Faced with a dead spot in the timetable we eventually decide to have a look at what Kram from Spiderbait has been up to during the band’s hiatus. Mistake. From where we were it looked as though he has gone all Neil Young on us. Standing alone on the main stage with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, Kram was playing a fairly woeful take on folk crossed with country to a rather disinterested crowd when we arrived. The final straw came when he launched into an acoustic cover of The Ramone’s “Blitzkrieg Bop” in the same unlistenable style. I felt like someone had raped my ears, so immediately head over to the GW stage to see what Jack Ladder is all about. As we walk away it sounds like a full band is joining him but there’s no way I’m going back after the earlier atrocities.

Looking a tad uncomfortable guest fronting You Am I the previous day, Jack Ladder is far more in his element on the more modest McLennan stage. Possessing quite a remarkable and unique baritone Jack (real name Tim Rogers) serenades the crowd with his tales of heartbreak and loss. Ladder has a disaffected rock swagger and style that comes from a long gone era of music which draws heavily from folk, ‘80s indie and classic rock and blues, often all at the same time. Thank god for Spunk Records for continuing to bring us some of the most interesting names in Australian indie rock. Expect to hear a lot more in the future about Mr Ladder. (SD)

Constantly drawing comparisons in their native London to either Editors or Interpol, depending on which side of the fence you sit, must be hard for White Lies. To be fair we can see why after this set. It’s nothing mind blowing but the huge early Sunday crowd don’t seem to care. “Death” though shakes the last remnants of last night’s hangover from us and for that we’ll be grateful for the rest of today. (GT)

Jebadiah never really did it for me back in the day. The combination of their teenybopper fans and how irritating I found their single “Leaving Home” caused me to never give them much of a chance. Vocalist Kevin Mitchell, almost as if for my benefit alone, fooled me into listening to him by performing under the pseudonym Bob Evans. No one was more pleasantly surprised than I that he has dropped the nasally whine and started churning out Beatlesque pop gems. Live, Bob and his backing band have a much fuller and warmer sound than I was expecting. While the crowd assembled is by no means the size that his former band commanded in their heyday, he has a great pop sensibility, a fine singing voice and I wager a much better shot at not having to get a day job in the near future. Jebadiah are apparently returning with a new album soon, one can only hope that these new sensibilities and maturity carry over to them. (SD)

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Doves live round these parts and they don’t fail to disappoint. As festival veterans they know how to pitch their set perfectly, mixing just the right amount of new songs in amongst the old favourites. Opener “Jetstream” kicks them off and for the next hour they are absolutely faultless. There’s not much chatter from the boys but they soon let us know that they’ve just flown in from Japan so we’ll forgive them. The double salvo of “Black and White Town” and “Cedar Room” have us thinking this could be band of the weekend and when they round things off with “There Goes The Fear” there’s more than a few Cheshire-like grins near us — and why not? — the boys have played a blinder.

Quickly hot footing it across the site to catch some of The Gutter Twins we’re left a little under-awed by the size of the crowd. Maybe it’s the vast numbers waiting around elsewhere for the impending Grinspoon set but secretly we’re not going to complain at seeing musical luminaries like Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan at such close quarters. Lanegan’s voice sounds as whisky soaked as ever resembling a drone bass that perfectly underpins Dulli’s soulful tones. They don’t disappoint from the songs that we see and when they pull out Afghan Whigs’ “Summers Kiss” the sparse crowd is in raptures. (GT)

So, on the main stage tonight we have the privilege to be entertained by The Doves, MGMT, The Flaming Lips and Grinspoon. Did something sound wrong with that sentence? Let’s check that again. We have three bands who give a critically acclaimed widescreen take on modern rock and then we have Grinspoon. When was the last time a friend, whom you respected the musical taste of, turned to you and said that they don’t mind the latest Grinners album? Probably never I’m guessing. It is a little more than embarrassing, hell, let’s go one step further and call it a travesty that this is the best Australia can dish up to mix it up on the main stage with our international visitors. Same could be said for The Living End (we all know ARIA’s are worthless guys) and Birds of Tokyo.

