Every summer in Auckland for the past 10 years or so a massive outdoor festival takes place named the Big Day Out. With upwards of 7 stages, each featuring a different musical genre, there’s more than enough to listen to no matter what you like.
This year’s line-up featured 59 different performers, making it tricky to navigate between different shows. Add to that many thousands of people and a map from the wrong city and you know things are going to get messy. Sadly, big music festivals somehow find a way to schedule all your favourite artists to play at the same time. While one hour later, there’s nobody you want to see. So it goes. Regardless of all that, it’s hard to beat a full day of live music, cold beer and warm sunshine. Also, not a shabby place to grab some cool photos.
Here’s a peek at the midday crowd gathering around the two main stages.
Bjork takes the main stage as the sun begins to set.
The circle coaster in the middle of the main stage area basically went around and around in circles. Well worth the wait, especially if you can nonchalantly sneak halfway into the line.
Once the sun set, Bjork finally stopped playing the sleepy songs and got into one or two songs with some energy.
Overall, a bit disappointed by her show. Between her last song and her encore, the Lords of Lightning set up and created their own tesla coil using their bodies and some metal rods that lit-up like lightsabres. Bjork came back on while they were going and the majority of the crowd chose to keep with the electricity guys. Someone captured this clip and it’s a great shot of the electricity, the circle coaster lit-up in the background, and Bjork playing (sadly, another slower song).
On the way out we were festivaled out. We did try a ride or two, including this doozy.
I would have liked to stay for the closer band (Rage Against the Machine), just to see the audience go crazy. But after mastering their songs on Guitar Hero 3, I feel like I got the gist of it.
