CHAPTER 23
1994 - The Year It Went Boom
Ticket price $45 + booking fees.
National attendance – 125k.
The first run of BDO shows made a reasonable profit but nothing like most observers estimated. It was still much bigger on a cultural & media-level than in a commercial sense. What made it so exciting was that it was gathering momentum. The success of the 92 shows made 93 possible & the success of the 93 gave 94 an incredible foundation. It was apparent that we were becoming full-time festival producers & part-time concert promoters. It was also becoming obvious that the stakes were getting higher. This was the first time we attempted 6 events by adding Gold Coast and Auckland.
Taking your eye off the ball could send us bankrupt. We pulled back on tours to focus on the bigger picture. We also needed to learn really fast how to delegate.
Initially, the inner core for on the road was a very small team. Matt Doherty on production, Peter Farrell on Backline, Peter Critchley on-site, Kate Stewart in coordination, Wendy Boyce Hunter for publicity & our friends Larry & Duckpond as the ambience team plus a handful of production crew. On the road Vivian generally dealt with international talent, solo shows & financial administration & I produced the festivals. The problem with expansion was that in general we were control freaks & felt it was quicker to do it ourselves than to show someone else how. That had to change, or we were going to kill ourselves.
The Sydney Showgrounds had a long rich history but was destined to be redeveloped in a few years as part of the Sydney Olympics deal. I loved it, filled with history and childhood memories, really run down and lots of character. I negotiated an office space for a few months before the show. It was like working in the country, but you were in the middle of Sydney. Horses walked past the office & in general, we were pretty much on our own. It was very calming, which it needed to be.
I was searching for an artistic direction for the shows when I noticed a huge inflatable blue boy set on top of the MCA at Circular Quay. It was made by friend Maria Kozik. The end result was the creation of Blue Boy and Cherry as an amazing artwork and on-road installation. They set the tone in a crazy kind of way.
On the international band front, Kate pushed for Soundgarden to headline & pretty soon we were getting a bill together. Stephen Pav was becoming a pretty big player & he had Offspring & The Breeders to bring to the bill. We then added Smashing Pumpkins, Bjork, Ramones and Teenage Fanclub. Looking back, it was a big line-up, but at the time, Soundgarden was the BIG band, with only 20,000 album sales here, nowhere near gold. Locally, Cruel Sea had sold over 100,000 albums but was 5th down the bill. It was just how it was then.
When trying to lock down the deals, both Bjork & Smashing Pumpkins were after more money, based on them theoretically being on the verge of becoming huge. I decided the best way to solve predicting the future was to link overages with record sales with the first bonuses at 10,000 album sales before the first show. Neither act made even their first bonus. However, 2 months later after the shows, they were both double platinum. (140k)
Seeing that the show was in a strong growth phase we looked at venues that could sustain expansion. As we had lost our Adelaide venue we went to the Showgrounds & to avoid conflict in Brisbane with Livid & to capitalise on the huge tourist component we went to the Gold Coast Showgrounds. However, in Auckland, the showgrounds had severe noise problems, so I decided to go to a huge venue, Mt Smart Stadium (now known as Ericsson Stadium).
The run for 1994 became Gold Coast-Sydney- Melbourne - Adelaide - Perth - Auckland. As I was worried about how Auckland would go, it needed to be at the end, just in case it didn't work. This also shortened the Australian leg to 10 days but logistically it was a hard run.
The next few months involved pulling the line-up together & getting council permits to stage these ‘disgusting rock festivals.’ This was before festivals were hip, so we kept pushing the ‘Youth, Music and Lifestyle Festival’ angle. I got calls from the council's planners with questions like “what percentage of the entertainment is music?” & “can you add more emphasis on ‘lifestyle?”. Everyone was with us, but they were scared of the all-powerful ‘resident action group’. These were hangovers from the 80s where one person could stop the joy of thousands. Luckily, over time councils learnt to become more socialist & support the benefit of the many over the few. The irony was that the most obnoxious locals were the new residents that wanted the upside of being next to a showground but none of the downside of them staging events.