Grinspoon, at best, are a limp, sub standard neanderthal take on nu-metal. In any other country in the world they wouldn’t even be allowed to roadie for any of the international acts playing. I know I am breaking the first rule golden of Oz music writing in outright lambasting a local band instead of writing an indifferent or moderate review, but someone has to make a stand about this. I realise that we should give our local talent a leg up and occasionally look the other way to get them to a level where they can compete with the big boys, but this is affirmative action gone mad. (SD)

Possibly the most hyped band of the weekend, MGMT really were never going to live up to their billing. It’s a shame for the band that they have to play to a crowd expecting a full on party live show, and what they get is a duck’s ass tight band simply playing great tunes. “Time to Pretend” almost tears the roof off the tent but until they reel out the rest of their singles everyone again falls kind of flat. From where we’re standing though it sounds pretty damn good and if only the expectations were a little less, then the crowd would be a little less disappointed. Not in recent memory (and we checked with a few folks on the way home) has a band been such a crossover hit and not ended up sounding blander than three day old rice. “Electric Eel” and “Kids” sound as great as you would expect but ironically it’s actually the album tracks that standout for us tonight. On record “Weekend Wars” and “The Youth” may not be distinct but here they are as strong live as anything we’ve heard flogged to death over the last year. Personally we’re hoping that this is the step to something much bigger for these guys but we can only think that with their next release they won’t be playing to anywhere near this size of an audience. (GT)

The Flaming Lips are pretty much the perfect festival band. They are a spectacle to behold and have the songs to match. Talking to random strangers this weekend it seems they are the must see band on every other person’s list. I’m not sure how many dead beats were watching the Hilltop Hoods play but it seemed like everyone was trying to squeeze into the tent as the Lips were gearing up to come on stage. If I was an 18 year old with little idea of who they were, I am pretty sure I would have found my next favourite band after this show. After a lead in tape of a psychedelic soundscape from their Christmas on Mars soundtrack the band emerge from the centre of a large screen on stage from a naked green female being’s vagina (yes you read that correctly), followed by Wayne Coyne crowd surfing over the crowd in an orb. Okay it was a transparent inflatable beach ball, but still.

Opening with perennial favourite “Race for the Prize” the sky fills with confetti and large coloured balloons which are thrust continually back into the air by the celebratory crowd. Any spare stage space is now occupied with dancers (in a very loose sense of the term) dressed as frogs and kittens. After a few minutes of vocal microphone hiccups the band are in full flight. Following up with new song “Silver Trembling Hands”, which is a total psychedelic freak out that bodes well for their soon to be released double album Embryonic.

Continuing with a handful of songs from At War With the Mystics including “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and “The W.A.N.D.”, they also play a stripped back “Fight Test” and dust off “Mountain Side” from 1990’s Priest Driven Ambulance. Closing with “Do You Realise?” mountains of confetti again fills the air and the whole place seems to turn into a hippy lovein.

The only gripe we have is the length. Limited to an hour, once you take away intro tape, inflatable ball, bugle solo and all the other trimmings that the set came with, you are left with only forty minutes or so of Lips’ music. Splendour organisers could probably take a leaf out of the Big Day Out’s timetable and allow headliners to perform ninety minute sets to accommodate this.

Or better yet allow Brisbane to have some sideshows. I read the explanation in the interview on this site but for the life of me between the size of the crowd watching them, the amount of people who travelled to Sydney and Melbourne to see them and those I know who wished that they could have seen them, I can’t fathom how a Flaming Lips show at the River Stage/Tivoli/wherever could have possibly lost money. When your run of tickets sells out in less than two hours every year before the full line up is announced it is pretty much impossible to cannibalise your ticket sales. This notion of festival exclusivity in Brisbane has to stop. Sydney and Melbourne resident’s have always had the option of seeing their favourite bands in a more intimate setting.

What hurts the most here is that the festival (at least initially) was started on the huge profits that came with Brisbane band Powderfinger’s success and is organised by locals, yet we are treated with the same contempt that we are shown by southern promoters every year. I urge you to stop passing us over on sideshows every year. You have a great festival going on here, in a lovely location, with a much friendlier crowd that is ten times more enjoyable to be at than the Big Day Out, it just needs a little tweaking to keep some of the Brisbane fans happy.(SD)

Splendour in the Grass (Day One) – Saturday 25 July 2009

Text: Garry Thomson (GT) and Scott Daniels (SD)
Photos: Marc Grimwade (Splendour in the Grass)

Seventy-seven minutes. Shorter than your average movie and about the length of a typical rock concert. That was all the time it took to sell out seventeen and a half thousand tickets to this year’s Splendour in the Grass festival. Now in its ninth year, Splendour held at Belongil Fields in New South Wales’ ever popular Byron Bay, is for many the poster child for a dream festival. While acquiring its fair share of detractors it is an event with few equals in this country, a cross between the lifestyle and community aspects of Woodford folk festival, more traditional Aus rock showcases like The Big Day Out and V and England’s legendary Glastonbury festival. Every year sees thousands of new and returning fans, many of whom travel across Australia, eager to tap into the magic of Splendour.

