‘It was no big deal’: What really happened when Kylie Minogue joined the Big Day Out

Tongues were wagging when Kylie Minogue joined the Big Day Out in 1996 to perform with Nick Cave. This is what really happened.

In 1991, Australia was in the grips of the “recession we had to have” with home loan interest rates at 18 per cent, youth unemployment at 25 per cent and the big end of town floundering as the Alan Bond and Christopher Skase media empires collapsed.

Troubled times inevitably provoke a soundtrack and bubbling under the economic ruin was the underground alternative music scene, a disparate collection of tribes who embraced aggressive new genres from grunge to techno.

Promoter Ken West decided the tribes needed to be united, to be turned on to each other’s musical passions, and in the midst of the economic gloom created the Big Day Out.

With his business partner Vivian Lees, the pair would fashion a unique alternative experience which not only changed the festival business in Australia but help to create superstars out of music’s fringe-dwellers and misfits.

Kylie Minogue joined Big Day Out in 1996, when she performed with Nick Cave. Picture: Getty Images

Nick Cave. Picture: AFP

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Big Day Out’s inaugural event at the old Sydney Showground on January 25, 1992, West shared a clutch of chapters of his work-in-progress book, tentatively titled Controlled Kaos online.

Hundreds of music industry insiders have been poring over the chapters he launched on his Kenfest website; some to see if they’re named, most to revel in West’s “ramblings” about the inner workings and behind-the-scenes dramas of the historic event which ended in 2014.

Like the time pop star Kylie Minogue – definitely not a Big Day Out kind of act in 1996 – joined the tour to perform Where The Wild Roses Are with Nick Cave; it remains one of the most celebrated moments in the event’s history, signifying the festival’s emergence into the mainstream of the Australian cultural landscape.

Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave at the Big Day Out in 1996. Picture: Supplied

‘It was no big deal.’ Picture: Supplied

‘Nick … was the dark side.’ Kylie Minogue performed Where The Wild Roses Grow with Nick Cave at the Big Day Out in 1996. Picture: Supplied

“The funny thing with Kylie on the road was that for us it was no big deal.

“She was a pretty suburban girl from Melbourne, had gone out with friends Mark Gerber then Michael Hutchence, and seemed to like the dark side. Nick, on the other hand, actually was the dark side..,” West writes.

“She only performed on four shows and only sang one song but to the global media, it was a huge deal.

“Nick and Kylie had a top ten hit with Where The Wild Roses Grow.”

The debut Big Day Out in 1992 was a Sydney-only affair; the festival became a national travelling circus in 1993.

West and Lees booked Nirvana as one of the headliners, alongside the Violent Femmes, before their breakthrough album Nevermind blew up around the world and when the band arrived in Australia, they were surfing a tsunami of global success and frontman Kurt Cobain was suffering from heroin withdrawal.

The poster for 1992’s Big Day Out. Picture: Supplied

The late Kurt Cobain. Picture: WireImage

“He also had a bad stomach ulcer thanks to taking Ritalin without water as a kid. He was going nuts from his stomach pains and drug withdrawals. In short, he wanted to go

home,” West shares.

His Big Day Out partner Lees gave the rock star “extra-large aspirins”, promising him they were “super painkillers” and Cobain was able to go on with the show.

“As Viv said to me, ‘this guy is really fragile, he just needs to know that we all care about him,’” West writes.

West gives a unique insight into just how big that first 1992 was, even though it only hosted 9700 fans who each paid $42 for their ticket.

“Soon after selling out I also got a call from the office of then Prime Minister Paul Keating to

purchase three tickets for his kids. When I offered to just send some, my offer was politely rejected as free tickets can be considered corruption,” West shares.

“We then arranged tickets to be purchased from the Canberra outlet. Simpler times.”

West plans to release Controlled Kaos in early 2023 to coincide with a Big Day Out art exhibition.

Originally published as ‘It was no big deal’: What really happened when Kylie Minogue joined the Big Day Out