The Vine festival review: Big Day Out 2012, Gold Coast
A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Big Day Out 2012
Gold Coast Parklands
Sunday 22 January 2012Twenty years into this festival’s existence and strangely, the Big Day Out has less cultural relevancy than ever before. Or so you might believe if you paid attention to the Australian music media in the months leading up to the 2012 event. Or the BDO Facebook page. There irate fans compiled a list: the line-up’s shit, all the acts are tired and stale, they booked The Living End for the 18th year in a row, they’ve been beaten to the punch by specialist festivals booking bigger and better acts, Kanye West isn’t a proper headliner – ad nauseum. No wonder festival co-founder Ken West got vocal with frustrations at such concerns.
So travelling to the Parklands today, I’m half expecting to spend the festival in a relatively empty venue. It’s a pleasant surprise to be completely wrong. This show isn’t sold out – none of the 2012 shows reached capacity, for the first time in a long time – yet it’s hard to discern much of a drop in attendance. Despite the vocal online haters, a summer in Australia without a Big Day Out to look forward to seems a sad prospect. This year’s tour needs to be excellent if the event is to survive, and it needs to start here on the Gold Coast.
Up first on the Orange Stage is Abbe May and her three offsiders, who play compact, elegant rock songs led by May’s strong voice and commanding stage presence. The Perth-based singer evokes memories of Magic Dirt’s Adalita Srsen in full-flight; boot resting on the foldback, guitar held aloft. There’s a lot to like here for rock fans, and she seems to impress a lot of newcomers today as her crowd slowly swells past triple figures. Next on the Green Stage are Stonefield, who’re running 15 minutes late due to transport issues. The four Findlay sisters are forced to swallow the embarrassment of soundchecking their own instruments before a nearly full tent. Once they start playing, though, they’re thoroughly impressive. This tour could mark the beginning of their transition into a band who deserve to be taken seriously: strong musicianship, quality songwriting and a formidable frontwoman in drummer Amy Findlay. They cover Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and it slays: the day’s first goosebump-provoking moment. Funnily, Holly – the band’s bassist, and youngest member at 13 – starts windmilling her hair during the drum solo, apropos of nothing. It’s awesome. The crowd goes wild.
On the Blue Stage, Parkway Drive outline the crossover appeal of their distinctive style of metalcore. By now, they’re essentially a mainstream act, so well-known is their image and presence. In ten years’ time, will we look back on these five Byron boys’ output as one of the defining Australian sounds? I hope so. These songs are etched onto the DNA of a generation of young hardcore fans, and they run through a solid set before a big crowd today. They’re a fine example of a band who clearly enjoy the hell out of their success; there’s nothing but smiles on show today. Singer Winston McCall struggles with the heat but keeps up with his incandescent bandmates; he even manages to catch two airborne water bottles during a single song, ‘Anasasis’. Five huge Parkway Drive-branded beach balls bounce around the D section for the duration of their set, which thoroughly satisfies.
The same can’t be said for OFWGKTA, the Los Angeles hip-hop collective. Today is the day that the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All bubble bursts. They sound like shit live. I wrote otherwise when they visited Australia for the first time last June, but today’s performance is truly horrendous. It’s not a matter of how the show’s mixed, either: the problem can be isolated to five dudes holding microphones and using them incessantly, rather than sparingly. Each line is barked by the rappers, not rapped. As a result, the sonic nuance that the group exhibit on record is non-existent today; instead, a hodge-podge of disparate, aggressive voices over a backbeat. The crowd at the Boiler Room is huge, and they explode with joy once the five rappers and one DJ – singer Frank Ocean nowhere to be seen, apparently – show their faces. After 15 minutes of watching and attempting to listen to their set, it becomes funny to think about how bad they sound. On record, impressive. Here? Appalling. At times it sounds like they’re just rapping over an mp3; during the Tyler, The Creator track ‘Transylvania’, the group’s original lines can be clearly heard underneath their live raps. 35 minutes in, ‘Yonkers’ could be the set’s only saviour, yet it too disappoints. Tyler barely raps a word; the crowd does it for him. When he does use the mic, he’s drowned out by his bandmates barking his best lines. In a short, it’s a bomb. Which ruins the last chance that this set had of redeeming itself. The crowd leaves en masse at song’s end and I wonder why I’m still standing here.
For the full review and many more photos, visit The Vine. Above photo credit: Justin Edwards.
The Vine festival review: Good Vibrations 2011, Gold Coast
A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Good Vibrations
Gold Coast Parklands, Gold Coast
Saturday 19 February 2011On show day, wide open spaces are among the last things that festival promoters want to see. So Jam Music, the team behind Good Vibrations, must be pretty bummed by this year’s turnout. Half price tickets were offered to the Sydney show, and there were reports of lacklustre attendance in Melbourne and – to a lesser extent – Sydney, while punters at the Gold Coast leg were informed a few days prior that they could bring a friend to the show for free. One can’t help but wonder just how bare the venue would be, were it not for that last minute face-saving decision; even now, there’s loads of unused space within the Parklands.
Despite running a similar amount of stages to the Big Day Out, the Good Vibes grounds take up perhaps half of the floor space. In recent years, promoters have attempted to distinguish the festival from myriad other doof-fests by booking indie pop and rock acts high up the bill. Evidently, their efforts this year weren’t enough to stand out from a crowded summer schedule. By moving away from the dancefloor in search of the moshpit, Good Vibrations may have lost its core audience.
