Read part one of our Splendour in the Grass 2008 review here.Waking up surprisingly clear of mind, brain and breath, we set about recreating the previous mornings events exactly. Looking at the old psychedelic tour posters in the house we’re staying in. Wandering down to the café for sustenance, marvelling at the velvet and bead wearing 4WD idling oxymorons, and again, the infinite wait on the phone for a cab. We arrive at the grounds after midday. After seeing a backpack toting guy get slammed onto the ground and handcuffed by about 6 cops at the entrance, we're ready.
No doubt due to the excesses of the day and night before, things are decidedly more relaxed this afternoon. Punters are either taking in some alone time, in groups eating food, or gathering a few thousand friends to go and watch
British India. Who’ve certainly come a long way in the last year or so in the popularity stakes. From selling out local venues to comfortably taking charge of the Supertop, the band are tight, have all the requisite moves and remember to thank Triple J who’re broadcasting the stage. There's a whiff of them being the generic, interchangeable pub rock band for the year, but in the early afternoon they seem more than appropriate.
When it boils down to it, and despite their Paul Simon aping touchstones, it’s pretty fucking weird how popular
Vampire Weekend are this weekend. Not because of the U.S blog push that Australia follows or their "hot new band" tag that means they’re most people’s curiosity "must see" for the weekend, but because they’re so deceptively…sunny. And bare bones simple. Their instruments pinch and parry with each other, always low-key, intertwining and matching up only for chorus’. Which usually aren’t more than a few yelps. The real star of the show is their drummer who provides the rollicking backbone for every other member to simply throw colour on every now and then. It goes down a treat in the main tent, this fun, ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ vibe. I find myself sandwiched between the two main schools of thought. At the start of 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa' the giant man in fluro sunnies behind me mutters “Fuckin’ great song this one, fuckin’ great”. When cherubic singer Ezra Koenig’s face appears in close up on the giant screen next to the stage, the girl to my right screams “Oh my god he is
SO hot!”
One of the cool things about the arrangement of the stages at Splendour – the Dance one, the Big one, the Arty/Acoustic one - is it’s easy to disengage from any given vibe and take in another with just a short walk. It seems like a gathering of different festivals tethered together rather than a giant, wearing behemoth. To this, we send ourselves for respite at the smaller tent to see UK new girl
Laura Marling. She’s a whip of a thing, her small, folded frame seemingly supported by not much more than her acoustic guitar. It's hard to hear what she's singing. From all reports she’s shy but from the back of the tent it reads as not being especially enthused to be there. Hordes of particularly young versions of her are though, and a few girls sit cross-legged outside the area and under the canopy of the hemp bag store; eyes closed, head swaying…snoozing.
It drives us back to the main stage and we see Liverpool's
The Wombats making everyone go four kinds of batshit crazy. It’s kinda hard to hear what they’re actually playing such is the noise coming from off stage and the crowd - hell you can’t even see them through the raised fists pointed in their direction. They’ll get no awards for earth-moving originality but with such conviction, adrenalin and turbo-charged volume, I'm not sure anyone's stopping to give a shit.
Something For Kate frontman
Paul Dempsey must’ve started early on the GW McLennan stage as a result of the cancellation of Albert Hammond JR. There’s only a small crowd for his first couple of songs but it swells to near capacity throughout his intimate set. On the cusp of releasing his first solo record (not counting the Scared of Horses LP way back when) it’s curious to hear the difference between the SFK catalogue and those slated for his new project. And they are different. With over half the set consisting of new “solo” songs, it appears Dempsey is stripping back some of the complexities of SFK to reveal a more organic folk-pop base; not to mention a change in vocals, regularly breaking into a full falsetto. Which serves his sweeter, more direct wordplay well. Set closer ‘Pinstripe’ has the requisite brother's in arms punching each other on the arm, gaily.
