“Sun is shining, the weather is sweet yeah, makes you wanna move your dancing feet.”
- Finlay Quaye, Sunday Shining

It’s easy to wander round the BDO and see where the music, mood, booze, cigarettes and wild horses take you.

After thrashing around Melbourne taking in Australia Day adventures to Tullamarine Airport, a BBQ in Port Melbourne and my own place in Richmond, there’s nothing like a good honest bounce in the sun, and both The Hilltop Hoods and Dizzee Rascal threw this one up, out and bandy like a muthafucker. Both teams showing that successful and adventurous hip-hop trips further than East and West Coast America. The Hoods ‘Chase that Feeling’ (pretty much an anthem for Australian Sports advertisements in 2009) created dust clouds from all the bouncing, while DR’s ‘Bonkers’ (along with anything else off Tongue in Cheek) sent the crowd into an ape-wild frenzy.

After that it was a case of ‘How the girls won and where it got us..and how the wild things shook their sweet things and where it took us’. Lily Allen stepped up first with her endearing and chaotic, pocket rocket version of Mick Jagger’s swagger. Draped in an Aussie flag and puffing on cigarettes, her cover of Britney’s ‘Womanizer’ sonically shuffled and roared out of the smoke before evaporating into ‘Fuck You’, a song directed towards racists and prejudice in general.

Not sure who or where filled the void between the acts above and below…possibly sets by Jet and Ladyhawke, but I can’t be too sure; I went for a drink and got cornered in the ADZ (Allowed Drinking Zone) while confusion and fumbling with tokens went on. Ah shit, I remember – somewhere at Lilyworld I watched Blowfly wrecking ball the shit out of the O’Jays’ ‘Love Train’.

The crowd pleasing associated with other bands of the bigger stages gets old and leathery after a while so an artist unhinged and boot deep into crowd baiting is what makes a festival worthwhile. Enter Peaches — a firecracker of perverse confrontation and costume changes. A dirty, glitterball, gutter-punk Lady Gaga. Or whichever of the two XXXXs came first.

Peaches ripped through her set with outright bravado, macho showmissship and prevailing gonzo oddities filled with electronic bips, bops and cyber-hops. Particularly the songs ‘Billionaire’ and ‘Set it Off’. By the end of the set, Peaches had convinced a decent amount of the crowd to remove most of their clothing. Having since seen the movie ‘Whip It’, Peaches show in memory seems like a roller derby in full tilt – always on the tipping point between blood, cum and 911. In short, the lady’s a badass.

Outside, while the dying rays of the day fell down around the venue, the Boiler Room began to remind everybody that the sun also rises and the beats from the tent filled the air with booms, moods and shudders. A dog fashion disco indeed.

A good day for all…including a few of the horses.

Thanks to Jim Beam and Coke, Philip Morris Products, the female genitalia, 100% paper hats and no sleep for fuelling this BDO adventure.