Big Day Out 2012
Yikes … 20 years of Handcrafted Festivals, no one saw that happening in 1992!

A milestone rarely achieved by any festival will become reality for the BDO when they stage their 20th year of BDO festivals in 2012.

Big Day Out was created to level the playing field and prove that the title ‘alternative’ didn’t stop music from being popular. It has now changed the local musical landscape forever, growing from its ambitious, chaotic beginnings to evolve into the largest travelling festival in the world complete with all the highs and lows of a roller coaster.

KANYE WEST
Who’s rewritten the rulebook of popular music? A controversial, outspoken, acclaimed hip-hop visionary: the man is KANYE WEST, and the only place to see him in Australia and New Zealand in 2012 is at BIG DAY OUT. Stronger, Jesus Walks, Touch the Sky, Gold Digger, Heartless… WEST drops immortal singles like clocks drop minutes. But his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was also his coming-of-age as a live performer: “WEST delivered a grandiose, theatrical performance destined to be remembered as one of the great hip-hop sets of all time” (Hollywood Reporter). After reuniting with his old mate and collaborator Jay-Z for 2011’s Watch the Throne, an album partly recorded in Australia, WEST will again begin a new phase down under this summer. Can he get much higher? Keep an eye on the sky as KANYE WEST soars into BIG DAY OUT 2012 (ALL SHOWS).

SOUNDGARDEN
When BIG DAY OUT was born 20 years ago, a new wave of music was emerging from the American north-west. At the crest of that wave was one of the most incendiary heavy rock bands of our time: SOUNDGARDEN.

It’s been fifteen years since they last graced our shores and the first time since 1997 SOUNDGARDEN will again play outside of the USA! Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd – the Seattle foursome known as SOUNDGARDEN have chosen the BIG DAY OUT to mark their triumphant return to the international stage and we are thrilled to welcome them back. “This is one reunited band that can pick up right where it left off” (New York Times). SOUNDGARDEN played their first BIG DAY OUT in 1994 – the year the seminal Superunknown was unleashed. In 1997, they returned for seconds, only to split up in February of that year. Now, 2012 will bring a brand new album and the group’s long-awaited return down under. Those who were there the first time, and for those who only know the legend, BIG DAY OUT presents the one, the only: SOUNDGARDEN (ALL SHOWS).


KASABIAN
KASABIAN aren’t the type of band to make promises they can’t keep. So, when they sing, “Hit me, harder! I’m getting rewired. I flick the switch that makes you feel electric, even faster than before…” you know they’re heading back to make BIG DAY OUT electric. The Leicester lads have swaggered into BIG DAY OUT twice before, but never this well armed. Their setlist is now wall-to-wall killers – Club Foot, Empire, Shoot the Runner, Fire, LSF … and the power-pop-stormin’-electro-psychedelic-rock’n’roll of their brand new album, Velociraptor! As Pizzorno says: “Any other band, anyone else in the world, has got to move out the way.” Heck, only one band inspires headlines like this anymore: “New York Police Department tell KASABIAN to ‘turn the volume down’” (NME, September 2011). Alert the authorities. KASABIAN are flicking the switch: BIG DAY OUT is about to get loud (ALL SHOWS).


MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE
Pull the pin – MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE’s return to BIG DAY OUT is going to be explosive! After 2006’s game-changing rock opera The Black Parade, MCR went into hyperdrive, creating a dystopian, disco-punk future with 2010’s image-shattering Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. “MCR proved there's hope for rock’n’roll with Danger Days,” said Artist Direct, “and with more live shows like this they could save the world.” As much theatre as live rock show, the MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE experience is summed up best in their song Planetary (Go!): “If my velocity starts to make you sweat, then just don’t let go!” Hold on tight: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE are coming to wield their sonic superpowers at BIG DAY OUT 2012 (ALL SHOWS).


THE LIVING END
Leading the Aussie charge onto the battlefields of BIG DAY OUT 2012 are THE LIVING END and our troops couldn’t be in more capable hands. This will mark the band’s fifth appearance on the national tour and it’s safe to say Chris Cheney, Scott Owen and Andy Strachan have well and truly solidified their place in the annals of the BDO since their first showing in 1999. Evidently the trio have also made a huge impact on a national scale having landed the No. 4 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All Time with their self titled debut album. With their sixth album, The End is Just the Beginning Repeating, in tow the boys are set to write another, darker chapter to their legacy with what they state is their most honest album to date. It’s no holds barred this time around, with THE LIVING END set to lay it bare. Make sure you pack your social conscience and your mosh pit stamina in to your survival packs, as we welcome back these BIG DAY OUT favourites (ALL SHOWS).


HILLTOP HOODS
Rolling Stone Magazine described HILLTOP HOODS as “one of the most defining and influential Australian bands of this decade and the next” and we couldn’t agree more. And the accolades don’t stop there with their 2009 masterpiece State of the Art being crowned the highest selling Australian hip hop record of all time and 3 ARIA Awards, J and APRA Awards on their mantles, it’s no wonder that HILLTOP HOODS are repeatedly singled out as one of Australia’s hottest live acts by media, industry insiders and fans alike. It’s fitting that BIG DAY OUT welcomes the country’s greatest hip hop act Back Once Again to the 20th Anniversary stage (ALL AUSTRALIAN SHOWS).


GIRL TALK
One man. One laptop. Hundreds of samples. The ultimate party. When GIRL TALK powers up, BIG DAY OUT will party down. Mash-up king Greg Gillis has spent the last decade putting the fun back on the dancefloor, melding the unexpected – The Ramones bumping up against Missy Elliot, Lady Gaga getting it on with Soulja Boy – with one righteous aim: to make you dance. GIRL TALK’s “trademark on-the-fly additions make each show unique… By the end of the night, Gillis is a head-banging shirtless sweat machine grinning from ear to ear” (SF Critic). In 2010 he melted the internet when his album All Day was unleashed as a free download, while in 2012 it’s the Boiler Room he’ll be melting. GIRL TALK makes his welcome return this summer to BIG DAY OUT 2012 (ALL SHOWS).