We chat to Splendour promoter Jess Ducrou about the tremendous success of the festival, the process for picking the line-up and this year’s bands, future expansion of the site and the improvements in ticketing technology.

Congratulations on Splendour selling out in record time. Does it still surprise you that Splendour sells out so easily?

I guess not so much surprise, given it’s in its ninth year, and it has sold out since the first event but the amount of people that want to buy tickets seems to grow every year and I think that’s surprising.

Do you know how many people applied for tickets this year?

Well our database has almost 50,000 entries and we have 17,500 tickets. We actually don’t promote or market the event that much. Our advertising is quite minimal. To have that amount of people interested no matter how feverishly we market it or don’t market it is pretty amazing.

It sounds like a promoter’s dream really.

Yes it is. It’s an awesome problem to have.

Splendour seems to go beyond just being a music festival; it’s seen as an institution that many people go to regardless of who’s on the bill.

It’s had a real life of its own from the beginning. We had people come to us with ideas for things that they thought would be good to do at Splendour and we embraced those ideas. People that went had an amazing amount of ownership of the event and wanted to contribute. I think it’s something that you can only hope for, I don’t think you can create it, it just happens.

Over the years we’ve recognised that and embraced people’s ideas and tried to develop them. As the producer I’ve been mindful that I want the experience to be more than the music. Sure I want the music to be interesting, challenging and incredible — but I also want people to go to the event and not just go and see the bands. Go and spend the weekend in the tepee forest, or get involved in some of the performance workshops, or hang out in the Guzman Y Gomez bar which was a new destination for us last year. We try to make that as important as the music.

When you were first establishing Splendour were there other festivals you went to and researched?

Absolutely. With Splendour I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted it to be, so I was developing ideas and avenues and then coincidently travelled to the UK and visited Glastonbury and it was like Splendour twenty years down the track. That was really interesting; I didn’t even know I was heading down this path until I saw that event. I was aware of Glastonbury, but until you go you don’t get a real idea of what it’s like. It’s definitely rougher than Splendour but it’s got a charm and an organic nature which appealed to me.

What’s the process in creating a typical Splendour bill?

My Splendour business partner; Paul (Piticco, and Dew Process founder) and I have a wish list of stuff that we want to see and every year we manage to tick off a band or two which has been on the list since the beginning. Then other promoters or agents come to us with ideas and we also travel overseas to London and California, but generally London is where you buy most of the talent for Australia. We go over there and meet with various agents and hear what they’ve got to suggest and also check out some of those bands while we’re there.

There are some bands on this year’s bill that have played Splendour previously e.g. Grinspoon, Bloc Party, Sarah Blasko, Decoder Ring. Are some bands an automatic decision to re-book?

Yes. Bands that we might like; bands that have played and received an awesome reaction and have defined their festival career by Splendour, which I think Bloc Party are definitely one of; and then just populist favourites that we know people will want to see. I mean Grinspoon are a bit of an Australian staple diet and they’ve proven themselves over time that they can put on a great show and that’s what we look for when we’re choosing acts.

People seem to rave about Decoder Ring’s Splendour shows.

We love those guys. It’s also a bit of an indulgence from our perspective.

Are there any acts you’re particulary looking forward to this year?

I’m a huge fan of The Flaming Lips and Bloc Party. We’ve toured Bloc Party outside of Splendour and I’ve been so chuffed watching their career develop here. MGMT I really like. I saw them at SXSW last year and they were amazing. Jane’s Addiction who I saw many years ago, they’re such an awesome live band. Friendly Fires I think will be great. The Middle East, an Australian band I think are incredible and have a bright future. There are a good dozen acts that I’d like to see and probably won’t get to.

A few of my friends are gutted that The Flaming Lips aren’t doing a Brisbane show. What is the reasoning behind Brisbane getting very few Splendour sideshows?

I guess primarily fifty percent of the people that go to Splendour are from Brisbane and its surrounds so to go and put a show in that market you kind of cannibalise your ticket sales. That said, when the festival has sold out and we’ve put shows on in Brisbane, and we’ve done over a dozen shows over the years, none of them work and we lose money. It’s the same reason why the Big Day Out, based on the Gold Coast, rarely put shows on in Brisbane — they don’t really work. You get crowds but just not enough, compared to Sydney or Melbourne, and you end up losing a bunch of money.

The demand to supply ratio for tickets is about 4:1 or greater and camping is even greater still (only 1,500 camping tickets are available). There’s also a strain on accommodation in Byron Bay and the surrounding area. Are there any plans to expand either at Byron or to extend to other states?

