Pod Insights ABC Rewind Inside the Big Day Out | From Nirvana to nightmare About this episode Come on a wild ride through the extraordinary story of the Big Day Out; the festival which, for over two decades, was a summertime rite of passage for music lovers around Australia
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0:12 Speaker 01 Australia once had the biggest touring music festival in the world. 4.5 million tickets were sold and nearly every summer for two decades, The Big Day Out was a rite of passage for music lovers around the country.
0:31 Speaker 01 Hi, Zan Rowe here with Radio National's new history show Rewind. And in today's episode, we're jumping headfirst into the mosh pit. For the fans and the bands, the festival was unforgettable. And for the people who created The Big Day Out, it was a pretty big gamble and one hell of a ride. In this first episode, broadcaster Gemma Pike heads back to the early 1990s and meets the two blokes who took a punt on a crazy idea, one that took on a life of its own and became The Big Day Out. And a heads up, as you might expect, there's some fruity language and themes coming up.
1:20 Speaker 02 Hey, I'm Gemma Pike. The Big Day Out started with two blokes who took a massive punt on an idea. It was the 1980s.
1:30 Speaker 03 I was living in a squat, Surrey Street, King's Cross. I set up an office. Phone got disconnected every three months. Got it reconnected again under another name. It was how it all was then.
1:42 Speaker 02 Ken West was a music promoter in Sydney and he was working hard.
1:46 Speaker 03 At that point in time, I was a graphic artist, poster designer, poster printer, poster glueer-upper, record company, manager, agent, driver, loader, everything. So I was good value for $25 a show or less, I think it was at the time. That includes the lights, because I borrowed them.
2:04 Speaker 02 Ken had been putting on some big gigs.
2:07 Speaker 03 Ramones, Deborah Harry, Nick Cave and the birthday party, and Lisa Bourbon and the church.
2:13 Speaker 02 After a few years, he was ready to take his shows to the next level. So he reached out to a guy from Melbourne, the manager of Hunters and Collectors.
2:21 Speaker 04 And I got this call from him, and I didn't know him.
2:25 Speaker 02 His name was Vivian Lees.
2:27 Speaker 04 But he said, "Why don't you come to Sydney?" And we wanted to come there, so Ken put together some dates for us on our first visit into Sydney.
2:35 Speaker 03 It was pretty casual.
2:36 Speaker 04 We went up there, it was really exciting.
2:38 Speaker 03 We both got arrested the night before that show for putting up posters.
2:42 Speaker 04 Then we had to do penance. We had to go and clean up other poster sites for a day or two. It was really boring.
2:48 Speaker 03 And so that kind of created that funny rapport.
2:52 Speaker 03 And I said, "You're doing a masters in economics and I'm the art person. You're in Melbourne, I'm in Sydney. Do you want to do some tours together?"
3:00 Speaker 02 This was the beginning of a partnership that would change Australian music forever.
3:12 Speaker 04 We enjoyed each other's company. He was funny.
3:14 Speaker 03 He demonstrated to me once that he was prepared to spend two hours arguing with a guy in an office furniture store about one chair to get the price right.
3:22 Speaker 04 Very open person, not a bad-boned his body, good guy.
3:34 Speaker 02 By the end of the 80s, Ken West and Vivian Lees had set themselves up. Just a couple of guys bringing good live music to Australia. They were Lees and West Music Promoters.
3:49 Speaker 02 When the 90s kicked in, Lees and West were on a roll. They booked the Violent Femmes on their biggest Australian tour yet. Femmes bass player, Brian Ritchie, was keen.
4:00 Speaker 05 We were legends in Australia and almost considered to be Australian. So we're kind of like honorary Australians. Well, now I'm a real Australian, so. Anyway, we knew that we had a big following.
4:13 Speaker 02 But the venues they'd booked meant higher ticket prices.
4:17 Speaker 04 We knew that we had to get a mid-level band to go underneath them if we wanted to take them into bigger rooms like Horton and Festival Oil and stuff like that.
