9 BDO's

From 2001-2009 I was as a fork truck operator for Altered State's major event construction crew, the company who managed the Perth Big Day Out.

In 2000 I quit my miserable warehouse job and enrolled in a Music Industry Skills course at Leederville TAFE Music Campus. I took the opportunity to sign up to work on setting up the Big Day Out on Bassendean Oval. I was no stranger to hard work plus I'd already been driving forklifts for a few years so I was ready to rock and get involved in something I'd been right into since Perth's 1993 BDO.

Erecting kilometers of perimeter temp fencing in the heat wasn't what I was expecting but later on down the track I'd crossover to operating telescopic fork trucks or scissor lifts and cherry pickers.

I was excited to catch superstar DJ Carl Cox's headline set and coincidentally, I was standing backstage when his ride turned up and he piled out with his posse. I called out Hey Carl! He heard me, turned around and saw me waving. He burst through the crowd and came over and shook my hand. I said I looked forward to his set and he demanded that he see me there and took off.

I flashed my AAA and made my way side stage and caught his attention to which he yelled my name and took another swig from his magnum of champagne as industrial fans cooled him down.

Site operations were managed from the demountable site office located in the backstage area. BDO construction crews were a mixture of amature musos, tradies and crusty bogans. Site crew supervisors varied but their competence would inevitably be exposed as the event deadline loomed closer everyday.

A perspective on the Bogan mentality. Each day the wife of the old Hiab operator would cook our lunch on the BBQ but she’d always undercook the sausages and burn the onions and buy cheap white bread and B&G tomato sauce. I was usually the last to get my lunch because I’d cook my snaggers for longer. Call me crazy.

Walking away with my food I passed the crew all sitting on the rough bitumen crouched up against a shipping container trying to avoid the hot sun by soaking in a narrow strip of steaming shade with their knees up against their chests as they ate their raw lunch.

Not very far away was a luscious green cool shady tree area where I was headed. I invited them to join me, but they all declined my offer and said they were fine, so I left them alone and kicked back in comfort with my boots off and ate my lunch over in Eden.

The next day the lady wasn’t around to cook us lunch so given my restaurant background I volunteered to do it. I cooked the sausages to perfection and sautéed the onions nicely, buttered the bread and slightly toasted it on the hot plate. Perfect.

Everyone complained, and I wasn't asked to cook lunch again, so I brought my own food and spent my lunch times in over in paradise.

Fucken bogans. Liable labour fodder. Pointless unprovoked conflict was usually inevitable. Without unpacking too much about this issue, this one dickhead they called Banana gave me a really hard time because I was from Perth (not a first) but I have to mention one of the most extraordinary bogans to ever join the crew. I called him Tarzan because he turned up to work shirtless in thongs, short shorts with a mullet on a rude head slapped on Tarzan's body. He was extremely obnoxious and spoke pure Ocker using dated terms like Dinky Die, Struth, Ridgey Didge and Bonza. Tarzan provided regular bursts of gut aching laughter but his recklessness on site made him a major liability for me so I avoided him like the plague.

In 2005 I joined the Sydney BDO construction crew as a fork truck driver. I was warned by the promoter that his fork crew were a bunch of cowboys and to my surprise they literally wore cowboy hats as they drove around Olympic Park, a concrete jungle that reflected heat off everything. This BDO was a completely different ballgame compared to WA. The crews were larger and way crustier and they worked 24 hour split shifts day and night. Probably the biggest fucken pain in the arse job was rolling out hundreds of metres of Porta-Floor made up of connected plastic tiles to cover the ground in order to protect the grass from damage. And as predicted, it didn't take long for the crowd to tear it apart anyway.

My main goal was to meet The Hives who weren't playing Perth. Those poor Swedish dudes played in the scorching heat. As soon as they finished they ran back stage tore off their suits and stripped down to their jocks with their pants around their ankles. I didn't get to say hi but instead I had a close encounter with Slipknot as they walked passed me in full costume on their way to the main stage. I could see the detail on their bouncy rubber masks and when the last member, the tall dark cyborg guitarist, approached me he stopped, looked down at me through his monster mask and exhaled like Darth Vader then made his way to the stage. Cool as fuck. I'm not a fan but their presence and control over the crowd was remarkable. He said sit and thousands sat. Stand and thousands stood. An awesome display of drumming and percussion too.

