic superstar will electrify as she brings to life songs from her new album, Volta, and reanimates fan favourites from Army of Me to All is Full of Love. Always shape-shifting, always avant-garde, there is no one on earth like BJORK. And there is no experience on earth like BJORK at the BIG DAY OUT.
ARCADE FIRE began 2006 in a church in a small town outside of Montreal, recording their second album Neon Bible. They'll begin 2008 with another religious experience - converting the BIG DAY OUT faithful during their first ever tour Down Under. The experimental Canadian indie septet, who floored critics with their 2004 debut Funeral, then invaded charts worldwide with Neon Bible, are a band on the cusp - BIG DAY OUT punters will be lucky enough to witness ARCADE FIRE make that mythical journey from acclaimed indie group to genuine rock force. Praise be.
The lords and masters of the Auckland Big Day Out stage demand a return after a year away. That’s right – perennial crowd favourites SHIHAD will rock the paddock with a fistful of horn-throwing classics and some of their new, hardest-hitting material yet. The guys have been in the studio working on a new album and we cannot wait to hear the extra heavy duty magic they have been cooking up.
BIG DAY OUT 2008 is hyped to welcome a band not much at the cutting edge as they are wielding the scissors that cut the damn thing in the first place. When not creating acclaimed albums as one half of production team DFA, James Murphy leads LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, the electro-disco-punk-funk-noise-pop sensation behind Losing My Edge, Daft Punk is Playing at My House and North American Scum. Two years ago, BIG DAY OUT got moving to the LCD DJ experience. In 2008, we get the full LCD band: guitarist Al Doyle (of Hot Chip), bassist Phil Skarich, keyboardist Nancy Whang and drummer Pat Mahoney. Their show, in a word: “bloodthirsty”. Bring it on – LCD SOUNDSYSTEM is playing at our house!
School might be out for summer, but DIZZEE RASCAL will be dishing out lessons at BIG DAY OUT 2008. Only three albums and 21 years old, DIZZEE RASCAL is pulling off equations way beyond his years – winning the Mercury Music Prize with his 2003 debut Boy in Da Corner, and confirming his place as Britain’s premier hip hop striker with 2007’s Maths + English. Spitting razor-sharp, rapid-fire words over an instinctive blend of hip hop, grime, ragga, rock, garage and whatever gets him hyped, DIZZEE is a ferocious performer, an innate showman. “This ain’t no sit-down thing,” he’s been heard to holler from the stage. Educational and entertaining? They said it couldn’t be done! Take a class with DIZZEE RASCAL at BIG DAY OUT 2008.
In 1996, BILLY BRAGG sang for the first generation of BIG DAY OUT goers. In 2008, he’ll sing for a whole new generation of BIG DAY OUTers – and probably a few who were there last millennium, too. The Bard of Barking will turn 50 before he reaches our shores this summer – but the fire burns more brightly than ever. Moving an audience and improving the world (his latest initiative, Jail Guitar Doors, brings music and meaning to inmates) remain his top priorities. The man who sang of a New England has a new lease on life. Be re-inspired by BILLY BRAGG at BIG DAY OUT 2008.
From Dunedin 1978 to the USA 2007 where they are about to be recording a new album, no band says “New Zealand” like THE CLEAN – Flying Nun originators and quite possibly this country’s greatest ever band. With a sea of famous fans from Pavement to Yo La Tengo and an inspiration to at least three generations of young Kiwi bands, The Clean are an institution. By the chaos of their own design, the trio of David and Hamish Kilgour and Robert Scott have perfectly managed their band’s existence so that their haphazard, on-again off-again attitude to it serves their own collective creative drive and continues to only enhance the musical legend that is The Clean. Essential.
Huge selling roots reggae act KATCHAFIRE have turned themselves not into just local heroes for a blunted generation, but they have become fixtures on an international touring circuit playing everywhere from Europe to Hawaii. Katchafire will leave everyone skanking the end of the night away at the Auckland local produce stage and going home happy.
With their smoky fog machine set to full blast, the sound of THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION matches indie songwriting with tasteful washes of electronica. Their last album was a superb, well-deserved Gold-seller in NZ and they have been getting increasing attention around the world, particularly through writing the soundtrack to the recent kiwi indie hit flick Eagle Meets Shark. The Wellington sextet have a brand new album coming out in October on Flying Nun. They’re much loved by fans of sophisticated indie pop and airy noneventful woozy skunkfestery alike so will bound to be a hit on a warm summer’s big day out in Auckland.
We’ve always got time for a bit of SJD. The live expression of their music is a loose collective of individually-talented musicians, quietly led by Sean James Donnelly (the SJD) but their recorded output is less raw, more focused, and with increasingly slick production values that defy the otherwise back-shed kiwi aesthetic. Now with a hugely acclaimed fourth album released, you do know what to expect from SJD – music that is clever, thoughtful and harmonically on the button – but the entity known as SJD is an ever-changing and elusive beast. Don McGlashan once described SJD as "like this impressionist painter that's been let loose in a recording studio". Like a mighty tree in a forest, SJD are quietly developing into a timeless NZ institution.
