NZ Musician

Winner of last year's Rockquest, Christchurch three-piece Neil Robinson, were lucky enough to open the Fresh Produce stage at January's Big Day Out. Frontman Chris Young shares some of his own big day fun with NZM...

We initially found out that we might be playing at the Big Day Out whilst recording our first single at York St studios back in November. Lorraine Barry, our mentor since winning Rockquest, mentioned she was meeting with the festival's booking agent to see what she could do about securing us a spot on the bill. Of course this caused great excitement amongst the band, three wide-eyed teenagers with a passion for Muse and the Streets. When it was confirmed we were booked to play we were ecstatic.

We were to fly up on Wednesday evening and back on Sunday, giving us two full days either side of the BDO to explore Auckland.
We didn't land in Auckland until 10:30pm and not much seemed to be happening when we arrived in the central city. We didn't let this hold us back though, wandering around until the early hours of the morning doing whatever we could find to do.

Lots of people in Christchurch seem to complain about Auckland for various reasons, but I love the variety a big city has to offer. Big cities always have more of everything, sure there are more arseholes, but being from near Manchester originally I am well versed in that fact.

Thursday was a great day. It started with an interview with a lady from Radio Live and then with my band mates Josh and Hayden we went to meet up with our good friend Jude. Meeting with Lorraine to pick up our backstage passes we were informed that the band were on the door list for the Big Night Out at the St James that evening.

So with that I went back to my hostel, met up with mates Will, Joe and with a bottle of Scrumpy we went back to another friend's room at the YHA. After about half an hour an angry old hostel manager came knocking on the door, falsely accusing us of throwing things out of Loro's window and kicked us out. By this time it was about 9:30pm and Hayden had already txtd to say he and Josh had arrived at the St James so I wandered down to meet them.

I spotted Josh and Hayden instantly, but something about the look on Hayden's face worried me. It turned out he had somehow managed to break his finger minutes before. The night before the Big Day Out is not the best time for your drummer to break his finger, believe me. So with that we sent Hayden back to his hostel to rest it and went to watch Peaches and the Violent Femmes play great sets before stumbling back to bed.

The next morning required rising (by my standards) bright and early for the big day ahead. I met up with Josh and Hayden outside their hostel at 9am to wait for our ride to Mt Smart Stadium courtesy of Rob and Haddon from the Electric Confectionaires.
Pretty much immediately upon arrival at the stadium we had to get set up to play as we were the first band of the day on the local stage. Our excitement kept growing as the stadium's gates opened and we watched a crowd gather and eventually swell to what looked like 2000 people, all waiting for us to play.

The clock struck 11am and it was time to go on stage; this was it, our first performance at the BDO. It was a great success, despite Hayden's broken finger, with the crowd really getting into us. Lots of people already seemed to know our single The Epic Battles of Jude and his Monkey (named after the previously mentioned friend), despite the fact that it wasn't released to radio until February. The Electric Confectionaires had kindly lent us some gear so I felt like a real nob when, near the end of our set, I blew their Fender Twin amp. With that we thought we had no way to play on so Josh left the stage. Somehow we managed to get the guitar working again so I led the crowd in a sing along of a song I wrote at the age of 15, called Pop Sensation. It surprised me how many people seemed to know it and as the song came to a close so did our set.

The rest of the day was just mind blowing. Lily Allen confirmed my suspicions that she and I are meant for one another, the Vines were fantastic and Lupe Fiasco was just enthralling. I deliberately stayed well clear of My Chemical Romance (wouldn't want to catch that emo thing that seems to be going round) and didn't make an effort to go see Tool - I just find them pretentious and annoying.

Best act? Well that's a close call between Muse and The Streets. As the two clashed I ended up going to see both for 45 minutes each and let me tell you now, it was certainly one of the best hour and a halfs of my life. Both acts played blistering triumphant sets which truly were the highlights of the day as far as I am concerned. Mike Skinner certainly knows how to work a crowd these days. Matt Bellamy was pretty much God on the main stage and with 30,000 adoring fans singing every word of his songs back to him, he certainly must have felt like it. Shapeshifter ended my BDO experience perfectly with their awe-inspiring set in the Boiler Room really setting the tent alight.

The time until we departed for Christchurch on Sunday is a bit of an exhausted blur. The preceding day was unparalleled, one of the best of my life, so its aftermath mostly consisted of aches, pains and a good lie in.
Saturday night we ventured into Auckland's centre only to get turned away from most clubs by uptight bouncers on power trips, keeping us out for any reason they could possibly find.

So with all the crazy and amazing experiences of attending and playing at the BDO 2007 we headed back to our normal lives in Christchurch, satisfied in the afterglow of a life changing event and hoping for a repeat next year.