Most Australians aren’t aware that this was also the first year of a National January 26th Australia Day. Before then it was more birth of state day and celebrated on different dates. Back then it was just another public holiday to most people.
We had chosen the Gold Coast Showgrounds, which was really a trotting track with extras, for its location and suitability, but just as importantly their support on every level from financial agreements and ground management to political connections. During January the coast was the place to be. It had unlimited hotels & was a party/ family place. No one had issues going there. The only problem with producing a show in an area with tropical weather was ........tropical weather. A cyclone hit the coast four days out & to say the least it was total shit. It was raining 20cm (7 inches) a day. Outdoors you needed to cover your nose with your hand to stop breathing in the water. The poor stage builders were getting saturated. The weird thing with monsoons is that you can’t believe they can keep going so you have a blind belief they will run out of water. But this sucker just kept going.
I stayed calm and started looking for another venue, I even went to Brisbane & negotiated a deal to move the show into the Entertainment Centre. Our site manager Smash had a relative in the bureau of Meteorology so hourly updates were the go. Two days out from the show the circus tent covering the second stage was ripped to shreds. Luckily, being a showground, the site had incredible drainage. Hundreds of tons of gravel two feet underground saved our arse. The night before the show we had to bump up the second stage next to the main stage, move the stage two acts over and reduce set lengths much to some artists' resistance.
Part of the problem, even removing the financial reality of no weather insurance, was agreeing on when to decide if the show was on or not. Because most people travelled, we really needed to let them know the night before, but at any stage, the storm could stop & the show would be fine. Eventually at 2 am Smash’s mate in Brisbane said “If I was a betting man, I would say it’s gonna go out to sea”. It did, at 5 am. It was the most magical dawn like the Gods had smiled upon us. Electric Blue.
Even though we had only sold 12,000 tickets it was a big deal. We had compressed the show into a third of the site, so it was pretty intense. I still believed in the rock ethic that if it doesn't feel like a sell-out it feels like a failure.
Vivian was on the road with Iggy and when he arrived from Melbourne mid-afternoon, he seemed oblivious to what had unfolded or how close we were to cancelling the show........ Strange?
All was going well until we realised that we were going to run until midnight & that we were blasting out the locals with the way we had set up the PA. I was called to the main office to talk to two young cops that had been sent to ‘shut down the show’. It was ten at night & I was feeling vulnerable. Luckily, they were Soundgarden fans & were more interested in an autograph than a riot. I was happy to have them with me, side of the stage, watching Soundgarden. We finished just before midnight.
The next morning, I was abused at Gold Coast airport by the check-in person. He hadn’t slept well because of the ‘Rock Concert’. It was the first time I had heard the term ‘Southerners’ in Australia.
The great thing about the 94 tour was that it had such a positive attitude. The line-up was incredible & virtually all the acts had chips on their shoulders. This was the definitive moment that the old guard was dead & the new guard was firmly in control.
At the Sydney show for some reason, Billy arrived backstage with the band in a stretched limo. Kim Deal from the Breeders yelled out “what makes Billy Corgan so fuckin important?”. There were no more limos after that moment. It was weird, we had at least a dozen people on the road that were ‘really fuckin important’. This was the first time that the new scene had power & they really wanted to use it. The fact that not one of the international acts had even come close to a gold record here didn’t matter. We had the cream of the new crop hanging out together for the very first time.
Billy Corgan felt so confident that he rescheduled a sold-out show at Sydney Uni Refectory to rest his voice. That part was OK, we were able to move it to Selinas for a week later and sold an extra 1000 tickets. The part that wasn’t cool was when he showed up the same night to our impromptu party at the Q Bar in Darlinghurst. This place was so smoky you could hardly see across the room, but I saw Billy clear enough, leaning on the bar & holding court. For some reason my manager button kicked in & decided to confront him, “Billy. I don't mind you pulling the show on two hours notice, but I do mind it when I see you in a smoky club, drinking & talking your head off a few hours later. Especially as I'm the one that's been telling the media and fans that it is imperative that you must rest your voice for the Big Day Out show". He did have a look of acceptance of my point & left soon after....... but not alone.
