Where were you when Daft Punk announced they'd launch a hugely anticipated album in a rural Australian town few had heard of?
With three genre-defining albums and the Tron: Legacy soundtrack under their belt, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo – the Frenchmen inside the robot helmets – plotted a unique surprise for their fourth (and what turned out to be final) album.
Nobody could have predicted what the world-renowned dance music titans had in store, or how they would transform a small New South Wales community with the world premiere of Random Access Memories.
Nestled in the Narrabri shire with a population of just 2,000, Wee Waa was hardly a dance music mecca.Billed as the "cotton capital" of Australia, it was better known for farming, floods, and pioneering DNA testing.
However, on 10 April 2013, it was revealed Daft Punk would host the global launch of their new album as part of the 79th Annual Wee Waa Show, right alongside the regular attractions — woodchopping, floral arranging, and dog-high jumping – of the weekend-long agricultural fair.
The puzzling news was initially met with confusion. But the bizarre decision did exactly what all good marketing should – it made global headlines while social media was dominated with conversation around an album shrouded in secrecy.
Now, on the 10th anniversary of arguably the strangest album launch in history, we look back and wonder 'why Wee Waa?', examining a once-in-a-lifetime event with the folks that were there.
The origins
The initial concept for Random Access Memories was to have "different launch events around the world" Paul Hahn, director of Daft Punk's production company Daft Arts, explained to Billboard in 2013. "And the Aussie wing of Sony helped come up with this idea, with distinctly Australian wit. That event isn't a joke but is playful and celebratory."
After scouting rural areas, Sony Music Australia eventually reached out to Wee Waa council.
"We're still pinching ourselves," Brett Dickinson, then-President of the Wee Waa Show Society said in an interview with triple j at the time, confirming an event many had assumed was an elaborate prank.
"We don't know why, but why not?"
"They just wanted somewhere that was different to what Daft Punk does. They're known for breaking down boundaries and being creative and having innovative ideas… they thought Wee Waa is uniquely Australian and they said, let's go to Wee Waa…"
Speaking to Double J almost exactly 10 years later, Dickinson says when he was called by then-Narrabri Mayor Conrad Bolton to his council chambers, both men thought somebody was pulling their leg. He'd never heard of Daft Punk.
"They wanted an out-of-city location from memory [with] a carnival atmosphere. It just turned out that the annual Wee Waa Show was coming up," he says.
"They thought that was a great idea to have it at the same time. The council thought it was a great idea to get more people out to rural areas and give them a look at what it's like to be in the bush.
"And it turned into a real circus after that."
The entire town quickly rallied behind the idea, Dickinson says. "We had community meetings, Sony came out and talked to us [at] the bowling club."
"There was a lot of people involved, a lot of people that I can't even remember their names anymore," he laughs. "I think it was about six or eight weeks. There was a lot to organise…"
Beyond truckloads of production gear, staging, and lighting, there was also the matter of security, fencing, and infrastructure for a town that was about to see its population potentially tripled.
Local emergency assessment was organised and Police co-ordinated Operation Hadrian, targeting unruly revellers at the event.
"Sleep was something you didn't get much of in the days leading up to it. It was a big task but we got into it and got it done in a short period of time."
The hype
For Wee Waa native Alex Sol Watts, seeing his hometown make global news and transformed into a Daft Punk welcoming committee was a surreal sight.
"My reaction was total disbelief and then, 'Well, I should probably go!'," he tells Double J. "People were really hyped for it because it felt transcendent for the town – this is going to be one hell of a party."
"The organisers were talking a very big game – the huge volume of people that would be coming, the fact that everywhere would be sold out, it would be impossible to get accommodation."
"Loads of people coming to town and experiencing a rural or regional show for the first time," he continues. "Seeing that in Wee Waa and having that experience was genuinely good for the town."
"It could've been any rural town," Watts points out. "Burren just up the road, or Pilliga. I'm sure they could've actually done it under the radio satellite telescopes… But it was Wee Waa."
When 4,000 tickets went on sale on the Narrabri Crossing Theatre website five days ahead of the event, the demand temporarily crashed their servers.
However, using his parents' connections to the Wee Waa Show Society, Watts was able to skip the drama and secure membership passes. "I brought my now-wife and six other friends. It was pretty easy for us."
