I went from Brisbane, Australia, to New Zealand in 1995 to see the Clean. It was a pilgrimage to see my favourite band in the history of the world, but the thing that will always linger in my memory is Dimmer.

There was a rock festival called Strawberry Fields in the middle of nowhere. I caught a bus from a dead terminal in Auckland to an even deader one in Hamilton, where supposedly there were shuttle buses to ferry people to Strawberry Fields on someone's farm a million miles from anywhere. The buses didn't seem to be happening, but a local dude offered to drive me there for nothing. I think he just wanted an excuse to drive fast. We hurtled around corners at an incautious pace, but for some reason I didn't panic. We got to the farm and he wouldn't even take a couple of bucks for the lift.

Then I descended into a vast natural amphitheatre and the place was full of mutant bikers. One big scarred Maori guy with half a face stared at me and I thought I was in a Mad Max movie. There were a bunch of bands on and the Clean played a nice set in the afternoon. I was going to try to get back to Auckland but I heard Dimmer were on late. They came on after Johnny Diesel - an Aussie guitar-slinger who turned corporate but was somehow a big hit in NZ - at about 1am. They played some glorious noise but the beery biker crowd didn't like 'em at all. The reaction was harsh and there was a loud chorus of approval when one guy yelled out "GO HOME!" Shayne P Carter said "What was that? Go hard or go home?" and hundreds of assholes yelled "GO HOME", "FUCK OFF" and other such exhortations. The stage manager ran on to the stage making a cutting gesture across his throat, effectively telling Dimmer to wind it up and get off the stage. Carter laughed and said "Well, we'll compromise. We'll go hard for two songs and THEN we'll go home". A few muted cheers.

I don't know what song they played next but when they stopped it there was a strange calm over the crowd, as though they could bear the thought of one more number from this weird band they hated. Then Chris Heazlewood started this hypnotic bass rumble and Shayne started to coax all sorts of weird feedback from his amp and began an eerie high-pitched moan. It was a holy sound and it took a while for me to figure out what was going on, but eventually it dawned on me: this was Donna Summer's "I Feel Love".

Angry confusion reigned among the crowd, who didn't quite know what to make of it. I was standing there grinning like a loon. . . and it kept on going for about 12 minutes, a cacophony of pulsing rhythm and shrieking guitar squalls. In front of a crowd of adoring Dimmer fans it would have been amazing, but as a fuck-off gesture to a really antithetic audience it was stunning. It was almost as thought the assholes knew that they had been beaten by a superior wit, because none of them yelled abuse any more. They shook their heads and grumbled like a man who has lost a game of chess after three hours and has realised where he went wrong.

I don't think anyone recorded it (if so I'll pay big money, email me at smckenzie@asroma-addict.com) but I'll always remember it: sheer transcendental punk rock white-noise bliss, as great as live music can ever get.