The recent Big Day Out concert here proved to me that the sun in New Zealand is as hot and unforgiving as one of R. Crumb's amazonian female tormentors. Even a drive home in the car at the wrong time of the day can turn the side of your into a nice red lobster color faster than you can say Richard-Dreyfus-in-Close-Encounters-of-the-Third-Kind, much less 15 hours of rocking al fresco. The show was good, though. Impressions....


50 Ft. Queenie

PJ Harvey, tiny as she is, effectively brought her usual blood-lust-bloom-decay gravitas to a rugby stadium. She strides the earth like a spangly malnourished Godzilla on stage (minus the spitting fire and destruction of Japanese cities, of course). Wilco is not so big down here, so they played a tiny stage in the middle of the day.

Wilco over and out

Their song "War on War" off of their latest album "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel" is one of my favorites right now and they played a nice and trippy version at the show. We spent several hours being pummeled by lame punk and the latest retro trend- bad pre-punk 70's rawk- so Wilco was a nice little oasis in a mid-day desert of ugh. Novel concept they have: heartfelt lyrics, melodies you can sing along with and curve-ball weridness. Worked for the Beatles... Unfortunately, Wilco's set overlapped with that of Queens of the Stone Age so had to cut their set short. Curses!

"We're not here to fuck around."
The Queens did not fuck around, indeed, but they brought a little too much rock for the PA and their set was marred by sound problems. They are a mighty, mighty band, though. Led Zeppelin without the lemon squeezing, Metallica without the mullets and 'staches and Dave Grohl without being that dork in the Foo Fighters. They do the Rock Canon (Sex, Drugs, Sex, Drug, Sex, Drugs, Paranoia and Sex) really, really well. The Queens treated the crowd to an extra set at the end of the evening on a small stage after all of the sound problems. Nice of them. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain could have walked out and called for me to play drums with them and I could not have mustered much enthusiasm at that point, though.

Other stuff...
I really enjoyed Jane's Addiction. They are basically a nostalgia act this close to being Sha-na-na or the Rolling Stones right now, but they were festival large. Perry is one of the last great rock stars. Completely over the top. Seeing Jane's Addiction meant I could not see Kraftwerk, unfortunately. I regret that, but you can't see everything in life, even fun, fun, fun on the autobhan, yo. I saw the Foo Fighters for the 87th time and they were the big crowd favorites, I guess. Sing (bellow)-a-longs galore. They are kind of boring, really. Dave Grohl kind of screams every chorus and he is sure missed on the drums. Before seeing the Queens again we caught some of the new It Bands of the moment at the NME, New Zealand's own D4 and The Datsuns. I'm turning my hip badge in. They both sounded like Thin Lizzy (after Phil Lynott died) and that's being kind. I don't expect you to reinvent the wheel, but the 58 year olds in ZZ Top should not completely kick your ass, ok? Seriously. If all you are going to sing about is fucking and rocking at least manage to actually rock in some rudimentary fashion. A haircut won't make your drummer worth a fuck (ask Lenny Kravitz).

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