I have a slight revelation regarding
The Grates over the weekend. Playing to a mostly filled Great Northern pub on Friday night, the band seemed a simple thing; loud, loose, one-dimensional. The catch is that that one dimension is Patience Hodgson; their scene-chewing, spellbinding frontwoman. (Even better is that live, her rolling American-accented ‘rrr’s’ - so odd on record - are but non-existent.) My revelation though, is seeing them perform the next day to a massive crowd that emotionally and mentally relinquish complete control to Patience. And that Hodgson, now amplified on the Supertop stage – and helped by a sheer head-to-toe Batgirl costume - is completely in command of not just the band, but everyone there. I can’t think of many other frontpeople who can do such a thing. The music behind her is patchwork-pop and Hodgson’s dedication to making it meaningful, fun and somehow vital for everyone in attendance, delivers. Big time. The confetti cannons don't hurt either.
It's 6.30pm and we wander away from the stages in search of nutrition. Or thereabouts. For every hot-dog van there’s a vegie burger stall; for every fried meat stick an organic donut – no taste is left unturned. There’s a bevy of friends in attendance and as we ping-pong between them, the bar, and the eftpos machine lady (who like every person of authority we encountered over the weekend is suspiciously nice and efficient) the sun goes down and that cold sets in again. We miss
Lyrics Born because of the time, and the upcoming power-combo of headliners Sigur Ros, The Presets and Wolfmother – aided by the clear memory of their Golden Plains performance – means we sit
The Vines out.
Eerie, melancholic intro music loops for the full 35 minutes between The Vines and
Sigur Ros. Above their instruments hang giant, inflatable glowing orbs. The combo of the two sets the scene beautifully, not least to provide a wonderful buffer zone between the uniqueness of the Icelandic quartet and the grunge that surrounds them. By the time they hit the stage in their exaggerated Military uniforms complete with neck feathers there’s not much they need do now to transport us. Jonsi’s voice is shockingly great sounding, filling the tent and somehow floating always just out front of the massive wall of sound the band makes. Balancing out the cavernous washes of reverb and distortion are the acoustic clicks and clacks borne from their latest album. It also heralds more of a back up vocal role from keyboard player Kjarri Sveinsson. He lends a weight to Jonsi’s soaring pipes and the effect works to provide a warm focal point in amongst the supernatural noise going on about them. They're awesome.
Unfortunately amongst all this is also the blinking lights on the Mix Up stage heralding the start of
The Presets. Guessing we better head over we eke reluctantly out of the Supertop…and into a stream of people doing exactly the same thing. As we get closer, the stream turns to a crush and it becomes apparent that a severe scheduling error is in effect, as nearly the entire festival heads for the smaller tent. We manage to get through the gates between the two fields with only one crowd fall and then make our way slowly to what looks like our best bet of seeing the band, on the far side of the festival. The closest we get is about 10 metres back from the tent’s rear wall. To our right is a steaming mass of people losing their shit to a distant Kim and Julian on stage, and to our left is a sea of people stretching right back to the festival entrance. People are standing on portaloos, shoulders, sculptures, anywhere trying to get a glimpse. Word comes through that they’ve stopped letting people into the field altogether. The zeitgeist is officially shoehorned in.
What we can hear of The Presets sounds great, their big ol' catchy songs that everyone here just
loves. But when you’re dealing with electronic music that’s mostly pre-recorded it’s only really a question of whether it’s loud enough and it's not. Sure, we are actually
outside the back of the tent...but its the closest we can get. Alas. One takes to wondering, with
Apocalypso still in the ARIA Top 10 sixteen weeks after it’s release, that surely it’s only a matter of time before kids ditch their 2005 bought Stratocasters for a newfound love of Ableton Live and fluro suit jackets.
By the time we get out of the area and back to somewhere civil,
Wolfmother are playing to a crowd that doesn’t quite fill the Supertop. From the rumours about tensions in the band being high before going on stage (confirmed now with the resignation of Chris Ross and Myles Heskett from the band) it sounds like behind the scenes that Wolfmother wished they were taking in The Presets as well. Still, they sound as solid as ever. If there’s one thing to be said about the band live, regardless of anything else, is that they're pretty much invulnerable.
That's it it's over. From here on in it’s meditation, yoga and lemongrass shots. We find ourselves at 6am in the morning, Tim having weathered a slap on the arse from a singer from Iceland, myself see-sawing between sleep and sump oil and both of us comfortably nestled in Splendour's wonderous bosom. I'm officially a convert. Hopefully she has us back next year.