Ken West, founder of Australia’s Big Day Out festival, has died
07.04.2022 - 16:52
/ nme.com
Double J, that reads: “We bring unfortunate news that Ken West; a father, husband, mentor and most of all a legend, has passed away peacefully in his sleep on the morning of April 7 2022. Our family would appreciate respect and privacy during this difficult time.
Ken was big and noisy in life, but passed quietly and peacefully.”Big Day Out was originally created in 1992 by West and fellow promoter Vivian Lees as a one-off event in Melbourne. The following year, the event expanded to Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth with both The Gold Coast and Auckland added in 1994.The touring festival ran annually until 2014 (with a year-off in 1998) and saw performances from the likes of Soundgarden, M.I.A, Muse, Powderfinger, The Prodigy, Arctic Monkeys, Rage Against The Machine, Arcade Fire, Chemical Brothers, The White Stripes, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more.West was in the process of writing a book called Controlled Kaos about the festival, which was expected to be released this year.
In January, West shared a few chapters from the project on new website “Kenfest” – Big Day Out’s original working title.A post shared by KenWest@kenfest (@kenwest_kenfest)“The Big Day Out for me was life changing, and the first six years were the heart and soul of a great adventure. A different world, innocent, dangerous, optimistic and a lot of fun,” said West.“The complete book itself is written, however with thousands of photos, artwork and documents to integrate it is constantly evolving,” he added.
“As for the E-book, that’s another story. Hopefully at least one will be available by the end of the year.