Purveyors of hearty Australian rock’n’roll, GRINSPOON, return to the Auckland BIG DAY OUT in 2008, having last graced our shores on the back of their Kills, Thrills and Sunday Pills album. The band has heated the Aussie charts with their fifth studio effort Alibis & Other Lies and has been nominated for ARIA rock album of the year. GRINSPOON are set to satisfy the seething masses at the BDO with scintillating swagger and a raw rock sound that will tattoo your eardrums!
BIG DAY OUT welcomes energetic tearaways and the NZ band of 2007 with the most frequent flyer miles, CUT OFF YOUR HANDS. And they sound a little something like this: if you took one heavy-duty blender and added the likes of Gang of Four, The Cure, Death From Above 1979, Joy Division and Split Enz, you’d get a pretty good idea of their thrashy, angular, arty dance rock, that’s complemented by the emotional vocal gymnastics of lead singer Nick Johnston. These guys are becoming renowned for frenzied live shows that have gone down a treat supporting visiting internationals like Bloc Party and they have just signed to the incredibly cool UK label 670, home of The Streets. With EP number two Blue On Blue released this year they’re winning those indie kids over left, right and centre. Catchy tunes, hot guitar licks, hella fun! What more could you ask for? Kick out the jams with CUT OFF YOUR HANDS at the BDO!
The Auckland BIG DAY OUT is proud to welcome Aussie hip-hop pioneers, the HILLTOP HOODS. This Adelaide crew have been putting Australian hip hop on the agenda of music fans everywhere with a string of killer albums and even released an impressive strings album reworking their hits with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for The Hard Road: Restrung. These festival kings of real hip hop are not to be missed so c’mon down to the front row and feel the love.
In 2008 we’re very excited to welcome Australia’s favourite bard of the musical ballad, PAUL KELLY, who will be making his very first BIG DAY OUT appearance. PAUL KELLY has created a rich collection of classic songs spanning 25 albums. Throughout various incarnations and collaborations as well as composing music for films (Lantana and Jindabyne) Paul Kelly has remained relevant and inspired, with recent release like his new LP Stolen Apples all testaments to his ongoing success. With a seemingly depthless talent for songwriting PAUL KELLY captures wry observations about love life and everything in between with a unique charisma, emotion, simplicity and wit. Whether or not God tells you to, it’s definitely a good idea to check out Paul Kelly at the BDO this summer.
For those who consider a genre to be a jail cell, BIG DAY OUT brings you unclassifiable New York foursome BATTLES. Math rock, avant-rock, angular, experimental, abstract, avant-garde… often scary words in the hands of lesser lights; but magic in the hands of BATTLES’ Ian Williams (Don Caballero), Tyondai Braxton (all kinds of experimentia), Dave Konopka (Lynx), and John Stanier (Helmet, Tomahawk). “Your brain might feel like it’s been completely rewired,” said The Guardian as they dished out a five-star review for the band’s debut album, 2006’s Mirrored. Brain-surgeons, electricians, and those with a taste for the unexpected are invited to enter the BATTLES-field at BIG DAY OUT 2008.
YOUNG SID is seriously touted as the next big thing in NZ hip-hop and very much the real deal. With his tales from the streets of South Auckland, Young Sid’s dropped a serious bomb with his just-released debut The Truth. Hits “Hood Like Me” and “Feel The Pain” are leading the way for the album which was recorded for the country’s up and coming hip-hop label Move The Crowd in New York City with the legendary producer Cochise (Remy Ma, Beatnuts).
ANTAGONIST are New Zealand’s most prominent and hardworking underground act. Since the release of their debut album “These Cities, Our Graves” (August 06) ANTAGONIST has spent countless hours in the van touring the nation and then some – they’ve played with Hatebreed, Parkway Drive and countless others as well as being named top local act on the Auckland leg of Taste of Chaos 07. ANTAGONIST live are a brutal combination of power and enthusiasm, members bouncing off each other, with engaging guitar breaks, epic melodic scales, brutal breakdowns and punk influenced groove held down by precise, technical drumming, solid bass lines and antagonising vocals. Top hardcore act in the country bar none.
Auckland indie pop stars MOTOCADE have powered themselves to the top of the local heap with smart tunes mixed into an organic sounding indie art rock with a peppering of punk that is at once familiar, yet new to these shores. Maybe comparable more to British acts, it is their blurring of a geographically fixed and identifiable sound that makes them more universal, less typical. They cite Kings of Leon, Radiohead and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as influences and have an excellent indie album Into The Fall out now.
WHITE BIRDS AND LEMONS lead the Auckland North Shore sound contingent for 2008 across the bridge to the BIG DAY OUT and these kids from the sleepy shores of Devonport offer up a youthful tangent on a Bluesy-Psychedelic-Folk-Rock-four piece. Rocking out in an enjoyable way, they’ve gathered some serious momentum and signed with the local branch of Liberation Records to release their debut EP last month.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, BJORK, ARCADE FIRE, SHIHAD, LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, DIZZEE RASCAL, BILLY BRAGG, THE CLEAN, KATCHAFIRE, THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION, SJD, GRINSPOON, CUT OFF YOUR HANDS, HILLTOP HOODS, PAUL KELLY, BATTLES, YOUNG SID, ANTAGONIST, MOTOCADE, WHITE BIRDS AND LEMONS
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