Yay, today is the long-awaited Big Day Out festival in Perth.

Actually getting tickets was a tale of woe in itself… because this was the first time in the history of the event (we’re in what, the twelth year now?) that the Perth show has sold out. C’mon, nothing sells out in Perth, ever. Seriously.

So anyway, we’re blithely putting off actually buying the tickets until last Wednesday, when we get the news: no more. Another announcement: on Friday morning at 9.30am, a “limited number” will be released (the normal “at the door” tickets), at the Claremont Showgrounds only, cash only. 11.30pm Thursday night, Dave reads on the Big Day Out forums that there’s already a line of people waiting for the tickets, so we pack up our work clothes for Friday and head on down, planning to wait in line until the morning, then go straight to work.

Except, there’s like over 1000 people there already when we get there (about 1am). I decide I’m not waiting in line 8 hours when more than likely then won’t be enough to go around anyway, so we go home. Next morning at work (after 2 hours sleep) we find some tickets on eBay and start bidding. Friday afternoon we get some – and only at twice the original price! But we have no one to blame for that but ourselves. Living in the most isolated capital city in the world sucks sometimes. I’m sick of bands leaving Perth off their Australian tour list and otherwise missing out (I had tickets to Velvet Revolver but they cancelled the Perth show and put on an extra one in Sydney, bastards). I refuse to miss out this time, especially when it’s through my own stupidity.

Anyway, postscript to the story is that on Friday afternoon, around the same time as I was paying wads of cash to the ticket scalper (she must have really cleaned up that day), the organisers decided to release 3000 more tickets. Bummer. Moral of the story: get your tickets early.

So anyway, today is the day and I’ll be enjoying it twice as much as anyone else to get my money’s worth! Highlights (in ascending order of hysteria-inducement) are sure to be System of a Down, Slipknot and Hatebreed. But I’d say most people are there for Beastie Boys and Chemical Brothers.

And, it’s extra-cool because tomorrow (Monday the 7th of Feb) is my birthday, and we’ve wrangled the day off work. Yay!