Parklife
Botanical Gardens, Brisbane
Saturday 25 September 2010
(Pics: Justin Edwards)
There’s nothing quite like rain to fuck up a festival. As clouds loom ominously overhead, we wonder how many tears are being shed in Parklife HQ as wet weather threatens to disrupt the national tour’s first stop. Such thoughts are momentarily cast aside when, soon after hopping off the CityCat nearest Brisbane’s Botanical Gardens, we’re accosted by a friendly undercover policeman, who has us empty our pockets. “Has anyone offered you any drugs?” he asks. “Not yet,” we reply. With a laugh, he sends us on our way – despite having neglected to check my back pockets or earplug case, both of which are chock-full of illicit substances.
Atmosphere
After passing through the VIP entry soon after gates open at 12pm, we encounter
Last Dinosaurs, a young local indie pop act who are playing to eight people at the Kakadu Stage. As we walk past, three of them leave. We’re just getting settled in at the better-attended Atoll Stage, where triple j Unearthed winners
Teleprompter are playing, when the clouds break. And don’t let up for the rest of their set. For the 50 of us who don’t dash for the nearest cover, this makes the quintet’s set more enjoyable, somehow: dancing in the rain to their slick take on indie-punk which calls to mind the late Melbourne act Damn Arms. Inexplicably, they’re all dressed in Star Wars get-up: the singer’s Luke Skywalker, the keyboardist’s Darth Vader, and the drummer’s Boba Fett. It’s a stupid gimmick, but it’s funny nonetheless. They sound good, and they clearly don’t take themselves too seriously. The Force is strong.
Predictably, the rain – which returns intermittently throughout the afternoon – has messed up the festival grounds in a big way. Kudos to organisers for responding quickly, though: muddy chokepoints are soon topped with sand, and nothing seems to be running behind schedule. The merch desk does a roaring trade in $3 ponchos for about an hour; $10 sunscreen, less so. Surprisingly, all bars accept cash, thereby doing away with the maddening drink ticket scheme favoured by every other festival. We look upon DJ act
Stafford Brothers, whose 12.45pm set at The Riverstage – renamed Sahara for Parklife purposes – is well-received by the crowd who slowly filter in. They air ‘Parlez Vous Francais?’ and ‘We Are Your Friends’ during the short time we’re in attendance. We consider how much cheaper it is for festivals to book a couple of DJs instead of the acts who wrote the original tracks.
Booking
Washington for this tour was a curious move. Would a predominately dance-driven festival embrace nuanced, piano-led pop? Hell yeah, apparently. Megan and her band go down a treat, crowding a few thousand into the space before the Atoll Stage at 1.45pm. Like the last time
I saw Megan play, my only concern is just how freely her voice wanders while reprising tracks from
I Believe You Liar. I doubt whether the singer sees any reason to address such a bugbear – especially in the face of such widespread popularity – but I wonder if her loose vocal approach is the only thing separating a good live performer from a great one. Her band’s certainly great, as are the songs. Their cover of ‘I Touch Myself’ is a winner, too.
Washington
Back at Sahara,
Midnight Juggernauts can claim the dubious honour of playing to a near-full Riverstage while the majority pay them little attention. Besides a group of devotees down on the pavement, breaks between songs are marked with a smattering of polite applause. We’re led to question just how high musical enjoyment rates among the priorities of festival attendees. ‘Into The Galaxy’ turns some heads, and ‘Tombstone’ is well-received, as always. Strange as it is to witness their dark pop at 3.05pm, the trio turn in an accomplished set. The highlight is a cover of the Gerry Rafferty classic ‘Baker Street’ featuring their tour manager, who plays that utterly brilliant saxophone melody. Song of the day.
Every festival should have a hidden gem or two; those unsuspecting mid-afternoon slots featuring what could be your new favourite band. The closest I come today is
Memory Tapes’ 3.45pm set at The Cave. I’m not familiar with the band, and only find myself here here because no-one else playing at the time is appealing. And they have a cool-sounding name. Turns out they’re a duo from New Jersey led by guitarist Dayve Hawk, who doesn’t look particularly pleased to be playing to perhaps a hundred half-interested punters at what’s probably their first Australian show. Hawk alternately sings and shreds intricate parts to a synth backing track, while the drummer keeps time and seems plainly thrilled to be here. There are moments of brilliance, and they’re the freshest-sounding band I hear today.
Memory Tapes Friends
Despite his considerable pulling power,
Kele’s set is so half-arsed as to be farcical. He knows we’re mostly here because Bloc Party are a rather good band – live, especially; consequently, he throws in a few better-known tracks from that band's back catalogue: ‘Blue Light’, ‘The Prayer’, ‘One More Chance’ and ‘Flux’. The problem is that the first three are mashed together and remixed in the worst possible way. The tempos for the first two are all fucked up, resulting in a struggle for those trying to sing along. ‘The Prayer’ is undercut by a pulsating synth line that clashes poorly with the drummer’s rhythm. ‘One More Chance’ and set closer ‘Flux’ better mirror Bloc Party’s original take on the tracks, if only because they were both released in the last album cycle – during which Kele’s solo, electropop-fancying aspirations became apparent. He and his three bandmates air a half-dozen cuts from debut album
The Boxer, but only its lead single ‘Tenderoni’ has any sort of traction with the audience. Toward the end of the set, the singer removes his shirt without warning. I’d have respected him more if he’d left it on; more so if he hadn’t tarnished Bloc Party’s reputation by associating their otherwise-decent music with his half-baked side project.