He describes himself as being "a Daft Punk fan in the way that anyone that was going to a club between 2007 and 2014 was. Weirdly, the first record I stole from my brother (who's 15 years older than me) was Daft Punk's [1997 debut album] Homework."
Adding to the fervour was the fact, at that point, the world had only heard 15 seconds of Daft Punk's new album – a teaser of what would turn out to be the album's mega-hit, 'Get Lucky'.
It was only revealed that Pharrell Williams and Chic guitarist/producer-to-the-stars Nile Rodgers were part of the track's authentic swagger when Daft Punk upstaged the first night of Coachella festival that year, unveiling a lavish album trailer revealing an all-star list of collaborators.
The hype around Daft Punk's first proper studio album since 2005 was already in overdrive, and Wee Waa was to be where anyone would get to hear it for the first time.
Except, three days before the launch, the album 'leaked', prompting Sony to make the album available to stream on iTunes.
The obvious question became whether fans would still make the long trek out to the middle of nowhere to hear music freely available on the internet and hitting CD retailers that morning.
Accommodation was cancelled, some just never bothered showing up. But the more devoted – an estimated 2,000-plus non-locals – made the trip to what they understood to be a rare, never-to-be-repeated event.
Besides, the "subtext" of the launch, as Watts puts it, was that "Daft Punk were going to be there." The rumour mill was certainly spinning…
"It felt like the Olympics to us…"
Wee Waa citizens got wholeheartedly into the spirit of the event. Promotional videos depicted the entire town – from farmers to school kids – donning Daft Punk masks and talking up the take-over.
The local bakery advertised "Punk Pies" and "Random Access Rissoles", while the butcher offered "Daft Pork" sausages.
There was even a 'dancing satellite dish', showing off the CSIRO Telescope Compact Array that had been mentioned in press releases as part of what drew Daft Punk to Wee Waa in the first place.
"It felt like the Olympics to us. It was a mammoth effort for all the community, the committee, the council at the time," says Dickinson, who doesn't remember any blowback from the townsfolk.
The biggest challenge, he adds, was constructing the futuristic stage at the centre showgrounds.
Loosely mimicking a vinyl record, the enormous dancefloor boasted LED screens underfoot, a giant disco ball hanging overhead, and was flanked by blockbuster lighting towers and speakers angled inward for maximum sonic impact.
Sony boasted it was the largest outdoor dancefloor seen Down Under, describing it as "Saturday Night Fever meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
"It was amazing," says Dickinson. "The lighting could be seen from 20 odd kilometres away at night. I lived out of town and they tested the lights and 12-20 spotlights shot up into the night sky. It was like an alien had landed…"
Alex Watts agrees. "It did feel like a message sent to the gods," he says, likening it to the Bat-Signal, a beacon for revellers to descend upon the flatlands of Kamilaroi country.
Daft Punk rumours
"Everybody was talking about 'oh maybe they'll show up'," Daft Punk fan Bek Wilcher tells Double J.
At the time, she was a 21-year-old studying in neighbouring Tamworth. Together with close mate Sharni, she decided to make the two-and-a-half hour roadtrip to attend the party on the eve of her birthday.
"I love Daft Punk, I'm nearby. I have to go, this is an unreal opportunity," she recalls.
"There was this potential they could be there, and I guess I'd have been really disappointed if I was so close to where they potentially could've been and didn't attend."
The French pair had not properly performed live since rounding out their 2007 Alive tour in Australia – a widely-acclaimed production that featured Daft Punk's legendary pyramid; a groundbreaking spectacle that spearheaded the EDM boom of the late '00s.
Despite Sony Music and Wee Waa reps clearly ruling out Daft Punk attending the event, it didn't quell rumours the robots would make an appearance of some sort.
The idea of a close encounter with the famously secretive pair — be it beamed in by hologram, arriving astride a Blue Ribbon prize bull, or simply wandering around the dusty showgrounds incognito observing the scene they'd wrought — was a mythology too juicy to put to rest.
That prospect alone motivated Bek and her mates, who were among those that made the pilgrimage, with fans flocking not only from interstate but from overseas.
She remembers setting up their tents at a farm property they'd paid for accommodation, and seeing "busloads of Contiki Tour people rocking up" to the campgrounds.
"I remember being surprised with how far some people had travelled. That made me think, 'This is pretty legit. They better show their faces!'," she laughs.
