Battles: The Sick

I had recently the distinct privelege of attending this year's Big Day Out festival at Flemington racecourse in Melbourne.

God, it was dusty. Like, obscenely so. When I got on the tram to head back to where the party myself and the party I was traveling with were staying, literally all of our belongings were caked in dirt. And the stench of tobacco. And other stuff.

But it was worth getting dirty, because we all had the BEST DAY EVER. We saw Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Josh Pyke, Arcade Fire, Regurgitator, the Hilltop Hoods, Midnight Juggernauts and RAGE AGAINST THE FREAKING MACHINE. Apparently I ruined the experience of the latter show because I got scared of the crowd. Yep. As well as that, we had T-shirts, a picnic of sorts while Augie March were playing, and my friend even met the guy from the Chaser that plays piano and offends everybody.

As for the music: Rage cut sick, playing every song we wanted them to (well, almost- they didn't do their MC5 cover, "Kick Out the Jams". Small Complaint), and making everybody in melbourne become an idiot. Regurgitator were a total 90s throwback, too, playing ! (that's the name of the song, remember?) and Polyester Girl, giving us due cause to dance like fools. Arcade Fire were suitably emotional, and loud- and they played every song of theirs that I love dearly (all of them are good, of course), including Neighborhood #1, Haiti and No Cars Go.

We left the 'Fire early, as planned, to see if we could catch a band that we had almost no pre-conceptions of. That band was Battles.

For those of you who don't know, Battles are a New York based group of musicians who all have a background in other TOTALLY WICKED SICK alternative bands- the drummer, John Stanier, was a founding member of mathrockers Helmet and is a member of one of Mike Patton's twelve billion projects Tomahawk. Guitarist Dave Konopka was in the trippy-as instrumental mathrock band Lynx, other guitarist and sound manipulator dude Ian Williams was in the similarly trippy Don Caballero, and other other other guitarist and lead vocalist (I use the term loosely- you'll see why in a sec) guy Tyondai Braxton is a solo artist whose music is so odd it defies description. They united in 2003 to make strange, thriftily titled releases (see EP C, B EP) before dropping the awesome Mirrored last year to critical freaking acclaim.

Battles have to be seen and heard to be believed. So.... here's what they look and sound like:

The experience at Big Day Out was comparable, with a smaller crowd and fewer Japanese people. It was really, really amazingly cool..... though some crowd surfing dickheads ALMOST ruined it for some, as they caused security to spray us ALL more than was necessary with their cool-down hoses. We all got wet, and a poor lady standing next to me who was trying to light a cigarette (poor? and also, I hope it was just a cigarette) had a difficult time doing so. But DAMN was it good. I don't even think that youtube video can do it justice. I hope they come back to Australia at some point, just so you can all see what I'm talking about.

They were the highlight of my day musically, and I urge you all to go out and buy Mirrored which is one hell of an awesome trip. You can get it on iTunes, and I strongly recommend you do. Now. Don't ask questions.