4:24 Speaker 02 So Viv and Ken started looking for a support act. They needed a band on the rise, someone people kind of knew, someone cool.
4:33 Speaker 03 I talked to Stephen.
4:35 Speaker 04 Pav.
4:35 Speaker 02 Stephen Pavlovic, he's also a music promoter. He'd just started bringing bands out to Australia.
4:41 Speaker 06 I was fortunate enough to bring out a band called Muth Honey from Seattle, who were a part of that whole sort of alternative rock scene. I remember after doing that tour, they were like, "You should try our friends Nirvana."
4:54 Speaker 06 A lot of those artists didn't really have managers or agents and it wasn't part of the big sort of music industry machine at that point. And they were like, "Well, here's Kurt's number and here's Chris's number, you should just call them up. Hey, do you guys want to come to Australia?" Yeah, we'd love to come to Australia.
5:11 Speaker 03 Pav said, "I've got Nirvana out there, coming out." And I went, "Oh, okay, good, they're good."
5:16 Speaker 04 I'd never heard of them.
5:17 Speaker 06 They agreed to do it because they had sort of grown up on the Violent Femmes and that was a point in their life and they really loved that band, you know?
5:27 Speaker 02 And that's how it was done. Nirvana would come out for their first Australian tour, playing support for the Violent Femmes. But Ken wanted more.
5:40 Speaker 02 A few years earlier, on the road in Milwaukee.
5:43 Speaker 05 Milwaukee?
5:43 Speaker 02 He'd been to a festival called Summerfest.
5:46 Speaker 05 Summerfest.
5:47 Speaker 02 He'd never seen a line-up so diverse. Heaps of bands, different styles of music, multiple stages.
5:55 Speaker 02 It had stuck with him. By 91, it was still rattling around his head.
6:00 Speaker 03 Sometimes in life, it's a slow-motion version of a critical incident. You know, the boat sinking, the cyclone coming, you just know that it's now or never.
6:11 Speaker 02 So with Summerfest in mind, Ken decided to expand the Sydney Violent Femmes show. The Horton Pavilion is where he could do it. There was room for thousands.
6:29 Speaker 03 As it built, it was like there was meant to be one stage with the Horton Pavilion and I wanted to do the skate ramp, so it could have been a second stage.
6:35 Speaker 02 Ken starts inviting a who's who of the local alternative scene to play. Bands like Beasts of Bourbon, Rat Cat, The Clouds, UMI and Yothu Yindi. Ken's put together a full day of live music. The violent femmes would headline the whole thing. Now he just needed a name. The Big...
6:58 Speaker 05 Kenfest. The working title was Kenfest.
7:04 Speaker 02 Obviously, that was a terrible name. Ken had to come up with something that encapsulated his vision. This wasn't just another gig. He needed a name that would sum up, this was a big day of live music.
7:16 Speaker 03 Because my fear was if I go and put the thing on and there's nobody there for half the day, it's going to be really terrible.
7:24 Speaker 02 So just a week out from launch, it became... The big day out happens next Saturday, the 25th of January, at the showgrounds. Twenty-one bands, both Australian and overseas artists, will take to the stage. It goes all day. Viv, Ken's business partner, 50% stakeholder in the operation, had no idea how big this gig was becoming.
7:43 Speaker 04 He didn't say Viv, you know, do you want to do this? He actually said, "I've got a surprise for you when you come to the Sydney show. We're doing several stages and we're doing some other stuff." He didn't really tell me the extent of what he was doing.
7:57 Speaker 02 Ken's attempting something that had never been done before. And so far, it's not looking good. Ken needed a bloody miracle. And that's what he got.
8:12 Speaker 00 My housemate had been overseas.
8:15 Speaker 02 Former Triple J presenter, Jen Aldershaw, remembers where she was when she first heard Nevermind.
8:22 Speaker 00 She'd visited a bunch of record companies and she'd got this record. She put it on the stereo in the lounge room. And I remember standing in front of the stereo and just stopping in my tracks because it got to the chorus. I just went... I had that moment, that real moment, that where you hear something and you just go, "Oh, wow. This is amazing."