I was fortunate enough to jump on the art department as well to help decorate the Inner Sanctum where the artists hung out and chilled in their containers. I took exceptional pride and care of the Chemical Brothers container wanting to surprise them with a mind blowing design. I wrapped the entire front of it in tight black plastic even cutting out the door with the intention of creating an analogue geometric infinite horizon with bright green electrical tape. I was shifted back to forklift duty and intended to begin the design the next day. When I arrived excited to get working on it, the old hippy lady who had no clue who the Chemical Brothers were, ran the art department and let a group of small children go nuts with paints on it and the results weren't great. I will always wonder what the CB's thought when they arrived at their container. I reckon they called it.

Their performance was brilliant as usual and before the Beastie Boys hit the stage, The Lords of Lightning flicked the switch on their giant Tesla Coil which they installed on the grounds surrounded by a temp barrier. Thick logs of bright blue branches of electricity shot out of it zapping meters from my face. Impressive!

Then dickheads started throwing water bottles and shut it down. Gotta say, BDO attracted its fair share of fuckheads. I don't miss those oblivious shirtless himbos who appeared in the later years.

The generational shift of the audience's attitude towards getting smashed and waisted changed the vibe completely. That didn't sit well with me and it was one of the main factors towards my resignation from that field. Hundreds of pissed cashed up bogans charged up by popular ferocious bands. Tragedy was inevitable.

I met Mike Patton watching Jurassic 5 sidestage. This guy in a truckers cap in front of me turns around and asks me what do I think of these guys? I say Yeah they're cool but I'm waiting for the next band. Oh that's my band he says. Oh hey Mike! I'm Ivan! and we shake hands. J5 end and Mike turns to me and says OK come with me. So I follow Mike Patton to the stage. I stop at the steps and he turns and says no I want you here and points to the actual stage. I'm like really? He's insistent, Here, Here! So I'm standing on the side of the stage with Tomahawk and the guitarist is looking at me. I'm looking at the audience and they're looking at me. This is really cool and really awkward. The band explodes and Mike is triggering off all these vocal effects and shit. Eventually I step right back and sit down. Mike's making sure I'm still there soaking up the performance. Unforgettable. Mission accomplished Mike.

One year I said G'day to Dave Grohl as he passed me backstage and another time I met Mars Volta. I also briefly met The Strokes on their way to the stage but I turned into a gibbering mess of a fan. So to avoid further embarrassment, I came up with something I call The Brush with Fame. I'd sit on the limestone stepped hill backstage and wait for bands to step pass me on the way to their performances such as The White Stripes. Jack was dressed like an immaculate outlaw mariachi and Meg was gushing cuteness in her 70's sportswear shorts and tight t-shirt with her socks pulled up to her knees and hair in ponytails. Iggy Pop jogged down the steps shirtless of course and raring to go with The Stooges skipping behind him. He came back up limping after that legendary show.

Metallica came down fingering their guitars and Lars was tapping his sticks on his legs. We built them their exclusive Metallica Land which consisted of 5 containers, one each and a meeting room, surrounded by fencing covered in black plastic for privacy. During the day I came across a long line of people from the fan club waiting to meet the band. Metallica came out and met every one of their WA fans posing for pictures and signing merchandise and memorabilia. Respect. Never a big fan but they performed beyond my expectations. Refined craftsmen indeed. Actually I was going from them to The Flaming Lips whose show was so wacky and cool. I'll never forget standing right at the back and seeing the view of the stage be blurred by heaps of bouncing coloured beach balls.

After Metallica's performance closed the show, it was time to dismantle fences to make way for the production trucks and roadies to start dismantling the stages. The crowd had moved away and left behind a sea of rubbish to wade through which miraculously I found a plectrum with a caricature of new bass player Robert Trujillo who joined us for a beer at the Site Office.

So, after nine years I knew I didn't have another one in me and decided to give it away. And then I finally got to go to an after party!

As I wandered around the grounds with a AAA around my neck going from stage to stage through No Man's Land (the back way) I would usually check out acts I wasn't familiar with and I wanted to catch a young english singer Kate Nash. Unfortunately I missed her show so I went to see Billy Bragg. A few songs in to his set he introduces Kate Nash on stage to sing a duet. Surprisingly I get to see her sing after all.