Sydney had sold out in advance & we were in pretty high spirits. We had expanded the site & with 30,000 people it was an over the top show. As this was the first year we were testing my double main stage, central mix tower design we were also testing the bands. The Ramones had thought that they were playing directly before Soundgarden on stage 1. They didn’t know that stage two was identical to one with the result being that Bjork would play between The Ramones & Soundgarden. I was working with the theory that after The Ramones your ears would need a rest before Soundgarden. I also believed that Bjork was being typecast & that given the chance the indie rock crowd would support her. The end result was that Bjork was a standout & went on to sell 180,000 albums, over double platinum in this territory. It was much easier when only a few of us knew what the hell was going on. Nowadays everyone’s an expert.
The only real bureaucratic fiasco happened when the sound guy for Soundgarden, unfortunately, decided to go for it. At one stage we clocked the volume at 125db......in the guest bar which was at the back of the arena. It should have been around 90db. It was totally out of control. He wouldn't turn down, blocked the entry and threatened to punch anyone out who came near him. As we were backstage Matt started unplugging the PA, eventually, he accepted the inevitable & turned it down. By that stage, the damage was done. To make matters worse, before we had a chance to talk to the band, he had denied everything to them and spun them a story that Soundgarden were quieter than Bjork...... and we were trying to ruin their performance.
So now we're in a two-level, damage control mode. One with Soundgarden & one with the authorities.
The truth was, I thought it was fantastic. I always hated the authorities & certainly didn’t want to be delivering their message to the artists. I knew in the long run that it was more important to keep the fans happy than the bureaucrats, so I quietly told Soundgarden how as a fan it was brilliant but as a promoter, it was a problem. Once they realized we were on the same side, it was a pretty smooth relationship.
Bonds were forming fast. The great thing about the BDO is that it was a summer camp for musicians. You can forget about music seminars, this was the real deal. Bands see bands, demos and phone numbers exchanged and media and record companies hung out together. They witnessed first-hand how signed & unsigned bands deliver in front of big crowds. In short, more networking was done at one BDO than a whole week at an expensive seminar. To this day I’m still surprised so few people worked that out. That’s also why I never got involved in paid industry conferences, they didn’t interest me, I already had a better one.
As a one-time band manager, it was important to me that production restrictions were minimal. Closing acts had the advantage of lighting and a clear stage, but we rarely held back on the sound.
And while the international artists were the focus for media attention, the fans on the day just worked on a simple notion of good & bad. Australian music was coming of age.
This levelling of the playing field was quickly embraced by local artists. Initially, as most were used to pub stages, they needed to learn how to perform on big stages and win over an audience of virtual strangers. Powderfinger is a good example of an act thrown into the deep end at the BDO and coming out the other side much better for it. It was a mix of bait & hook. Where popular acts sold the tickets & unknown acts made their mark. The end result was that every act on the bill tried to deliver the best set of their career. It often reminded me of the early Laughing Clowns/ Birthday party shows I produced where everyone was nervous.
By Melbourne, it really felt like a circus. I had organised a few hundred pot cookies via the Lilypad team for Queensland to help avoid the potential police issues of pot smokers backstage. By now they were becoming tools of the trade for some and Duckpond happily walked around handing them out. Post-show I was talking to Billy Corgan and when Cookies came up he revealed taking one, then going on stage and not knowing where he was, then looked down at his guitar and went oh shit, I have to play. He said it was really freaky but just got through. At that stage, I hadn't tried one. I had been sober for 9 months.
Everything ran smoothly, sales were good, the team were now feeling confident with the show & even the media were starting to review the event as a festival & not just a collection of bands.
