Big Day Out 2004: Auckland - January 16

Probably forever remembered as the Metallica Big Day Out, this year also featured overseas acts The Darkness, Black Eyed Peas, Muse, Kings of Leon, The Mars Volta, Thursday, Something for Kate, Gerling, Aphex Twin, Peaches, The Strokes, David Homes, Afrika Bambaataa, The Dandy Warhols, The Flaming Lips, Poison The Well, and Basement Jaxx.

And when you add the 30 plus local acts to the mix it was one of the biggest days ever.

This year was a sell out with 45,000 attending and 35,000 Metallica T-shirts. Well maybe not, but when you walked from one stage to another, it sure felt like it.

A welcome, if long overdue addition to the main stages (colour coded blue and orange) was a massive screen to their right allowing people in the stands an up-close view of the onstage antics.

Metal fans got into the swing of things early when 8 Foot Sativa opened the main stage for the second year in a row, and had a mosh pit going before lunchtime. Front man Justin looked mighty proud of their fans' efforts although every time he started to 'sing' it looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel and become the first casualty of the sunny day.

The Coolies limbered up for their SXSW jaunt with a set that shifted between being messy and tight, sometimes in the same song. Goodshirt looked a little lost amongst all the space of the big stage, but provided a nice little warm down after the 8 Foot show.

Over on the Essential stage Deja Voodoo are sounding more like a proper band with each performance - probably to their disappointment, and their sizeable crowd lapped it up.

From the opening riff the crowd surged forward to see the 'back from overseas' Steriogram. Rapper Tyson has taken the skinniest Kiwi white boy rocker mantle from Jon Toogood. Some serious touring around the States has made their playing extremely tight, and they're obviously very proud of their clean undies, which they showed off with some frequency.

The D4 hammed it up for the big screen, the past year's international touring and international festival shows have given them plenty of experience in playing to huge crowds.

Elemeno P were well popular on the Green Stage and will surely graduate to the main stages next year. Crowd fave Verona closed their set and Zed inherited their crowd, adding a few screaming girls of their own.

The hip hop stage came into its own this year with Scribe and P-Money rightfully headlining. While groups like Fat Freddy's Drop and last year's openers The Fast Crew did pull a great show together, the sound for Verse Two was marred by the band turning up late; an absolute taboo for the event.

Presenting so many stages in a relatively small area is a wonderful concept for the concert-goers' choice, but there are inevitable trade offs in terms of mobility and sound spill. Every time an artist on the hip hop stage stopped between songs the booming sounds of the Boiler Room would be clearly heard.

Once again the dance tent swelled under Concord Dawn's set, with people escaping the heat grinning from ear to ear from the music. Or maybe it was something else. Tiki from Salmonella Dub guested on vocals for a few of the songs and one brave fan even pinched a passing policeman's hat, much to the coppers' disgust. Sal Dub's own Boiler Room set a couple of hours later was full to the brim and stickier than outside.

Last Kiwis on the main stage, The Datsuns, arrived in Pacifier's traditional 5pm slot asking people not to fight it, before showcasing songs from their upcoming second album. The audience was huge, but whether those were Metallica fans settling in or hardcore Datsuns followers it was hard to tell. Dolf de Datsun later gave closing act The Flaming Lips a helping hand as the dancing TVNZ Goodnight Kiwi, and describing it as a childhood dream come true.

A nice hat trick on the small stages in the early evening started with The Mint Chicks, who were painfully loud, but pulled off a great set. Then it was Fur Patrol's turn, playing a nice rocking set to a medium-sized yet clearly appreciative crowd, before Betchadupa, the last of the local bands on show, took the Green Stage into darkness.

Their sound is full, and their repertoire is getting more impressive. They also seem to have pinched a lot of the screaming girls Zed once possessed.

It's inevitable that on such a big day you'll miss as many bands as you get to watch, but almost every local act we saw was as convincingly rock 'n roll as the internationals. Another great year!