Big Day Out 2011 Overview

Well there you have it, another Big Day Out has been and gone. Having had such good weather for so many years now, it was not surprising that rain was on the cards this year and while it led to a few fun and atmospheric moments, coupled with the cold,  it was rather a pain for the unprepared.

On Saturday morning, as they do every year, we received a post event summary from the Big Day Out with the stats of the day...

Attendance: despite one of the best line-ups in years the festival didn't sell out, but was pretty damn close with an attendance of 45,000.

NZ Police: 11 people were arrested all for minor incidents.

St Johns Ambulance: there were 1085 treatments on the day with 7 people being taken to hospital for further observation, none of them serious injuries.

We had a few reviewers out there and we expect to get their reports up in the next couple of days but in the meantime, here’s a quick overview of the day from a couple of us here at the UTR office...

Ratatat – Boiler Room – OMG the new boiler room is amazing, no longer stuffy and sweaty, and the sound and lighting was superb. The big screens and live footage were fantastic, which is how we came to watch Ratatat who reminded us why they are have such an impressive live reputation.

1995 – Hot Produce Stage – great first outing for these Auckland natives.  Musically strong throughout but stage presence was a little stiff at first.

Andrew WK – Green Stage – PARTY! What a dude, loved this show, SO MUCH ENERGY and a good level of boganity.

CSS – Boiler Room – Amazing! We’d totally forgotten how much we loved their first album and caught the end of their set just in time for "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above" and “Alala”.

Die Antwoord – Boiler Room – Fok yeah! We were expecting this to be a great show and they didn’t disappoint – Ninja and Yolandi are amazing, such great performers definitely a highlight of the day.

Crystal Castles – Boiler Room – We watched this from side of stage, the sound wasn’t great and we think there was some equipment problems but it was awesome seeing the trio swigging Jim Beam from the bottle before the show and Alice Glass rocking out despite a broken ankle.

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros - Converse Essential Stage - the rain only added to the atmosphere for these guys, who with eight plus members, created an impressive live sound.

Iggy Pop and The Stooges – Blue Stage - with the idea of sheltering from the rain so we could fully enjoy them,  we found ourselves at the top of the east stands where the sound and atmosphere was terrible.  We did get to see a couple of songs on the field and they were really fantastic.

Rammstein – Orange Stage – we stayed around just long enough for the opening song, curious to see what was behind the big black curtain and the opening was pretty spectacular but the rain got the better of us and we retreated to shelter.

LCD Soundsystem – Boiler Room - sounded great but we weren’t feeling their stage presence this year.

Primal Scream – Green Stage - really enjoyed trancing out in misty rain for a song or two, but again unprepared for the wet weather and cold we headed back for shelter.

Tool – Blue Stage - we hadn't planned to watch them but found ourselves in the west stand watching over the wall and actually quite enjoyed listening and watching over the crowd.

Grinderman – Green Stage - the heaviest rain of day began as Grinderman took the stage and while it was amazing to see Nick Cave at his pulpit, we only lasted two songs - two great songs though.

MIA – Boiler Room - not only could we hardly fit in the Boiler Room but we couldn't see a thing when we did squeeze our way in. After being able to watch all acts in the boiler room from the back on big screens it was so disappointing that MIA played her own visuals. It did sound amazing but we only lasted a few songs before we called it a day.

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We'll have full live reviews for you in the next couple of days - feel free to post your thoughts on the day below.