Dog Days at O-Day

The term 'dog days' comes from the ancient belief that the Dog Star, Sirius, was responsible for the extremely hot days of summer. To be perfectly honest, I felt like every star in the milky way was gang-raping our atmosphere yesterday, which wasn't great for photo day (that's a rant for another blogger) or moshing.



So, after school that day, me and some friends all trekked over to Reen's abode, which was close to UWA. Included were: N, Reen, H.W., Miffy (named from the cartoon rabbit, devastated because he did not meet Foals with me and quite tall), Gabz (I once ventured to a modelling agency with her and a very wobbly E, where she picked up some shots she had had) and Ju (athlete, who will probably feature heavily in my reminisces of One Movement and GTM when I hit a break in current gigs). We all got changed and headed off to O-Day.



We got in for a reasonable $25, while Tim & Jean were about half-way through their performance. They're a great live performance (which I'll make clear in my soon to air Hyperfest nostalgia) and we headed into the mosh. It wasn't too crowded, despite the small stage, and we managed to get quite close. But it was hot. Oh my word, it was hot. Glalock turned up (nickname courtesy of Reen), an acquaintance I made at Laneway who'd done a great job of befriending Reen. Some Prosh twats came on stage afterwards, and did a DJ set, and everyone got into a good vibe. And then Bag Raiders came on.



It wasn't long before they played Sunlight, which is truly a beautiful song, and great for mosh dancing (which mainly involves grinding with the closest stranger). Everyone's hands went up with Way Back Home, and then they went off stage. Everyone was pissed. No Shooting Stars. But I knew better. They did this sort of thing at GTM. They played the first few lines of Shooting Stars, then pulled back. They're musical teases, and it wasn't long after the communal chanting, 'One More Song!', pulled them back on stage. And I was dying. The constant pain from the surrounding moshers, the heat, the friction, the stench. But really, that's the beauty of the mosh. Everyone enters signing an informal, abstract, spiritual contract to be as much of a dick as he/she feels necessary to his/her enjoyment, on the grounds of not minding the actions taken by anyone else. I was pushed, shoved, bruised, battered, knocked around. But I also pushed people back, I shoved a dude in a sombrero, I bruised some stoners, I battered a bunch of blondes and I knocked a drunk Irishman. And as much pain and anguish as that, on top of the heat, caused, we were all there for the singular purpose of appreciating some great music. And we did. Unfortunately, the music had to stop, and as the last few bars of Shooting stars faded into the ether of bass, I realised how thirsty and tired I was. We collapsed on the grass outside soon afterwards.



We headed to the local supermarket, where I bought a 1.5L bottle of coke. Between us, it took about 2 minutes to finish it. We were buying a bag of ice at the nearby servo when we spotted Gemma Ward (the total honey from Black Balloon). We got back to Reen's, filled a bucket with the ice, chucked in some tubs of ice-cream and consumed our own weight in pear-tinged water and frozen berries. We talked in a circle, and drank some tea.



All in all, a pretty good way to get into weekend mode.

Ale.