Harvest Festival
Werribee Park, Werribee, VIC
Saturday 12th November 2011

The debut Harvest festival will go down in folklore for two reasons: completely failing to provide adequate amenities, food stalls and beverage options, as well as being a superbly curated event that occurred in perhaps the most beautiful festival grounds this writer has ever seen. And if — as oft-beleagured festival promoter AJ Maddah did say in his much-discussed and disputed blog post — it took Portishead's availability to provide the impetus for the event, the UK band delivered on his hunch: amongst a sea of thoughtful rock and picturesque surrounds, Portishead were fabulously alien.


The bus

Wide sandstone houses and backyard swings zip by on the train out to suburban Werribee, giving way to pre-fab homes and the odd snatch of Port Philip Bay glimpsed down the end of nearby streets. Given all the pixels devoted to internet consternation over potential transport delays in the lead up to the event, the PT journey to Harvest was pleasantly swift. Walking off the platform at Werribee station, the throng were immediately herded into comfortable coaches waiting side-by-side for the short trip into the grounds. Delivered onto Werribee soil, I was instantly set upon by a sniffer dog who mistook my legs for cured sausage. "Got anything on ya?" said one of the two cops now putting gloves on. "Had anything in the last couple of hours mate? Last night?" I offered an illicit muesli bar. "Had anything to smoke?", he continued as his canine friend grew disinterested. "Yeah I think maybe some of 'em have been smoking on the bus."



Werribee Park is an oasis of green; a rolling country club of manicured foliage and Jurassic-era trees that encircle a jade pond -- the kind of gorgeous drop of life that lulls you into a sense of everything's OK. It evidently also made having to see some bands a bit of an ask for some -- punters could be seen laid out on rugs, reading books, gathered under trees or just asleep on the sunny lawns. Then there were the massive queues. After waiting five minutes to buy five coupons for $4 each that would get me two and a half drinks, I walked over to find the Great Lawn heaving with two marvellous crowds: one watching The Family Stone and one at the opposing end with their back to the stage waiting to be served at the small bar. "No problem, I shall cunningly procure a drink elsewhere with ease," I thought. Wrong. Every turn led to queues; for food, alcohol, coffee, coupons, toilets. So relentless was the wait for anything at all, that lateral thinking took charge: no eating, no beer (which ran out at 4pm - !!) no giving any money to stall-holders, and making frequent personal use of the more secluded corners of Werribee Park.



If the Great Lawn and the towering mansion that leered over it stood as some idyllic monument to festival postcards everywhere, the Windmill stage was its shameful, bald-faced cousin. A paddock with pungent farm breath, the real shame was in the colossal white trucks flanking the stage. Clearly visible beyond the short fence, the machines completely obscured the natural beauty of the landscape, giving the spot the impression of an afterthought. With ground already muddy (and an entry gate not more than eight people across), in inclement weather things could have quite literally turned to shit. They didn't, but until the sun went down and the giant (prop) windmill lit up, we could have been waiting at the stockyards for all the communal ambiance. But that's OK when the music's good.

New Yorker's The Walkmen aren't built for sunlight. Black suited and white shirted, the New York five-piece looked red-faced and in search of a connection on the Windmill stage. Theirs is the kind of thoughtful indie-soul that requires nuance — or patience — to be fully appreciated, and in the early afternoon heat it seemed hard to muster either. At least when frontman Hamilton Leithauser wasn't at full tilt; most obviously on 2004 nearly-hit 'The Rat' -- a song so clearly great that it can't help but make everything around it seem second best. The lazier strum of 'Canadian Girl' that followed seemed to confirm it.

Maybe it was the shade, the beer line or the chin-strokers they've steadily accumulated over the years, but the crowd for PVT pushed outside the "Big Red Tractor" tent. Drummer Laurence Pike announced they'd just been away for three weeks recording a new album, prior to a new tune that wasn't dissimilar to work on their buddy Jack Ladder's album earlier in the year (an album which Pike drummed on). They closed with a pulverising take on 'In The Blood', from O Soundtrack My Heart, as ever.


TV on the Radio

Like The Walkmen, TV on the Radio are another crew better suited to darker stages. Pulling a huge crowd to the Great Lawn (hundreds of whom were simply waiting in lines at the bar up the back), the band have a new configuration following the death of original bassist/keyboardist Gerard Smith in April this year. Drummer Jaleel Bunton has taken his place, and while his replacement on the kit is no slouch, the role change means a shift in dynamic of the once kinetic rhythm section. It's nothing dramatic, but there does seem to be a subtle dissolution of energy. A nervy 'Golden Age' had Kyp Malone on vocals, followed by the Tunde Adebimpe-led (and fabulous) 'Will Do' from their recent Nine Types of Light LP; it's the latter's dark, trip-hop-like stomp that seems to ignite the crowd for the first time. A later slot would have served the band so well, but as it happened they provided the first buzz for the day.


Mercury Rev

Meanwhile, Mercury Rev were doing their best to build some kind of atmosphere in the paddock over at the Windmill stage, with a bearded Jonathan Donahue pitching himself through some wispy strands of dry ice. He looked pleased, despite the shrill light, and — after spending thirty minutes in a beer queue to be told there's no beer — kicked myself for hearing them launch into Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill' while I search further afield. Result: finding out Seekae are covering White Town's 'Your Woman' on the Big Red Tractor stage. And everyone's still queuing.

(Continued next page)