"There were news helicopters flying over the showground. People on the ground saying, 'Oh maybe they're up in that chopper watching this all play out'.
"We were entertained by that idea. It felt surreal, like all these things had been staged, so Daft Punk must be here somewhere. Otherwise, they're just laughing at how hilarious this."
"Even to this day now, I remember when we were there and when we left, we were so confused… and excited at the same time."
Alas, despite the fever pitch drummed up by fans and the Olympic-sized community effort, Daft Punk did not make an appearance. What there was instead, was the music.
The party
"I remember walking into the showground, it was dark, and seeing this giant disco ball," says Bek. "And being like 'Oh my god, this is actually a thing. We've come to the right place'."
She was greeted by a beautifully strange scene. City slickers made small talk with the country folk, punters milling around with dagwood dogs and tinnies from the stalls. Hardcore fans decked out in homemade robot costumes mixed in with the Akubra-and-cowboy-boots locals.
Around 8.30pm, following a fireworks display from pyrotechnics company Holy Smoke, Brett Dickinson began a countdown.
"The dancefloor was packed. I got on there and everybody was slapping me on the back and saying how wonderful it was. I was actually the unofficial Mayor of Wee Waa for a little period of time," he chuckles.
The hard-hitting notes of 'Give Life Back To Music' boomed out in surround sound at maximum volume. The lights reached for the cosmos and thousands of punters gleefully followed Daft Punk's decree to 'Lose Yourself To Dance'.
Bek says the feeling was liberating.
"The quality of the sound was amazing, it was really loud… Being in the country under a full, starry night sky. That's the thing I have ingrained in my mind: the atmosphere."
'Give Life Back To Music'
Random Access Memories was unlike anything Daft Punk had done before. Eschewing the EDM sound they helped pioneer and embracing warm, live instrumentation, the duo sought to strip away the electronic façade and fulfil the prophetic title of their 2005 album, Human After All.
Winding back to the roots of dance music and their deepest stylistic influences – disco, funk, soft rock, vintage RnB and soul – Bangalter and de-Homem Christo lavishly recreated the lush (and no doubt expensive) production values of a bygone era with a range of their idols.
"We wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers… but with people," Bangalter told Rolling Stone in 2013.
Like a modern-day Steely Dan, Daft Punk assembled a crack team of virtuoso session players whose collective CV featured legends like David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder… to name just a few.
"It felt really interesting to connect all these eras together and create music of the present and possibly the future as well," Bangalter told triple j in 2013.
An intricate constellation where Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers, "the founding fathers of modern music", would dazzle alongside modern stars like Pharrell and The Strokes' Julian Casablancas.
Despite topping charts around the world and going on to win five Grammys, including Album of the Year, it's fair to say Random Access Memories received a mixed response.
The nostalgic aesthetic and complex arrangements polarised fans who simply wanted to sweat it out to more electronic bangers.
The Sydney Morning Herald said the album "fail[ed] to justify the hype", while Music OMH criticised the album as being "tedious [with] a strong whiff of egoism and self-indulgence."
In 2021, Pitchfork included Daft Punk twice in their list of review scores they'd "change if they could", bumping Discovery up to a perfect 10 and Random Access Memories down 8.8 to 6.8.
"RAM has some jams," they wrote "but it doesn't feel pivotal in the same way that Discovery did. It didn't push pop music forward."
But the revellers that descended on Wee Waa might disagree.
Growing up in rural New South Wales, Watts says Daft Punk was the only dance music he knew.
"I didn't know who Giorgio Moroder was, I didn't know what Daft Punk were referencing on Random Access Memories. But being exposed to it in that way was almost like a door opening for me. That was fantastic.
"That record has been a lasting gift to my understanding of the history of music. And what's more special?"
"Put aside that [the album launch] was in my hometown and it was a great party. I got to know more about whole decades of music and able to have a lasting appreciation as well."
It's a record he loves and listens to regularly, "because that weekend was one of the best of my twenties."
Random Access Memories also remains a favourite for Bek, bringing back lots of fond memories.
"That feeling of what it was like when it was playing, the sound, the night sky," she says. "Probably one of my all-time favourite albums. I absolutely love listening from start to finish. It's so good."
