As sure as the new year brings the Big Day Out, so too comes the hype on the latest band threatening to conquer all. Occasionally the hype is justified. In Wolfmother's case, they haven't asked for the burden placed upon them by the adoring press, but they have gone ahead and delivered the goods anyway.

To date Wolfmother has only released a four track EP, but the three piece rockers' concoction of Sabbath, Zeppelin and retro/nowtro broth has won them many fans in a relatively short space of time. Their energetic 2005 Big Day Out performances showed that they can work a crowd.

This is a band going somewhere … literally. Merely a week later they had the opportunity to try their luck with international audiences in London and New York. While there, the band had discussions with record producers, hoping to make a connection with a suitable someone, willing and able to take the controls when the recording of their debut album begins in April.

Back in mid- January Australian Musician asked Wolfmother's Andrew Stockdale, Chris Ross and Myles Heskett to document their Big Day Out experience. Here's what they came up with.

Gold Coast

OK, so we approach the Gold Coast Big Day Out, to begin our first ever festival tour. The venue was a collection of stadiums filled with an array of ancient side show rides which seemed like near death traps Amongst the outer regions of this epicentre of youth culture were a few circus tents, one of which would be the platform for the next Wolfmother ceremony. From here we found our tent to gather our courage and stupidity to prepare for our performance. It seemed to be about 45 celsius in our tent, which brought forth the opportunity for our tour manager to disrobe himself and display his manly breasts to all. Our backstage presence was embodied by a 6/4 ft sweating man with a Wolfmother laminate stuck upon his hair covered cleavage. With this key figure as our mascot we receive instant backstage cred. We then proceeded to check out the band who was on before us, play to about 200 people. The memories of supporting Cut Copy to about 10 people at the Trocaderro came to the forefront of our consciousness . Maybe with the 1.00pm slot the festival crowd would allude us. Though during the 45 min changeover the tent reaches total capacity to create an amazing atmosphere for the mother.

Then came the time for BT to begin his intro howl to our set. As he graced the stage with his head band, a mass mantra of howls filled the tent. As the howls grew, so did the spirits and with the spirits the stars aligned and permission was granted for the Wolfmother to set the controls for the heart of The Gold Coast. As this did happen, many little gold nuggets began to grow and surf throughout the crowds. At this point Gold Coast was everything it's name had stated it to be and gold could be found by all. At this point we decided that our fortunes had been made. An executive decision was made … to invest in pyramid marketing schemes of Wolfmother, whereby fortunate souls could invest in 30 thousand Wolfmother EP's to then be granted (with the once in a lifetime opportunity) to buy two more for the price of one.

Sydney

Our stretched limo (Tarago) arrived at the Homebush Stadium at approximately 10:25 am. From here we were escorted to the backstage area of the Green and Essential stages by some really big dudes (our tour manager Al). 10:56, we couldn't find our room so we just took over the biggest one and wrote Wolfmother on the door with magic marker. At this point the servants (Al) were sent to locate the Wolfmother rider. Then at 11:45 as Christopher proceeded to fix his keyboard with some clag glue, the "Blue Wizard" (Andrew) was robed with the finest in modern blue capes, and prepared himself for the placement of his ancient mystical leather headband. 12:00 pm, Messenger pigeons were released into the sky to summon the astral indian chief B.T. As the sun rose higher into the midday sky, it got much hotter. The Red Sun Band shook, Sarah Blasko shimmied, The Cops rocked the house, and then it was time for us to do our thing.

At 1:00 pm. as B.T. howled and echoed across the field … "please, experience... Wolfmothaaaaaarrrr." We walked on stage to find an endless sea of friendly faces and flailing hands. At the front a banner read... i heart wolfmother and their sideburns. (he he he). Chaos ensued and the Wizard was released into the stratosphere. 1:03 pm. White noise and white light. 1:40 pm. We left the stage to the grooves of the Mess Hall and headed back to our room for scones and tea.

From here on in, exact times and locations of events become slightly hazy ... walking, talking, then to triple JJJ to talk to Jay and his doctor about the hottest 100 in a zoo enclosure. Watching Channel V footage. Hey look it's John Butler! The wolves are dispersed. Chris finally finds the rider and drinks all of the red cordial. Damn. Watched the Polyphonic Spree get all luvey duvey in the Boiler room, they're great! Attacked Cut Copy on stage in the Hothouse with Kim from the Presets. Then Chris got accosted by security at the Gurge when trying to hug Spod. He was offended. And lastly we watched the Beastie Dudes from several miles away. Sweet.