8:48 Speaker 02 By January 11 in 1992, Nevermind hit number one on the US charts. Nirvana was suddenly the biggest band in the world. And you know where they were?
9:00 Speaker 01 You're on Triple J, right around the country. And in the studio is Nirvana.
9:04 Speaker 07 Major labels are signing every underground band there is. There's bands that practise in a garage a couple of times. Yeah, and they say, "Let's go to a major." You know, who wants to end up like the Rolling Stones 40th anniversary thing, anyway? You know, you don't want to make it seem like a career.
9:21 Speaker 01 By the time January came around, people were just dying to see this group live. It was the hottest ticket in town.
9:32 Speaker 05 Well, there was incredible energy around the first big day out.
9:35 Speaker 03 You could kind of feel it, like a vibration in wood.
9:38 Speaker 05 It blew people's minds.
9:39 Speaker 03 It's the tickets left, or could I buy a ticket? Or people started ringing.
9:42 Speaker 02 And just like that, the first big day out was sold out.
9:46 Speaker 05 I think people just couldn't believe it was all happening in the same place on the same day.
9:50 Speaker 03 And then I get a phone call from the Prime Minister's personal assistant. "Mrs. Keating wants to take the kids to the show, but the Canberra box office is sold out."
10:05 Speaker 01 We got there early because we didn't know any better and we were super excited.
10:09 Speaker 02 People are lining up, waiting to get in, including Triple J's Jen Aldershaw.
10:14 Speaker 01 So we went there, planning to see it from woe to go, right from the first band to the last band.
10:26 Speaker 02 Nearly 10,000 fans poured into the site.
10:30 Speaker 01 Long-haired, young people in their cut-off jeans, Rolling Stones and Doc Martens.
10:42 Speaker 02 And it wasn't just about the music.
10:46 Speaker 02 There was a skate ramp, dodgem cars, video games, pool tables, food stalls and bars.
10:52 Speaker 03 They just wanted to see every band, they were running around like crazy.
10:56 Speaker 00 Everyone had their guide and they'd circle the bands they want to see and kind of mentally went, we're going to have to leave 15 minutes ahead to get there in time to see them start and then leave 10 minutes before they finish so we can go get to the next one.
11:07 Speaker 03 It was an incredible relief. It is a chance to just totally go off for the day, is the term Australians only have, going off.
11:16 Speaker 02 On three different stages, bands like Smudge, Falling Joys and UMI get the day going.
11:35 Speaker 02 Ken's business partner, Viv Lees, who owns half of this venture, is relaxed.
11:40 Speaker 04 I was just walking around like a punter, you know, because it was already done.
11:47 Speaker 02 Ken, on the other hand, has his first major challenge of the day. At 2pm,
11:55 Speaker 02 the beer runs out.
11:56 Speaker 03 It was a bit like a about war zone scene.
12:00 Speaker 02 Ken has to think on his feet. He gets a hold of the keys to the cold room of the Sydney cricket ground next door.
12:08 Speaker 03 We borrowed eight or 10 pallets of beer and brought it in on a flatbed truck right through the audience. They could have attacked the truck, instead they helped carry the pallets off and then they bought it. It was so innocent and lovely.
12:22 Speaker 02 Crisis averted.
12:26 Speaker 02 After kicking off in 92, the first five years saw The Big Day Out become a beast, expanding from a one-day show in Sydney to a national touring festival.
12:38 Speaker 02 The second annual Big Day Out had a line up just as dynamic as the first. Big name acts, cool bands and artists on the rise.
12:48 Speaker 02 To tie it all together, Ken wanted you to feel like when you walked through the gates, you entered another world. He asked his lighting designer for help.
12:57 Speaker 03 Peter Mackay, as he was known then, not quite sure how he ended up with Duck Pond, but Duck Pond worked.
13:02 Speaker 07 Would like you to be...
13:03 Speaker 03 The ambience director.
13:04 Speaker 07 Ambience director? And he said, "Yeah, it's basically just..."
