Dust, queues, rules, and the muso's singing of anarchy, it seemed a strange mix. It had been more than 10 years since I had been to the big day out, and that last time was in Adelaide in the hieghts of grunge and the festival itself was in it first 5 years. Many things had changed.

The Melbourne big day out had a new venue, after being at Princess park for the past few years it moved to Flemington racecourse, well more acurately the carpark at Flemington racecourse, those in power at the Victorian Racing Club obviously didn't want the punters (music) of Melbourne damaging their turf, or for that matter using their toilets. The organisers of the BDO had to provide everything themselves when a mere 10 metres outside the cyclone fencing were permannet toilets, bars, cool indoor areas, grass, and a grandstand. Instead the two main stages looked out to the dust and gravel (not the best surface to land on if one takes a tumble in the heaving crowd) of the carpark. There were some grassed areas near the essentials stage and lilyworld.

Billy Brag gave his little speech half way through his set, and told us to have faith in man kind not god, and to not be cynical, as the cynics only see the bad and not the good. So on that note I'll try and refrain from going on about the endless queing for beer, to get close to the main stage (which I never did), and the 'D' area may be the worst idea ever as all it did was move the crush back half way into the crowd. The fact you had to queue in one place to buy tickets to get a beer, then queue again to get into the drinking area, then again to buy a beer which you couldn't take out of the fenced in drinking area, then, you could go and queue for a toilet, then for food, then to the 'D' area. Most of the day was spent queing.

Which made me think that the punters took this rigid herding and regulation very well, especially when you had old agitators like Rage Against the Machine and Billy Bragg, and even Bjork encouraging them to rise up against those in power. It seems a strange duality, these quite passive observers of the rules listening and revelling in anti-rules rock.

Back to the music though, of the bands I did get a good look at, (I spent a bit of time chilling out in lilyland where people danced and drank and had carboard wars, like one does) I must say Bjork stood out, shE and her brass band and strange electronic glass devise were awesome. She has another worldly presence, and takes all those who are listening into a place thats full of beauty and deep emotion. Contrasting her to Rage who followed, Bjork was love and dopermine, Rage adrenaline and power. The impressed me by starting their set with the Russian natioanl anthem and the back drop of the stage had a giant red star on it, I'm not sure whether those around me found it as amusing, they seemed a little confused, as they did when Bjork finished with a song for the indiginous people of Australia, which I'm pretty sure asked them to rise up against the oppressors. I think that's us though, us being the white folk. A bit confusing for all I think.

I personally like a bit of politico music, although I don't think its the done thing these days and even Billy Bragg didn't get a great reaction to his speech, there was clapping, but also a lot of blank stares and some people were leaving halfway through. Maybe the youth of today are a little more conservative in there public displays than when I was younger.

DJ Campbell