Parklife
Moore Park, Sydney
Sunday October 2nd 2011
Jonno Seidler and Marcus
Jonno: There are substantially less Southern Cross tattoos at Parklife this year than previous ones. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is. It doesn’t mean that the perennial Fuzzy punters are wearing sensible clothing for once – indeed we’ve never seen so many naked torsos in what must be the ugliest, wettest and chilliest October day Sydney has experienced in recent memory – but perhaps they’re growing up. The line-up for today’s unseasonal spectacular, which is of a certain indie-electro ‘vintage’, seems to unconsciously reflect this. There’s less throwaways and more mainstays; Simian Mobile Disco, Sebastien Tellier, MSTRKRFT and Diplo have been doing this for years. "Send your gurners to Stereosonic," it shouts against the howling gales, "Leave us the purists." Of course, underneath blankets of dubstep, nobody hears a thing.
There are lots of people who deliberately choose to hit a festival at least two hours after it opens. Those people are idiots, because they miss some of the best acts of the day while waiting in queues. Acts like Kimbra, who is settling comfortably into her role as Australia’s most beloved female star since Washington bailed to The States. Playing the same stage and slot that Washo did last year, Kimbra works her crowd like only a former child performer knows how. And they respond in kind, hollering the words to ‘Cameo Lover’ and ‘Two Way Street’ with joy in their hearts and borrowed cigarettes in their mouths. Her cover of Prince’s ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’ is stellar and everyone forgets that they didn’t bring a raincoat.
After dancing like maniacs to the mixtape marauding of Geelong’s Girl Talk, Yacht Club DJs, we head to the other end of the field to catch the most hotly tipped act of the festival, SebastiAn, who frankly blows everybody else away. Elevated six feet above the crowd on a solid black podium, the last horse out of the Ed Banger stable doesn’t try to catch up to his team (Justice, Busy P and other Parklife veterans) but rather veers a sharp left and gallops off the track altogether. SebastiAn’s shtick is dystopia and totalitarianism, both in sound and visuals, and he gets it so right that it’s impossible not to feel like we’re at a recreated Third Reich rally. With perfectly synced images of war and corruption spliced up with some of the most brutally satisfying French house we’ve ever heard, SebastiAn doesn’t drop out of character for one minute, pausing only to lift his hands up dictator style or to light another Parliament and flick his match casually into the crowd. When the banners unfurl during a particularly heavy section and he raises his fists, we know we’re watching something rare and amazing. The screen flashes behind him in red lettering ‘DO NOT THINK. LISTEN. BELIEVE. I LOVE YOU.’ You don’t have to tell us twice.
Crystal Fighters are having the time of their lives in their little hippie paradise of the Atoll stage, and the crowd love them for it. A rhythmic, writhing pop act who incorporate some intelligent dance elements into their sound, this is what MGMT could sound like if they weren’t so obsessed with themselves. They’re one of the only acts to snag an encore and definitely one to watch in the coming months. You don’t have to watch out for Sebastien Tellier, though, he’s already here. Taking to the stage in characteristically ridiculous garb and gyrating like a man a third of his age, Tellier captures his audience with the slow-burning cuts from Sexuality and crystal clear synths. He’s backed up by Midnight Juggernauts drummer Daniel Stricker, called in to provide some muscle at the last minute, which he certainly know how to do. It gets a bit same-y after a while, but it’s nothing if not entertaining.
