BIG DAY OUT
Adelaide, 29th January 1999
by Mandy Williamson

Well it was a nicer day than other years for the return of the big day out to Adelaide, nicer in that it wasn't 43 degrees, but it was bloody windy and drizzling most of the night.  First band we saw was Regurgitator and at only 4:30 in the afternoon they already had a huge moshpit thing happening.  They played all their really cool songs..Black Bugs, Track 1, Polyester Girl, The Song Formerly Known As, I Like Your Old Stuff etc. etc.  I hadn't seen Regurgitator live before and I was mighty impressed, as were the rest of the crowd.  Lots of dancing happening in the outer. Next we sat back and chilled out while listening to the Manic Street Preachers. I have to admit that I don't know much of their stuff, but what I heard I enjoyed and they sounded better live than on the radio. Next was Korn, when the pain started!! We thought we were far enough back to escape the major mosh but we were wrong, talk about one violent mosh pit!!!  A.D.I.D.A.S. was a killer, people flying everywhere, one guy ended up unconcious on the ground next to us.  That was when we thought it was time to get out of there!!  I watched the rest from a safe distance and was glad I did, as by the time they got to playing Got The Life, it looked like a war zone, not a mosh pit, totally brilliant stuff though.

Powderfinger were next on stage, and again proved the fact that australian music is having a major resurgence in popularity.  OOPS, actually I think Korn and Powderfinger were around the other way!!!

Next was Marilyn Manson, the king of controversy himself.   I didn't actually see much of him as I was trying to get a good possy for the next band, but what I did see from afar looked pretty impressive.  The whole set sounded brilliant though, with highlights being Sweet Dreams, The Dope Show and I Don't Like The Drugs (but the drugs like me) but when Beautiful People ended the set the mosh pit extended right across to the next stage where we were waiting. Apparently something happened during ..Drugs, something about Marilyn Manson ending up diving off stage and security coming from everywhere, i  don't know what the whole story was about that though. Finally was the band I'd been waiting for...HOLE !!!!!  I missed them last time they were in adelaide and was determined to get as close to Courtney Love as possible. This was not as easy as I had anticipated, the mosh started immediately and I lost Ian within about 10 seconds.  Talk about violent, especially when the other 20,000 people who had been watching Marilyn Manson decided to push their way in!!! Well, somehow I got to the second or third row and spent the set trying to stay alive, girls fainting all around me, bodies flying left, right and centre and me trying to stay upright while trying to take pictures!!  Anyhow, they started with "violet", my totally favourite song and it went off big time.  Courtney is so gorgeous, and what a voice!!!!!

Miss World was totally brilliant, as was Malibu.   Sometime during all this, Courtney got bitten on the arm by some bug and she totally freaked out, and ran off stage to get a medic to look at it. The band were like totally stunned and Melissa ended up leading them in a cover of a Lemonheads song that I can't remember right now. But which was quite cool.  Anyhow Courtney came back out and I think they then did Celebrity Skin, which went off in a major way!!!  I apologize if Im getting this all mixed up.  Anyhow, soon after Courtney went off about her arm again and how she was going to die coz she'd been bitten by this bug.   then she just says "Goodnight" and walks off stage, the rest of the band are just looking at each other puzzled and followed her off.

We're all just looking at each other stunned, and after about 5 minutes assumed they weren't coming back out and walked away.Anyhow....We went right down the back and are just chilling and about a quarter of an hour later Hole came back out...I was totally spewing, I lost my prime position.  Courtney did this beautiful acapella song, Northern Star I think it was called and they capped off the show with a very strange choice of cover version...Gun's N Roses Paradise City. From where we were standing it looked like it went off in a huge way.....What a totally bizarre show!!!!!!!!!!