RÖYKSOPP
Enter into the unknown with RÖYKSOPP at BIG DAY OUT 2012. Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland “are architects of an all-encompassing audiovisual experience … a balanced sonic constellation of bliss” (Urb). The Norwegian duo behind songs as infectious as Eple, What Else is There?, Only This Moment and The Girl and the Robot have spent more than a dozen years exploring “places of strange beauty and disturbing darkness,” Berge says. From body armor to space helmets, chill-out to floor-fillers, theirs is a state where anything is possible. “Dance, electro-funk, pop, chillwave or some kind of techno-classical orchestra” – wherever RÖYKSOPP lie – “you probably danced your ass off” (1001 Nights in the City). The unexpected is expected when RÖYKSOPP take the stage at BIG DAY OUT (ALL SHOWS).


ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI
Always experimental, ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI brings their trademark indie-pop to the playing field this BIG DAY OUT and will no doubt infect the masses with their latest offering, Moment Bends. The album, and it’s singles Contact High and Escapee, have captured hearts around the world as well as here in their homeland, where the album has been nominated for Triple J’s prestigious J Award, marking it as one of the very best Australian releases of the year. After a decade and more imbibing the sights and sounds of the world, from a theoretical Helsinki to reality in Melbourne and all points in between, all filtered through the collective mindset, where will the wave crash next? At BIG DAY OUT 2012 that’s where, be there on impact... (ALL AUSTRALIAN SHOWS)


KIMBRA
If you are not familiar with her by now well then it really is about time you push that rock aside and step out into the light, as KIMBRA has officially arrived and claimed her position atop the throne of the Australian music scene earning two ARIA Award nominations in the process.  Adding not just a touch of glamour and sophistication to the lineup, KIMBRA offers up her debut album Vows, an eclectic blend of neo-pop and more moodier soulful tracks from the lead single Settle Down to the haunting duet Wandering Limbs.  “Kimbra is making pop music that will pull you from your seat and have you listening on a loop” (Stated Magazine, NYC).   Be at the official coronation of our latest pop princess at BIG DAY OUT 2012.

KITTY DAISY & LEWIS
If you weren’t so busy dancing, you’d be in awe of KITTY DAISY & LEWIS at BIG DAY OUT. This styling young English trio can play pretty much anything they lay their hands on. Channelling “a mix of late '40s jive, danceable blues and proto-rock’n’roll with flair and enthusiasm” (The Vine), they’re joined on stage by bassist Ingrid and guitarist Graeme (aka their parents!). After busting out of their home studio with an album exploring rock’s roots in 2007, they created their own take on vintage with 2011’s Smoking in Heaven. “Festival stalwarts and vintage sonics trailblazers, their no-fuss rhythm and blues has little truck with reinventing the wheel and fizzes with the simple joy of creation” (NME). Yes, KITTY DAISY & LEWIS can do anything. But all you’ll remember is the fun when their fizz bounces off the stage at BIG DAY OUT 2012.

TONY HAWK
Nobody rides a skateboard like TONY HAWK. The San Diego native turned pro at 14 and was a world champ two years later – a record-breaking 73 wins to his name. Skip forward to 2011, and there’s not much TONY HAWK hasn’t done: launching major skateboard and clothing companies (Birdhouse Skateboards, Hawk Clothing), taking over the gaming world (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Tony Hawk: RIDE), penning a New York Times bestseller, building giant roller coasters, creating epic extreme sports exhibitions, and overseeing the Tony Hawk Foundation, who’ve built 463 skate parks throughout the USA so far. After landing the first ever ‘900’ – two and a half mid-air spins, a trick he’d dreamt of a decade earlier – the most famous skateboarder on the planet retired from competitive skating at 31. His first appearance at BIG DAY OUT was way back in 1996 when he caused a frenzy pulling off 9 x McTwist's in a row while Rage Against The Machine played "Killing In The Name Of". It has become one of those special moments in BIG DAY OUT history; now, TONY HAWK is back, this time with his Vert Jam Team - stay tuned as we unveil more on skateboarding’s rightful return to the BIG DAY OUT stage. In the meantime take comfort in knowing you'll see TONY HAWK fly at BIG DAY OUT 2012 (ALL SHOWS).

The 2012 BIG DAY OUT line up is: KANYE WEST (Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne only), SOUNDGARDEN, KASABIAN, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, THE LIVING END (ex Adelaide), NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS, HILLTOP HOODS (ex Perth), NERO, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, PARKWAY DRIVE, GIRL TALK, BLUEJUICE, RÖYKSOPP, BATTLES, THE JEZABELS, ART VS. SCIENCE, BASSNECTAR, OFWGKTA, ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI, KIMBRA, REGURGITATOR, THE VACCINES, TONITE ONLY, MARIACHI EL BRONX, CAGE THE ELEPHANT, DRAPHT, FOSTER THE PEOPLE, FRENZAL RHOMB, THE GETAWAY PLAN,  PAPA VS PRETTY, BOY AND BEAR, BEST COAST, CALLING ALL CARS, ABBE MAY, SHOCKONE & MC SHURESHOCK, MISS KITTIN, DAS RACIST, THE T-REK BAND, KING CANNONS, THE AMITY AFFLICTION, FAKER, STONEFIELD, KITTY, DAISY AND LEWIS, LOCAL ADDITIONS IN EACH CITY, JJJ UNEARTHED WINNERS, MY SCHOOL ACT WINNER PLUS TONY HAWK VERT JAM!