13:07 Speaker 03 Well, it's about the ambience, isn't it?
13:08 Speaker 07 Bringing good vibrations, having fun with people, organising some parties.
13:14 Speaker 02 Duck Pond and his crew of roving street performers would go on to create The Lily Pat, the infamous stage where they dressed in animal costumes, blasted music from a portable sound system on top of an ironing board.
13:32 Speaker 00 No one was spending $120 to see The Lily Pat. That said, they were very glad that it was there.
13:38 Speaker 02 Sahara Herald. She was Ken and Viv's contact for the Brisbane music scene. In 93, they invited her to check out the Sydney show.
13:46 Speaker 00 They turned it a VIF, a Very Important Freeloader. It was probably the only time I really got to experience the show as a punter.
13:57 Speaker 02 Because not long after, Ken and Viv recruited Sahara. She managed the whole tour for the next 18 years.
14:05 Speaker 00 And we had this little office at the old showgrounds. We were in this little kind of bubble there, producing what seemed really small at the time, but eventually became the biggest touring festival in the world.
14:16 Speaker 02 Five years in and The Big Day Out's grown bigger than anyone could have imagined.
14:21 Speaker 03 I've never been more exhausted in my life.
14:24 Speaker 02 It's a huge operation. Ken's in Sydney, Viv's in Melbourne, and they're both under a lot of stress.
14:31 Speaker 03 It was in my head 24/7. It was driving me slightly crazy.
14:35 Speaker 04 We loved being in The Big Day Out, but at the same time, it was such a make or break for a lot of bands' careers to be on the show. And we had a lot of pressure on us from our friends to put their bands on. And it became something that both of us were really uncomfortable with.
14:54 Speaker 00 I don't think it's any secret that Ken and Viv had a challenging relationship. Yeah, they had two very different personalities and two very different skill sets and probably two very different outlooks on the world.
15:09 Speaker 02 Ken and Viv didn't see eye to eye. Often it came down to art versus commerce.
15:15 Speaker 00 There were parts of the show that Ken was very passionate about that people wouldn't necessarily be buying a ticket for.
15:23 Speaker 02 The lily pad, for example.
15:25 Speaker 00 That was stuff he was passionate about and that he fought for and sometimes quite literally fought with Vivian about. Because on paper, it didn't make financial sense to do those type of things. But did they add to the show? A hundred per cent.
15:42 Speaker 02 In 1996, the original Big Day Out site, Sydney Showgrounds, had been leased to Rupert Murdoch to build Fox Studios.
15:50 Speaker 00 So without a Sydney venue, we decided that the show was coming to an end.
15:56 Speaker 05 Welcome TV watchers. Chabber here with you in Sydney for the last Big Day Out. It's the Big Day Out 97, it's the last one. And it's been going for six years now. When it first started, it was just a bit of a one-off festival here in Nirvana played and then since then the Smashing Pumpkins have come.
16:10 Speaker 02 Six and out, they're most successful financially. 97 was a fitting way to end this remarkable ride.
16:20 Speaker 00 It must have been a month or so later, Ken and I got a phone call from the Sydney Showgrounds folk asking us to go out and have a look at what they were building out at Homebush.
16:31 Speaker 02 Homebush wasn't just the new Sydney Showgrounds. They were building the site of the 2000 Olympics.
16:37 Speaker 00 And as we were looking around, we both had the same mindset. And in the car on the drive back, Ken and I both thought, if we don't do this, somebody else will.
16:49 Speaker 02 After a year off, the Big Day Out returned in 99 with Hole, Regurgitator, Marilyn Manson, Super Jesus, Korn.
16:59 Speaker 02 Electronic music was booming and they booked artists like Fatboy Slim and Underworld for the Boiler Room, the stage where music fiends chewed the hours away on the dance floor.
17:15 Speaker 02 But a successful comeback was never a sure thing. The new Sydney venue needed 60,000 people to fill it.
17:22 Speaker 00 It was a real punt moving out there. Whether we would keep our audience from, you know, the inner city, whether they would stick with us. They did, and the show grew.