The Daftermath
Did Daft Punk's launch have a lasting, major impact on Wee Waa? "Mmm, no. Not really," admits Brett Dickinson.
"They packed up pretty quickly and were out and gone and pretty much haven't heard from them since."
"We didn't make a huge amount of money out of it because of all the costs. But you know, it put us on the map there for a little while."
Given the opportunity, he says he "probably would" do it all again. "It was a fantastic thing to be part of. A highlight [that] came along at the right time for the community."
But otherwise, he concedes not much has changed.
He's still part of the Wee Waa Show Society, and there's a Random Access Memories CD and a few tins of 'Draught Punk' beer floating around his home somewhere. But the remaining memorabilia has been lost to time and the local insects.
"There were a lot of posters left over but I think the white ants got into our secretary's office and made a mess of them."
Bek looks back fondly on her adventure and collection of Wee Waa photos but she "probably won't ever go back out that way again. It's a bit of a trek."
It doesn't rank among her best music experiences precisely because she prefers the engagement of a living, breathing performance.
"It doesn't really register on the same level. But I don't think I have anything comparable that I've been to in the last 10 years. It was a one-of-a-kind event because it was so very strange."
For Alex, he regularly visits his hometown but still feels a similar way.
"The whole experience was surreal from start to finish. From discovery to experience and afterwards," he says.
"The last time I was home, about six months ago, I think there was a poster in the corner of the bakery. There is a long-lasting semi-cultural legacy of 'this thing happened here'."
"Towns like Wee Waa need art investment and I think it's really special that Sony Music actually did something for a town. That fucking rules! Moments like that, and decentralising arts and culture from Sydney in Australia is super vital. I think it's incredible when people do it and I want to see it more often."
He's even got a pitch for Warner Bros; "Dua Lipa, launch your next record in Mullumbimby because what an experience that would be!"
He'd also "fully bought into" Daft Punk making a surprise appearance. "Even up until the last song played… What better reveal than, 'Hey, we were here the whole time!'"
He wishes they really had been.
"Not that it would've made the experience better or worse but it would've validated the town slightly. Said something about what Wee Waa was...
"That's fine because it was a great party. But a great party that had Daft Punk at it means that would've been an iconic moment in Wee Waa forever, and not just a slightly weird footnote, which it sometimes feels like."
He says the tourist boom had "been overstated by organisers" and even though it was a positive experience, "I wish it would have brought in everything they said it would bring in...
"I don't think it changed the town but it highlighted how special a town like this is or can be."
Fragments Of Time
In the wake of Daft Punk retiring after an influential 28 year career, their one-night-only Australian spectacle retains a powerful fascination, especially to those that weren't there.
So, why Wee Waa? We're still no closer to a definitive answer today other than emphasising the random in Random Access Memories.
"This record is made for anywhere and everywhere," Bangalter told triple j in 2013.
He described it as simply a "poetic idea" in an interview with Sydney Morning Herald, offering a cryptic reasoning around "doing things in music that are triggering imagination."
The more cynical view might be that it was merely a marketing gimmick, an attempt to carve attention and relevancy in the face of dwindling music industry sales.
Conversations around 'the Death of the Album' have only grown more anxious in tone these days, where playlisting and short-form entertainment dominate and our communal experiences of music plays out online almost more-so than in person.
In hindsight, somewhat ironically, it demonstrated the importance of bringing people together, and how an album can mean something more than just a product or a collection of songs.
"I think it's the only time in my life where that breathless pause before the music starts has felt so communal," remembers Watts, seeing small cliques of friends and hangers-on merge and transform into a single throbbing mass "just moving to a record they'd never listened to before."
"If I was going to wax poetic about it, that's what I really loved. How it just felt like music is the great leveller, let's just dance and have a great time."
"It felt really folksy. Maybe the closest experience I've had is a small group of people sitting around a campfire and playing folk songs. I know that might seem a false equivalence, but it did feel very intimate."
That's a rare, never-to-be-repeated experience, even after the crucial re-evaluation of live music's value and importance in the post-pandemic years.
It might not have changed the world, let alone Wee Waa, but it remains something close to a minor miracle that the stars aligned for Daft Punk's rural Australian exercise.
For one April night in 2013, the robots' music brought thousands of folks from different walks of life together onto one dancefloor in the belief that music truly mattered. And we're still talking about it ten years later.