Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to bob daktari,
I’d suggest people buy into the festival… make it their own and create a sense of what it means as a festival to themselves and their circles of friends
when the owner of the festival doesn’t reinforce what they think it is then they feel betrayed and anger is expressed
Yeah, I think so. It's a mark of your success if you get people to feel that sense of ownership about your festival.
people are strange.. as we love to complain but very rarely ever thank those that risk it all promoting such things cause that simply doesn’t occur to most of us
Yes. Lees and West have a pretty honourable record in a business where that's not always the case. They've taken risks with artists and carried the can when that hasn't worked out. With BDO, they could have done things that would have made them more money -- big sponsorship, more hospitality areas -- but they haven't.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Tom Semmens,
The number one sign a promoter has completely lost touch is bitterly complaining that the punters don’t appreciate the enormity of the favour he is doing them.
it is tough game, innit.
Which is presumably why Lees retired after nearly 40 years of doing it pretty well. Maybe he just wanted a quiet life where people weren't calling him a cunt.
The sense of entitlement, and nastiness people feel comfortable expressing, really surprises me. If you don't like the guy's gig, don't fucking go to it. It's really that simple.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
…but I do remember being stunned that The Birthday Party were knocking back bottles of whiskey at their afternoon soundcheck!
They were falling apart – Mick Harvey had already cried off, hence Des Hefner standing in on drums – and Nick Cave told me when I interviewed him that they were only doing the NZ tour because they felt they owed it to Ken and Vivian, who they regarded as friends.
The tour manager had certain, er, habits and the whole roadshow, with hangers-on, seems to have become increasingly chaotic as it got further south. I met a couple of the Marching Girls entourage, still driving their rental car days after the the tour was supposed to be over.
Cave said later he thought New Zealanders were privileged to have seen a group in the process of collapse – comparing to Elvis’s final show, iirc.
I’m not sure if Annabel and the other nice people at Virgin’s NZ office felt quite that privileged.
I am hoping all my old posters are still ok, stuck in my lock up (nestled against the port hills) that I haven’t been able to get in to since the February earthquakes…
Oh lord. Any idea when you might be able to get in and check?
BTW, that Birthday Party tour poster, with all the Posada imagery, was an all-time classic.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to kris_b,
So if I read the article Ian linked, Lees quit BDO because he didn’t like what the nasty people on Facebook said about the shitty sub-par lineup?
Wow.
Well, yeah. Maybe he just couldn't do it any more. Possibly he's a 58 year-old human being who was a bit ground down by day-upon-day nastiness from people he didn't even know.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Steve Barnes,
How is that for take off?
That is so good on so many levels.
xLntHell yeah. A capture in the best sense.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Jonathan Ganley,
AKA the mysterious but discerning ‘Edward Zimblis and Syndicate’.
They decided to make up a name in case it all turned to shit..
But that Fall tour was before the Birthday Party, so I'm wrong there.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
Does anyone else remember the sight of literally thousands of sleeves-T-shirted bogans moshing in unison to Pendulum in the searing heat? I can’t say I’m much of a fan of Pendulum, but I must say it made me smile.
Me too.
We were safely up by the East Lounge and we were gobsmacked at the way the stadium suddenly filled with kids going mental. It was an amazing thing to watch.
And let’s face it, anyone who loops Max Romeo’s “Chase the Devil” a dozen times in a row gets my vote.
Adrian Sherwood dropped his own version in his show at the Powerstation last month. Loved it. There's never a bad time to hear that tune.
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Nick Dwyer did a nice job of marking the BDO's demise on George FM Breakfast this morning -- interviews with Campbell Smith, Zane Lowe, Havoc, etc.
Highlights here.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Heather Gaye,
Yeah, this. I remember snippets of acts I was particularly excited about seeing, and I remember enjoying myself, and I remember a couple of duds, and a couple of surprises, but generally all I really have left is… the vibe. It’s the vibe of the thing.
Quite. My best memories are of particularly exciting moments during gigs, but there are a ton of non-musical moments too.
Probably my favourite is watching the Strokes with my buddy Andy and seriously feeling the love. Then when they finished, we got talking to a couple of mums on the razz and in a gentlemanly fashion, walked them up through the crowd to their next stop, and bid them a good evening. It was stupidly nice.
Also, I totally would’ve been there front and centre this year if Prince had been headlining.
You and 20,000 people who aren't going this year.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Biobbs,
Simulcast with ginormous fucking torrential downpour that strangely seemed localised to Mt Smart and nowhere else in the city.
That year must have an entry in the Freak Weather Almanac. I was there in the morning to do Hard news on bFM and we couldn't believe how hot it was at 9am. Cloudless sky.
But, it turned out, it was hot enough to trigger a freak weather event. From the Immortals bar you could see the edge of the storm in every direction -- with blazing sunshine beyond that edge -- and we kept thinking it would surely pass over. It didn't, for hours.
A friend of mine was in the festival office as the rain hammered down and (those were the days) the MetService fax came off the roll. It read "No rain on the radar for the Auckland region".
Which was true for everywhere except theBig Day Out.