Possibly the weirdest BDO I’ve been to – absolutely nothing of any particular note happened, except for during Limp Bizkit’s set where they had stop to get some poor girl out from in the mosh pit. 2001 was the year when a girl had a heart attack in Sydney during Limp Bizkit’s set, and they had to take the Bizkit off the rest of the tour circuit, for safety reasons.

28 Days: A reasonable Aussie band, with a few good punk-metal tracks (the best of which is called ‘Sucker’). Nothing special overall though … in fact, I nearly DIDN’T remember seeing this band play, especially since they weren’t in the same class as Limp Bizkit.

Mudvayne: Now, prior to this year I had never seen or heard of Mudvayne before, so you can understand my surprise when I was at their show, and saw them come out wearing costumes, and putting on one of the best performances of the day – easily among the best acts of the entire BDO (and miles ahead of Limp Bizkit). Their bass player is one of the best around, they play some weird-as beats during their songs, and they got the crowd jumping hard to boot – definitely worth checking them out. I even went out the next day and got their album, ‘LD50’.

Coldplay: At this stage, of course, Coldplay hadn’t released ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’, the album that would eventually put them on the map, but they had a hit single called ‘Yellow’ and a great album called ‘Parachutes’. The only thing I can really remember about this gig is Chris Martin coming across as quite a talented guy – he’s got a unique voice (and is definitely better than Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit), but he also plays piano incredibly well, and can play guitar better than most.

(As well as that, he’s one of the craziest guys in the world at this point – when someone says his name, I just picture him playing ‘Politic’ at the Grammy’s in 2002 and looking like he wants to kill someone)

Placebo: If there were an award for “Band That I Probably Didn’t Want To See, But Didn’t Realise It” then these guys would take it. Likewise, if there were an award for “Most Feminine Singer Who Doesn’t Do Anything Remotely Dodgy”, these guys would take that one out too. Luckily, they were about as good as Limp Bizkit – though I can’t decide whether that’s lucky for them, lucky for Limp Bizkit, or lucky for me.

Rammstein: One-dimensional industrial music, from a group of Germans, with no English-language lyrics (or even subtitles on the screen at the back of the stage). The real highlights of Rammstein’s set were that they used heaps of fireworks and other flaming effects on the stage, including the singer walking out to sing the first song while dressed in a jacket which had been set on fire. The other highlight was that they were on right before Limp Bizkit …

Limp Bizkit: There is actually a reason why I mentioned Limp Bizkit in every other band’s write-up – all day I was looking forward to Limp Bizkit’s set. I bought their first album, ‘Three Dollar Bill Y’All’, back before they were famous, and it was on special at Musicor. I illegally downloaded a demo of their second album, ‘Significant Other’ several monthes before it came out. I then bought ‘Significant Other’. I bought their 3rd album, ‘Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water’ and listened to it non-stop, even though it really wasn’t that good. So all things considered, by the time they took the stage at Big Day Out 2001, I had been waiting for quite a while to see them. What followed was the most disappointing set at the BDO ever.

(I mean, the whole Big Day Out festival was geared around Limp Bizkit – the only true drawcard on the bill. But when they were done, I said to my buddy Nate that the best song they did was a Metallica cover – and that never bodes well for a live band doing their own music in front of 70,000 people) It should be pointed out that after the fiasco that was the 2001 Big Day Out, I actually decided not to go the following year, just because it sucked so much. But I ended up changing mind, as you’ll see.