Kele
Mix Master Mike is up next on the same stage at 5.40pm. The Beastie Boys’ turntablist’s set suffers a little from self-indulgence; dude, if you’re going to drop ‘Killing In The Name’, don’t repeatedly cut up the vocal hooks while everyone’s trying to sing along. He subsequently mixes in The Prodigy’s ‘Breathe’, Zeppelin’s ‘Misty Mountain Hop’ and Pantera’s ‘Walk’, which takes both balls and skill. We witness a couple of Beasties tracks crop up – ‘Ch-Check It Out’ and ‘Intergalactic’ – but both are short-lived, as if the DJ is loath to look back. Curious. A trek to nearby food stalls yields the day’s other surprise discovery: legendary Brisbane hip-hop act
Resin Dogs playing to around a hundred people at the under-publicised Woods stage. I bet that if a few more people knew that one of Australia’s genre-defining live hip-hop acts were playing they’d have been in attendance too. Turns out that set closer ‘Coming With The Sound’ from 2007’s
More LP is an awesome tune to eat a German sausage to.
Mix Master Mike
Watching
The Dandy Warhols for the first time tonight is like discovering an entirely new band. Live, for the most part, they play in a style divorced from the jangly, accessible pop tunes for which they’re best known. Favouring expansive, shoegaze-inspired jams over ‘the hits’ – though ‘We Used To Be Friends’, ‘The Last High’ and ‘Bohemian Like You’ each make appearances – I wonder whether this is what triple j had in mind when they decided to live-broadcast the band’s set around the nation. Below a bruising battery of strobe lights, Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Peter Holmström lock into some truly fearsome guitar freak-outs that’d make the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Ride sit up and take notice. Suddenly, Courtney’s comments on the band’s origins during
our interview make way, way more sense. Zia McCabe’s laptop crashes during ‘Hard On For Jesus’, and she fills the sonic gap by singing the electronic samples admirably in-tune. Straight-up rockers ‘Shakin’’ and ‘Horse Pills’ from
Thirteen Tales Of Urban Bohemia are easily-digestible enough for the thousands in attendance, but the shoegaze sections seem to fly over the head of most. Their loss. ‘Now You Love Me’ from 2008’s
Earth To The Dandy Warhols sounds massive, while ‘Boys Better’ closes a muscular set from the only true rock band on the line-up. It’s the festival’s standout performance, by a long shot. (Second-hand reports suggest that Missy Elliot’s main stage performance was atrocious – something about interrupting ‘Get Ur Freak On’ and threatening to throw footwear at the audience. Confirm/deny, dear readers?)
Due to its impeccable sound and lighting set-up, Kakadu proves itself as the festival’s best stage; no wonder they set up the VIP viewing platform here. David and Stephen Dewaele from the Belgian act Soulwax follow The Dandy Warhols at 7.55pm as
2manydjs, wherein they deconstruct and mash-up popular tunes underneath a screen displaying rather engaging animations directly related to the cover art of the acts we hear. ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ and MGMT’s ‘Kids’ garner the biggest reactions from the largest crowd seen at the stage so far today. They’re by far the most energising DJ act I witness, and there’s an additional layer of drama to be enjoyed when stagehands attempt to wheel off their speaker stacks ahead of time. A couple of red suit-clad Soulwax heavies exchange stern words for a while, but ultimately the pair cut short.
Cut Copy are running 15 minutes late, which allows a few hundred more – who were presumably denied entry to
Groove Armada’s set at a capacity Sahara stage – to squeeze into the space before Kakadu. This is the first time the Melbourne-based electropop-conquerors have played to an Australian audience in 18 months, according to singer Dan Whitford, and the four of them seem suitably thrilled. Of course they wheel out the singles from 2008’s
In Ghost Colours, and of course they all sound fantastic. For those of us who’d forgotten just how great that album is, it’s a breath of fresh air. ‘Lights And Music’, ‘Far Away’, ‘Feel The Love’, ‘Hearts On Fire’; Jesus. Couple monstrous songs like those with a Dandy Warhols-rivalling light show, and you’ve got one hell of a performance. Surprisingly, nothing from their 2004
Bright Like Neon Love gets a look-in; instead, they air four new cuts, including
recent single ‘Where I’m Going’. We’re all already sold on that track; apparent
next single ‘Blink And You’ll Miss A Revolution’, not so much.
Cut Copy
It’s interesting to note just how much the band relying on backing tracks these days. Mitchell Scott drums throughout, but Whitford rarely touches his synth, instead opting to dance his awesomely proud, honest dance. There’s a few sections where neither Whitford, nor his bandmates (guitarist Tim Hoey and bassist Ben Browning) are playing their instruments at all. It doesn’t detract from their performance at all, but it’s enough to question just how far the band intend to take this approach. They close with ‘Out There On The Ice’, and since they were running late, Cut Copy close the festival, too. Good choice.
Missy Elliott crowd
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Andrew McMillen
(Pics: Justin Edwards)
Parklife Brisbane photo gallery and coverage of Sydney and Melbourne Parklife festivals to come.