As she makes her way on stage she passes a row of electric fans that blow her skirt up showing off her legs and knickers. She handles it really stylishly and cute like with a bit of a blush and a naughty smile. She begins to sing with Billy and I instantly become smitten by her voice, charm and loveliness. Later on Bjork was performing before Rage Against The Machine and everyone was gearing up for them moving towards the opposite stage to her. "I know you guys wanna rock out real bad but I HAVEN"T FINISHED MY SET YET!" she yells. She put on a great show but we all wanted to see Rage Against The Machine.

As I wandered towards the mixing desk hoping to be let in to the area my good good friend Damian H Lund appears from out of the crowd with a big fat glittering golden cookie (Ken West's Access Any Area Any Time No Questions Asked Laminate) around his neck and whisks us both past the sound desk and up into the lighting tower right in front of the stage RATM are about to play on.

I'm looking down at an endless ocean of people chanting RAGE RAGE RAGE. They burst on stage with Sleep Now in the Fire and its unfuckingreal. As much as we wanna bounce and go off our brains we can't because we're up so high we'd knock the spot light operators around so we had to sing along and punch the air like hell. Unforgettable. I took footage of that incredible view but that phone was stolen before I could save the video. What a spew!

After Rage we made our way into the Inner Sanctum (backstage area) for a beer. Usually I'd be tearing down fences and working till 3 am packing down but not this year. I'm done. Wandering around we manage to stumble into Bjorks little private rave party so we sat around just out of the way sipping our beers watching them party on when, she notices us, stops dancing and gets on her phone. Oh shit we better leave. Damo says lets go to the after party and I say What? How? Easy we just wait for the shuttle bus and we hop on and disco. The shuttle turns up, we hop on. After all these bloody years I had no idea it was that easy! Billy Bragg and Kate Nash hop on and sit in front of me. They're drinking from a magnum of champagne and having a laugh. The rest of the bus is filled with people I don't know and some admin and production crew. Now I'm fantasizing about getting the chance to meet her at the after party.

The shuttle pulls out front of the Duxton Hotel. We make our way inside and on the way into the ballroom a doorman lowers a hawaiian leis over my head then a waiter hands me a Strawberry Daiquiri and I'm blown away. I find some crew I know and start to mingle. I notice there's a separation between the rock stars and us. Understandable, but the night is young.

As time passes I'm wondering around nodding hello to these people I have in my music collection. It's a cool but surreal feeling. I managed to shake Tom Morello's hand and say a quick hello. I look towards the entry and Zac De La Rocha arrives. He's oozing coolness and confidence. He stops at the doorway, smiles, does a Fonz move and strides in like the life of the party. And he was.

He eventually makes his way onto the dance floor and in seconds he magnitizes about ten women who are all dirty dancing around him in a conga line. I remember some dudes gasping in their chairs watching their girlfriends grope Zac and get groped by Zac, this untouchable rock idol who just blew their brains and their pants on stage a few hours ago. No shit that guy could have banged every chick in that room without effort. He was on fire. Fortunately I got to shake his hand and say hi too.

I'm standing around looking awkward and I notice Kate Nash and Bjork chatting alone across the room. Ok here's my chance to meet Kate AND Bjork, awesome! I start to make my way over to them and Bjork sees me coming and gives me the fucking evilest weirdest fuck off face so I shit myself and make a U turn. I suspect she remembered me gate crashing her party earlier that night.

The night rolled on and my attempt to meet Kate was looking unlikely to happen so I just partied on. Late in the night everyone was nicely toasted and I found myself on a packed dance floor with Billy Brag, Rage Against the Machine, Silverchair and Bjork and I just laughed and thought wow what a way to end an era.

As I'm grooving away I swing around and notice someone standing over near the entrance. It's Kate. She's holding a half empty magnum of champagne and a half empty glass spilling onto the floor. She's also having trouble standing and she's got that pissed ladette look going on.

Finally our eyes meet. She knows I've been checking her out all night. She attempts to make a smile but she's shit faced. She takes a few staggery steps towards the dance floor but manages to stumble off course. I'm thinking do I help her out and risk being bitten by Bjork? I could make it to her room and spend the rest of the night holding back her hair while she spewed her guts up then wake up in the morning with her screaming "who the fuck are you?".

Or, it could all work out like a fairy tale! Bullshit. Sorry Kate think I'll pass. She turns around makes her way out and is gone. I get back to grooving.

Some time later I saw her music clip on tv and had a chuckle.