17:32 Speaker 02 Larger crowds brought a new dynamic.
17:35 Speaker 00 When you get that many people, they're not necessarily all purely there for the music. It starts to become about an experience.
17:44 Speaker 02 For Sahara, though, the music and music fans reminded her that what they were doing meant something.
17:52 Speaker 00 The thing that would catch me off guard each year was the look of joy and anticipation on people's faces as they would come in.
18:08 Speaker 02 I remember that feeling when you'd step off the train at Sydney Olympic Park and it was just like electricity. You'd just go, "Oh, the day is ahead of you and like, I can't wait." And who am I gonna see first? And, ah, like, everyone else was feeling it, too.
18:23 Speaker 02 Lisa Ryan and her friend Jessica McCarlock had been best friends since primary school. They were both crazy about music, and the 2001 Big Day Out was in their sights. My brother actually introduced me to Grin Spoon. I was like, "This is really cool stuff." And I remember bringing it in and Jess was just like, "That was it." I would just, I'll never forget her face, man. It was just, it was so cool. From then on in, it was like, oh, she had to get all the albums and she was like brushing up on all her history. Total music nerd, like, I have to know everything. And Grin Spoon was her ultimate, her ultimate Aussie favourite.
19:07 Speaker 02 Not long before the 2001 Big Day Out, the organisers hit a very big snag after headliner's Pearl Jam pulled out at the last minute.
19:17 Speaker 00 So we were scrambling to find a headliner. And, um...
19:28 Speaker 00 And we ended up with Limp Bizkit.
19:37 Speaker 04 The Aussie dollar was buying 57 cents US. So we didn't really have a lot of budget. And it was probably not our favourite booking, that's for sure.
19:48 Speaker 00 No one felt like, hey, this is a great big day outfit. We didn't have that many choices.
19:53 Speaker 02 The new millennium meant the explosion of new metal. Heavy bands incorporating hip-hop, industrial, funk and other styles. It was dark, it was catchy, it was everywhere.
20:05 Speaker 04 Limp Bizkit were huge at the time. They were very popular amongst a certain section of our audience. But there was a dichotomy. There were people who really liked them and a lot of people who didn't like them.
20:29 Speaker 04 So the tickets go on sale for the 2001 Big Day Out. And, you know, we kind of squeal when we see the line-up.
20:38 Speaker 02 Of course, at that age, we always had to consult with our parents for permission and finances, I guess.
20:46 Speaker 02 That year, I actually bought Jessica her ticket. Back in the day when you could actually go and line up and buy a ticket. The excitement for Jess and Lisa was even bigger this year. There was a whole group going. They'd organise who they'd see, how they'd manage set clashes.
21:09 Speaker 02 Lisa and Jess were ripping it up at their second Big Day Out. We saw Powderfinger. We saw Coldplay. Uh, Ramstein later in the evening.
21:24 Speaker 02 Frenzel Rom, we both love Frenzel. That was actually my favourite memory of that day. Jess had bought an Oscar the Grouch stuffed toy at an op shop. What are you, what are you gonna do with that? And she was like, oh, I'm just gonna throw it up at Frenzel Rom.
22:04 Speaker 02 As the sun set, anticipation was building for Limp Bizkit. Jess was always willing to like check out a band. She wouldn't be getting her money's worth if she wasn't gonna check out the headliners.
22:22 Speaker 04 Look at us, you know, we're gonna rock this place, let's turn this place upside down. And they did.
22:28 Speaker 02 Viv knew something wasn't right, straight away.
22:31 Speaker 04 They're bringing over unconscious people over the barrier. My memory is a lot of really angry male energy. I told them before we came. I said,
22:45 Speaker 04 "Put Limp Bizkit and 60,000 Aussies in one fucking place and this motherfucker's gonna go..." Head of security Jeff Gray was right in there at the front, you know, he took a wedge of guys. They had a plan, which is just to go straight in. He would have had six or eight guys just in the audience with the people that had fallen over, you know, picking them up to get the ones on top off the ones underneath.