For 94 we had over one hundred people on the road plus truckloads of equipment. It was getting really serious. On our return to the Esplanade Hotel in Perth, I was pretty nervous about how they would treat us. We made a special request to give the band members of Soundgarden the best rooms available. They arrived late and were given four rooms on the ground floor at the back of the hotel looking into the car park. In short, they fucked us over. After a few hours of room shuffling it was under control. On the day of departure, I presented the manager with a gift-wrapped 1930s home enema kit I had found at the local antique shop, complete with the original box. We were never welcomed back.
I guess the hotel attitude pretty much summed up our whole relationship with Perth. While the fans loved it, the conservative majority hated it but justified their tolerance as long as they got their slice of the income. The council, hotels & pubs all benefited. They hated us but needed us.
We ended the tour in Perth then headed to Auckland. Bjork and Ramones were not part of that leg of the tour due to logistics for Bjork, and a maximum of two weeks away from home policy for the Ramones. It was a weaker show but as this was pre-internet times, not that big a deal.
It was a long haul but by then everyone was really close. We took Soundgarden out to dinner the night before the show & Kim Thayil was really excited that he had eaten lobster for the first time. So excited in fact that he went back to the hotel & trashed his room. In the morning he was in the lobby feeling very pleased with himself that he had achieved such a grand rock gesture until Kate Stewart pointed out that he had another night to stay & ‘traditionally’ you trash your room, then check out. He seemed quite disappointed with himself & went back & tidied up. Kim held a masters in Psychology, yet still had great problems with the whole rock ideology thing. At that point in time he still had no real home & lived out of a hotel, he felt if he didn’t have a home, he wouldn’t miss it. Soon after, You Am I were invited to support Soundgarden on their US tour. For me it was really rewarding, the artist's alchemy was working.
As this was our first time in Auckland with the BDO we went in with blind faith.
I had made an advance trip over a few months out to sort out the show & do a few interviews. For Auckland it was back to square one, most of the interviews & meetings were dominated by explaining what the show was, the urban festival had never been attempted before. I remember well my interview with Bfm, the campus station & co-presenter when I decided to break the rules & play an advance cassette copy of Soundgardens' 'Black Hole Sun'". This wasn't to be released for two months so I was risking big repercussions. The DJ was excited, so excited in fact that when another staff member ran into the studio to say that 'the police helicopter had just smashed into the freeway overpass' we had to decide which was more important. It was a long three minutes to the end of the song. I'm not sure if it was the Dj Mikey Havoc that said it but one of the station DJs made the news himself when later that day he made a joke on-air, “what was the last thing that went through the pilot’s mind.?...........the rotor.” The station almost got shut down.
Promoting shows, especially outdoor shows in New Zealand is a horrific process. Nobody buys a ticket until the last minute & if it rains you are fucked.
We had sold only 5,000 tickets by the Tuesday before the show but ended up with 15,000. 6,000 of which were on the day. That was how it was then. As few shows sold out then, no one felt any pressure to buy before the day, especially when the weather was a factor.
So, after looking at a financial disaster a few days out we had ended up with a great success on our hands. Once again, the show was incredible, the performances inspiring & the bonding between artists & crew was always entertaining. It was also my Birthday, Feb 5, so I arranged a small party in my room. At one stage Fiona Horn from Def FX came into the room with Billy Corgan on one arm & Chris Cornell on the other. It looked like they would have to bite off their own arms to escape her. Most of the artists & friends dropped by but for me, the real party was in my head. We had achieved the inconceivable & I realised this was now my new career. I had been on the wagon for the past nine months, I took my art & job seriously, so in the morning I had a well-earnt hangover. It was a beautiful way to finish the tour after such an intense learning curve.,
Some of the songs that mattered 94 tour:
Soundgarden – “Jesus Christ Pose”
Cruel Sea – “The Honeymoon Is Over”
Breeders – “Cannonball”
Primus – “My Name Is Mudd”
Bjork – “Human Behaviour”
Ramones – “Something To Believe In”
Teenage Fanclub – “Alcoholiday”
Itch-e and Scratch-e – “Sweetness of Light”
Severed Heads – “Dead Eyes Open”
Straitjacket Fits – “Down In Splendour”
Smashing Pumpkins – “Today”
© Ken West January 2022