Marcus: Despite flecks of rain and looming grey clouds, it never does quite piss down the way it threatens to. Which seems to embolden the fluro dance drones making their way to their similarly attired queen bee on the Sahara stage. Santigold has but one album to her name, but the three years since it's release don't seem to have blunted her buzz none. She arrives on stage flanked by two dancers, her three-piece backing band dressed in Egyptian garb, and kicks off into this year's single 'Go!'. The crowd ruffles and then blooms for second track 'L.E.S Artistes', which doesn't quite stomp the way it does on record, but Santi's strong (and yeah sometimes, mysteriously doubled) voice is all the engagement necessary. But for a brief mic problem, she grins wildly through most of her debut, as well as a version of her Jay-Z collab 'Brooklyn Go Hard', which seems a little out of place here among the coastal clouds, swishing palm trees and Sydney folk. As in Melbourne (and probably elsewhere), Santi brings up a posse from the crowd to dance, hug and twirl about her during 'Creator'; an act which seems wonderfully selfless for a pop star of Santi's stature. But also — as it turns out — not without it's dangers. (In an interview later backstage, Santi would tell me that a crowd members slapped one of her dancers on the arse, just barely missing a kick in response.) Still, it was a crowd-pleasing signature in a set that elicited the most squeals I heard all day.
Jonno: If entertainment had a name — and that name was shorthand for a dinosaur — it would have to be Diplo. A Fuzzy favourite – and it’s not hard to see why – Wes Pentz has been bringing the party like it’s nobody’s business for years in Sydney, both in his own capacity and with Major Lazer. Tonight he’s in solo mode and he takes the opportunity to play to his strengths; dubstep, tropical, house and hip-hop all blended together with a cheeky grin and lots of banter. When he asks girls to get up on stage it’s the quickest response we’ve ever seen. He manages to sneak in a remix of Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, an AC/DC lick or two and some stellar Major Lazer reworks, which only bolsters the argument that he’s a DJ who knows his audience. It’s a shame the set isn’t more diverse – Diplo’s Mad Decent podcasts have shown him exploring more interesting world music but most of tonight’s set is four-to-the-floor bangers.
Marcus: By now it's dark and the strobing lights are starting to make things look like a proper dance festival. It also means the wind chill factor is high, and there's more than a few lost things clutching their bare flesh. There's also — as this Melbourne-ite stares in wonderment at it's graceful feature — pods of people gathered on chairs around the small lake in the the middle of the festival grounds. It's not of much use now, but it's usefulness as a destination of respite is something that I don't think is matched on any other tour stop. I can only imagine the glory of being able to relax by the water in the hotter months, or — surely — security scurrying around trying to stop people jumping in at festivals end. But with this weather, no need.
As a force of nature, Beth Ditto is up there with the most persistent of low pressure systems, so it seems of little concern to anyone that it drizzles during the first part of their set. No one's going anywhere. There's something a little more "eventful" about Gossip tonight than I witnessed in Melbourne; maybe just the days off in between. But as Ditto slides herself around the stage's PA stacks, mugging for the cameras and generally soaking up the attention, even her bandmates appear unable to tear their gaze away from her. They played all the hits. They had a bass player. They played some songs that weren't hits. It doesn't matter. They have Beth Ditto. "We are the Gossip," she says at sets end. "And remember, if you love or hate us, we get paid the same. We love you Sydney, thank you."
Jonno: We catch the end of Nero’s ear-crushing set, which sees him playing the world’s longest rendition of his crossover hit, ‘Promises’. The kids are going mad for it but he seems pretty non-plussed, which is generally how we’re starting to feel about dubstep anyway. He clears the stage for the majesty of Simian Mobile Disco, possibly the most musically sensitive and intelligent DJs on the planet. Against the spectacular backdrop of their hive-shaped light installation and standing at a round table so as to maximise communication, James Ford and co. craft a set that doesn’t just create songs, but sensations. The beats are drawn out and stretched and contracted and reworked into something new and by the time we recognise a hit we don’t even remember how they got there. It’s true genius at work and a marvel to behold after all the ‘bwoar bwoar bwoarrrr’. All those half-time bass-junkies should take some serious notes; this is how it’s done.
Aside from the weather, this is one of the strongest Parklife lineups and execution that we’ve seen in the last five years. If they lose the fad groups, they could be (are?) on the way to the top tier of Australian music festivals -- full stop. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to retrieve our hearing.
Jonno Seidler and Marcus
(Pics: Deckland Hobogestapo)