Its been a solid 2 years since System of a Down released anything to the public, but their latest release, Mezmerize, was worth the wait. The thing is, its not worth it for the reasons you would think – and this isn’t the System of a Down you rocked out to 2 years ago.
Category: Reviews Page 8 of 9
Within the first 15 minutes of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – the new movie directed by Garth Jennings and based on the book by Douglas Adams – I had already decided that this movie was fantastic.
Head Automatica is the [apparently] much anticipated collaboration of vocalist Daryl Palumbo (formerly of hardcore band Glassjaw), and electronic whiz Dan ‘The Automator’ Nakamura (formerly of Handsome Boy Modelling School and Gorillaz). Their debut album, ‘Decadence’, was released in the States in August 2004.
… a guy gets into a taxi, and says “Hey, I need to make 6 stops – if I pay you $600, will you drive me around all night?” … I know it sounds like the start of a joke, but this is the very serious premise of Collateral, starring Tom Cruise and Oscar-nominated Jamie Foxx, with a fantastic supporting cast including Peter Berg, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Bruce McGill and Javier Bardem.
The one key thing to remember about this BDO is that I wasn’t actually planning to go – its just that when the time rolled around, I had talked myself into a bunch of the bands, and had heard more from them all – like, during December and January, leading up to the festival, I managed to pick up copies of Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Elephunk’, Lostprophets’ ‘Start Something’ and ‘The Fake Sound of Progress’, Muse’s ‘Absolution’ and ‘Origin of Symmetry’ (all of which now rank among my favourite albums of the last 10 years), as well as Metallica’s ‘St Anger’ and The Strokes’ album. I ended up buying my ticket about 2 days before the show, and catching a ride down to it with my Mum (she was going to Aucks anyway). Oh, and I was by myself as well. Here’s what I managed to see:
Determined to put the past behind me, and on my own for the first time ever, I headed to Auckland for my 6th consecutive Big Day Out. It was a pretty good day in all. Even though nothing much happened.
Just another standard day at the Big Day Out – this year I went along with my sister, and my buddy Nate again. Not too much transpired – except for when my wallet got lost with $200 cash inside it. I was pretty hungry and thirsty for the rest of the day. Oh – and it rained, which sucked.
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.
To bring in the millennium, Big Day Out got a whole heap more international acts, and tried its damnedest to give us the best BDO ever – and they almost pulled it off. One funny encounter that happened this year: we (me, my sister and my ex-girlfriend) ran into Jon Bridges (of Ice TV fame) again. He didn’t remember us though. I also fell over twice in the moshpit … read on:
In 1998, the Big Day Out took a break, but in 1999 it was back with a vengeance, with 3 of the biggest acts of 1998 in tow. This years BDO was highlighted by the fact that we (as in me, my sister, and my ex-girlfriend) met Jon Bridges (who was hosting Ice TV at the time), and talked to him for a while, and also by the fact that I sat and talked to the singer of one of the bands for a while – I just can’t remember which band it was. Some of the musical highlights: