Sydney turned on some truly overdue summer sunshine to warm up the Domain for another new year’s day of house, techno, dub, and more than a sprinkling of live offerings that typifies festival mainstay Field Day. Landing firmly in the middle of a festival season marred by cancellations, downsizings, poor ticket sales and more than a few desperately competitive lineups, on paper Field Day 2012 posted one of its most varied yet consistently top-end set lists across three stages, albeit to a smaller crowd and a sparser venue than some previous years. That said, with the return of last year’s massive closers Justice, along with Calvin Harris, Moby, Example, Crystal Castles, and locals Gotye and Cloud Control, Fuzzy managed to nudge the bar a little higher yet again.
Moby kicked off the run of big names early in the afternoon, the techno pioneer playing a tight set of big house with a masterful balance between melody and build-up. An excellent melding of new and old, including updated remixes of Ferry Corsten and Fatboy Slim classics and dirtier, bassier versions of his own unmistakable sampling, really got the growing crowd buzzing in all the right ways. A veteran of electronic music, Moby clearly hasn’t lost touch in recent years.
Next up: Calvin Harris. Playing an earlier set than his stodgy, overly progressive last Australian appearance at Stereosonic in 2010, the more upbeat, melodic, party anthem vibe that defines Harris’ own tunes got the crowd pumped in a big way. Huge cheers for Flashback, Close To You and massive commercial hit Bounce kept the set pumping along nicely, and cheeky nods to Block Rockin’ Beats and other classics grounded his set well into the afternoon slot.
Meanwhile, over on the Island stage, and (ironically?) old & tired Young MC was going through the motions with Bust a Move to a small but loyal following, before making way for a slightly larger but equally loyal crowd for Cloud Control. Announcing up-front that they were just as hungover as the festivalgoers, the four-piece took a few tracks to genuinely warm up, but once in top gear were at their happy, poppy best. Gold Canary, There’s Nothing In The Water and Death Cloud all got their usual pretty flawless live treatment, but after 18 months playing the same limited set, one of the bigger cheers came from the announcement that a new album is in the works and coming soon. Plenty of potential behind these talented Blue Mountains youngsters.
A short and underwhelming set from locals Flight Facilities bridged the gap to the next live act on the Island stage, in the form of English quartet Metronomy, a surprise highlight of the afternoon. Arriving on stage dressed like awkward nerds and fumbling around with instruments and panels like first timers, the boys from Devon quickly hit top gear to produce a tight, energetic set filled with more than a few wicked tunes. Heartbreaker, The Bay, She Wants and The Look all got an excellent live treatment, with some playful banter between tracks keeping the crowd pleased and impressed, despite a few minor technical issues. I predict plenty more good things to come from these chaps.
Back to the main stage and continuing the live vibe, Gotye hit the stage with his 11-piece band and dorky charm. Perhaps a little out of place amid the dance music otherwise filling the main arena for the day, but with enough recent popular success to justify the space, Gotye brought about the biggest pre-Justice cheer of the day by pulling the live equivalent of a DJ ‘drop’, building up to massive hit Somebody That I Used To Know via the jazzy big band tune (Seville - look it up) used as a sample on the track. The energy in the crowd for this much-anticipated tune was hard to resist, and a full-scale crowd singalong in place of Kimbra’s response midway through the song created a huge buzz as the sun started setting. Some late sounds issues marred the end of the set and lost the crowd, unfortunately doing the rest of Gotye’s generally excellent body of work less credit, but by then the job had been done.
Next up on the main stage, an unexpectedly big leap from Gotye to the ‘WTF’ set of the day: Example & DJ Wire. With a repetoire of about five tracks of his own to perform, Example played MC for the majority of the set, as DJ Wire proceeded to brutally mash together 30 second grabs of dubstep, hip hop and drum’n'bass tracks. The majority of his involvement was screaming “from the front to the back” more times than entirely mecessary, and his own tracks were few and far between, but still performed and received well. Definitely a bit of madness, but ultimately a good way to speed things back up after the earlier mellow, melodic interlude.
Dusk settled in earnest, a fitting entry for duo Crystal Castles. With a catalogue easily capable of some heavy, jarring emo-industrial techno, these guys produced a surprisingly feel good, harmonic and ethereal set, with frontwoman Alice Glass deftly swinging between the screams and sweet melodies. A ghostly rendition of Not In Love (no Robert Smith required) easily a highlight.
Well into the night time sets, next up was festival mainstay Busy P, with his superb progressive build-ups. The P is a legend of the traditional crossfade, track-by-track playlist, difficult to fault on track selection and his gradual but inevitable climax, slowing the set down with some Kanye/Jay-Z in the middle really got the crowd churning ahead of the swift changeover to the hotly anticipated headline…
JUSTICE! Following last year’s massive closing set, the French duo was more than happy to debut the live show of their new album in Sydney, and what a show. Rolling old and new together for a 90 minute glorious mashup, Justice managed to take everything that is good about their live shows and build on it. Combining sublime drops with an incredible light show, the epic combination of Civilization, Genesis, Phantom and Canon, along with an enormous extended mix of Audio Video Disco to finish, brought the crowd to a real peak and a faultless way to finish the night. Words don’t do it *justice* (sorry), if you like these guys, get hold of a copy of this set if and when it comes out. You won’t be disappointed!
All in all, the usual high standard Fuzzy have come to deliver in recent years. Definitely a great value festival in these thrifty times, and not a half bad way to celebrate the new year.