Big Day Out music festival in Sydney. AAP Image/Paul Miller
And the winner is… Australian Music
We hope by now you’ve recovered from Australia Day and were able to celebrate it in proper style in UK. With a bit of sun through the day in London we probably had better weather than most of the east coast of Australia.
Music from the Motherland was up bright and early to listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100 and dream of BBQ’s and a public holiday. Australian music shone through with six of the top 10 filled by Australian artists. As far as unpredictability went there weren’t any major surprises with Gotye having seemingly booked the number one spot as soon as voting began. Other notable Aussie acts in the top 10 included Boy and Bear, The Jezabels and 360, who were all looking good for a strong finish and they didn’t disappoint.
Some people might complain it was too predictable but not us! With the high quality of music out there for 2011, certain songs were always going to rank high and they got the recognition they deserved.
It certainly was the year of the Australian youngsters. Stonefield and New Navy were two bands which did well, while special mention goes to West Australian band San Cisco who’s song ‘Awkward’ came in at number seven. Not bad when a few of them only finished high school last year. By golly we feel old.
A lot of the songs on the list were discovered on Triple J’s Unearthed station, the platform for unsigned acts to have their music heard. Goes to show how much good music is tucked away across Australia just waiting to be discovered. Bring on the next batch!
Skivvy politics
Everyone’s favourite children’s group The Wiggles have welcomed back into the fold the yellow skivvy original member Greg Page. Page who was one of the founding members of the group left the band in 2006 due to continued health problems which left him unable to perform and tour.
Filling the gap for Greg was Sam Moran who played with The Wiggles up until last week. While the band and management have publicly thanked Sam and praised him for his efforts and gracious offer to stand aside there were rumblings about his treatment and the timing, with the announcement made on his daughter’s birthday.
Amid all rumours, we’re sure the all smiling, all singing group would never have any skeletons in their closet…. Or do they?
Big Day Out hitting the road
With all the controversy surrounding this year’s Big Day Out, you’d be forgiven for forgetting the actual point is to stage one hell of a festival. We talk of course of the falling out of festival founders Vivian Lees and Ken West with Lees walking away from the festival after 20 years of business partnership.
Add to this the changes in festival sites in some cities, slow ticket sales, the cancelling of the Auckland stage after this year – it has been a tough year for the people at Big Day Out HQ.
But the carnival rolls on and the show hit the Gold Coast then followed up with Sydney on the Australia Day. From our reports, while numbers were down on previous years, there was still the entertainment and glitz that goes with the travelling festival. Headliner Kanye West was 45 minutes late to his set up in Queensland much to the dismay of fans. In the buildup to his set Chris Cornell (lead singer of Soundgarden) was very annoyed on the neighbouring stage with sound checks interrupting his bands show. He vented the next day at the organisers of course on Twitter.
It’s not all doom and gloom though! We hear between the international bands of Kasabian and Foster The People and Aussie acts The Jezabels and Boy & Bear, crowds have been enjoying ripping sets and getting their money’s worth of music. For that we are jealous.