I am not part of this festival’s core audience. When the first line-up announcement was made back in September last year, two of my most anticipated artists were Cee-Lo Green and Janelle Monae. Both ultimately cancelled in favour of staying Stateside and performing at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards, meaning that some large holes suddenly emerged among the line-up. And so the first artist of real interest isn’t until half three on a disgustingly hot Saturday afternoon. (Although curiously, the $40 festival shirts for sale behind the merch desk still list the names of both Monáe and Green. The perils of printing merchandise months in advance.)
Erykah Badu is a thing of beauty. At the outset, I’m a bit sceptical, due largely to the circumstance in which she takes the stage. For over five minutes, her band are put in a holding pattern playing the same eight bars; a dark jacket is handed to the bassist, whose white check shirt stands out among his fellow black clad musicians. I expect a diva-like performance, fraught with perfectionism and divorced from spontaneity. Thankfully, my doubts are disproven around 10 minutes in, as the American singer smiles for the first time and reveals herself to be wholly engaged with the wide crowd of admirers. “You know why I do this?” she asks us halfway through. “I do this for my sanity.”
Thank fuck that she does. Her hour-plus on stage is a thrilling ride through her eclectic catalogue of soul and R&B stunners. With a wave of her hand, she cuts her band off on the beat time and again; by constantly deconstructing and rebuilding her songs, Badu ensures that she remains the focal point. Indeed, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off the singer, so alluring is her voice and presence. When she walks the length of the front-of-stage barrier toward set’s end, while still singing and holding onto the crowd for support, there’s little doubt that any of us would let such a beautiful creature come to harm. From 1997′s Baduizm to last year’s New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh), it’s a wide ranging and powerfully-delivered set. Massive props to the Good Vibrations bookers for bringing her out to Australia for the first time. It’s good enough to take us away from the fact that, under the stifling dark canopy of the Roots Stage, it’s so hot that our bodies constantly ooze sweat, even while stationary. It also sets a very high bar for the rest of today’s acts.
For the full review, visit The Vine. Above photo by Justin Edwards.
Mess+Noise EP review: Bleeding Knees Club
An EP review for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.
Bleeding Knees Club – Virginity
The approach for Gold Coast duo Bleeding Knees Club is disarmingly simple, and on Virginity, their first release – five tracks, and barely 11 minutes in total – they sound simultaneously loose and confident. It works so well purely because there’s nothing else to get in the way of Alex Wall thrashing away at a shitty old drumkit while singing about his offsider being 20, him being 21, them both being drunk, and about how guitarist Jordan Malane “found my cigarettes” and “took three”. Throw in an incessantly-shaken tambourine and a harmonised vocal melody and you’ve got everything you could possibly want from a simple, dumb, awesome indie-punk tune.
There’s a killer middle-eight in ‘Truth Or Dare’ that sounds like the wheels are about to fall off. This same sense of barely-contained enthusiasm propels Virginity along like Wall and Malane have nothing to lose.
For the full review, visit Mess+Noise, where you can also stream the track ‘Bad Guys’. For more Bleeding Knees Club, visit their Myspace. Live footage of their song ‘Camp Out‘ is embedded below.
triple j mag story: Queensland Festival Road Trip, 2010-2011
A story for triple j mag about the forthcoming 2010-2011 music festival season in Queensland. Article below – click the image for a closer look, as it’ll probably make more sense to read it that way.
Festival Road Trip: Queensland
Local experts have given us the ultimate round-up of festivals and stuff to see in every state and territory these summer. Plan your road trip now!
Festivals:
This unique beachside musical experience at Point Lookout’s Home Beach features over 40 reggae, hip-hop, roots and soul artists. Californian reggae act Groundation and NZ hip-hop artists Ladi6 and King Kapisi headline.
Oct 29-31, North Stradbroke Island
This four-day camping event combines bullriding, 4WD action and the likes of country stars Lee Kernaghan and John Williamson.
Nov 4-7, Jimna
Full Noise aims to expose Townsville to the kind of high quality, cross-genre events their southern brethren take for granted. Wolfmother and Bliss N Eso are top of the bill.
Nov 20, Townsville
4. Harbourlife
From the promoters of Parklife and Summafieldayze comes Harbourlife, a new Qld festival based on its Sydney Harbour counterpart. The Temper Trap, Metronomy and Yacht Club DJs are all on board.
Nov 28, Gold Coast
Got stamina? This six-night camping festival attracts around 130,000 patrons annually, and its music program features more than 2000 local, national and international performers.
Dec 27-Jan 1, Woodfordia
Live performances from The Rapture, Art Vs Science and English rapper Tinie Tempah mix it up with some of the world’s best DJs.
Jan 2, Gold Coast
The Falls Festival’s little sister features most of the bands appearing in Vic and Tas. See Interpol, Klaxons and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts close to home. Ace.
Jan 5-6, Brisbane
Qld Sights:
Whitsundays
The most popular resorts are located on Daydream, Hamilton and Hayman Islands, which all offer easy access to day cruises, diving, parasailing and helicopter rides, among other activities. Most islands permit camping; book early though.
Whale Watching
From June until the end of November, the coastal town of Hervey Bay becomes one of the best spots in the country to witness whales in their natural habitat: the freakin’ ocean.
Theme Parks
The Gold Coast is home to some of Australia’s biggest theme parks: Dreamworld, Wet ‘N’ Wild, Warner Bros. Movie World and Sea World. Go on all the rides and eat junk till you hurl.