23:07 Speaker 00 Everybody just be patient.
23:11 Speaker 00 Things are getting a little out of hand.
23:16 Speaker 02 So Viv jumped up on the mic and tried to calm the crowd down.
23:20 Speaker 04 I think I said, "Please..."
23:22 Speaker 06 Respect your fellow human being, there are a few people in trouble on the front.
23:25 Speaker 04 Can you move back?
23:26 Speaker 06 I ask you to just step back.
23:27 Speaker 04 Step back, step back.
23:29 Speaker 06 Give the people at the front a room and a chance to get up onto their feet. My last interactions with her were in the crowded area in a mosh pit. And...
23:44 Speaker 06 I had her hand and then I...
23:47 Speaker 04 Let it go.
23:51 Speaker 04 So it's very hard for me.
24:01 Speaker 04 The whole incident was over in like three minutes.
24:06 Speaker 04 You're walking over to where St John's ambulance were at the side of the stage. It was just a side of mayhem, you know, with like 20 or 30 people in stretches. Probably had about three or four ambulance transports and one person was in a very bad way.
24:25 Speaker 02 Lisa was even more worried when Jess wasn't at the meeting point. When she got home, she rang Jess's parents. Jess wasn't there.
24:37 Speaker 06 Tens of thousands of young Australians and their parents have some somber food for thought after the death of a 15-year-old girl who became trapped amongst a crowd of people at a rock festival. The girl had a heart attack when she became trapped among a crowd near the stage at the Sydney Big Day Out. She was my closest, bestest friend growing up and
25:02 Speaker 06 you know, when you're younger and you just think, oh, I've got my best friend, like I'm invincible. We'll always have each other.
25:10 Speaker 04 When she didn't come home with me that night, I just
25:15 Speaker 04 it's a very strange and unusual pain.
25:24 Speaker 04 She's like our archetypal audience member. And it kind of makes me emotional to think about it now because that's the kind of person that we put our show on for.
25:36 Speaker 00 I can't even express the level of devastation personally and, you know, professionally. You know, the Big Day Out had been something that I was so, so proud to be a part of. And to feel in any way culpable for the death of another person who was a music fan that had gone out for the day with her friends and had done not one thing wrong. She was there enjoying the show.
26:08 Speaker 00 Nobody gets ready that day and thinks, oh, I might not come home.
26:11 Speaker 02 And that's exactly what happened that day.
26:16 Speaker 01 What happened next was a coronial inquest into the death of Jessica McCarlock. It went for nearly two years.
26:23 Speaker 02 But George McCarlock, on the very first day, gave an interview outside the court, and he was saying that really it was just a tragic accident.
26:30 Speaker 03 I fought tooth and nail for the Big Day Out to survive because of Jessica's memory. Big Day Out was Jessica, and Jessica was Big Day Out. Bernadette Young reports the investigating officer has concluded that no one involved with the festival was criminally negligent.
26:47 Speaker 00 And, you know, there was no one thing that caused that accident. But it most certainly did make us all re-evaluate what we were doing on every level. And I'm not just meaning professionally either. We'd all been working our asses off to deliver a show that was meant to bring joy. And it didn't.
27:16 Speaker 01 While the inquest into Jessica McCarlock's death found that no one was negligent, the coroner did criticise Viv Lees and Ken West for their lack of crowd control practices. And after the 2001 Big Day Out, a set of crowd safety measures was introduced. This series was first broadcast in 2019. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Jessica McCarlock. Co-founder Ken West passed away in 2022.
27:47 Speaker 01 Next time on Inside the Big Day Out, Gemma Pike picks up the story in the early 2000s, when it was suddenly no longer the only music festival on the block and faced a different kind of competition: the rise of online music platforms.
28:04 Speaker 01 Today's episode was produced by Gab Burke, with sound engineering from John Jacobs and Tim Jenkins. Mike Williams is a supervising producer. I'm Zan Rowe, catch you next time on Rewind.
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