About three years ago we bought some land about twenty minutes north of the Byron Township preciously for the reason of growing the event, primarily on a creative front, because we’ve maxed out the physical space. We’d love to have more stages, love to have more bands and allow the festival to grow. So we’re going through a process of approval to get that site up and working. It’s still a work in progress. In regards to moving to other states, I would prefer to develop one show properly rather than diluting our focus and trying to do it in other cities or areas.

What would the capacity of the new festival site be?

I think we’d take every year as it comes. The land we’ve purchased is over 650 acres, it’s huge. We’re on 47 acres at present. We’re very mindful that people like the intimacy of Splendour, so as we develop it we’d want to keep that. Interestingly at Glastonbury, while it has 175,000 people (literally ten times Splendour) and when you’re at the main stage you can see thousands of people for miles, if you get away from the main stages and head off into certain areas it actually feels quite intimate. Not that we ever want to get to that amount of people, there’s not a market in Australia for that many, but if we were to grow it we would try to maintain its intimacy and sense of community.

You’ve had some well publicised ticketing problems in past but this year seemed to go fairly smoothly.

Yes it was an absolute victory this year. We’re all stoked. It’s been pretty traumatic for people buying tickets but also for those of us that work on it. We’ve wanted to a present a system where we’re protecting the ticket value for people through anti-scalping measures and there just hasn’t been anything in Australia that has existed. So it’s been really difficult. The demand for tickets is so high, which is why people want to scalp the tickets, and the pressure on existing technology was just too much. So big thumbs up to Qjump who managed to come up with something that worked this year.

You also implemented a pre-sales and re-sale system this year.

We tried to stagger the tickets so those in the Byron community, Splendour members/VIP club and those who had bought tickets last year were given the opportunity to buy tickets first. But we held some back, so there were still well over fifty percent available for the general public. No one in Australia had implemented a re-sale process before. A lot of time and effort went into it. I think it’s fair. Hopefully people can time it so they can put their ticket on sale and their friend can buy it at the same moment.

Last question. Due to the logistics of being a promoter how many bands do you actually get to see over the festival weekend?

It depends, some years I see more than others. Last year I didn’t see very much at all. I saw Sigur Ros who were amazing and snippets of a few other acts. The year before I think I saw between six and a dozen bands. It really depends what’s going on apart from the music. A relaxed show with everything running smoothly with good weather is very different than if there’s complications with bad weather or one of the act’s gear hasn’t made it and there’s delay in the playing times.

I was dying to see Band of Horses last year, they were the first act we booked and I didn’t get to see them. I was bummed and that happens quite a lot. Then there are other acts, like Ryan Adams, who I desperately wanted to play Splendour because I was such as huge fan. I was so excited and went along and it was an absolutely terrible show. So you get a bit of everything.

Photos by Marc Grimwade

Splendour in the Grass festival 2009 review

The lingering overcast weather that dogged Friday greeted us again upon re-entrance into Way Out West on Saturday, the third and final day of the festival. We quickly moved through the mildly muddy site, sidestepping Kelis (in fear of having “Milkshake” stuck in our head all day) in favour for some good old Sahara Hotnights. From The Runaways through to The Donnas, you can’t go wrong with girls in tight pants rocking out. It gives us jaded music fans something to unwind to and in a festival environment it’s one way of adding a little onstage sparkle, lifting the grey skies into spandex shades of pink and blue. Opening their set with cute ’80s classic “Japanese Boy”, they set about unleashing an hours worth of quickfire rock and roll tunes, stretching right through their ten year career (but sadly no “Drive Dead Slow”). Despite giving an entertaining and first class performance Sahara Hotnights are still lacking in the memorable rock anthem department that is necessary for the big stages. “Cheek to Cheek” from their most recent album What if Leaving is a Loving Thing displayed a sleeker, sexier side to these Swedish ladies that was unlikely to fall on deaf ears, or eyes…

Meanwhile, fellow countrymen Caesars balanced out the oestrogen overload with an all male line-up at the Linné stage. Ostensibly fronted by the laidback César Vidal it was guitarist/backing vocalist Joakim “Jocke” Ã…hlund who proved to be the real centre of attention as he enthusiastically ran around the stage, bopped up and down and swung his guitar in various directions endearing himself to the audience. The piano led title track from this year’s double disc Strawberry Weed (produced by The Soundtrack of Our Lives Ebbott Lundberg, also spied at in attendance) set the tone for the remainder of the show — uncomplicated power pop and catchy garage rock with simplistic themes and no frills vocals. Newer cuts such as “Boo Goo Goo” and “New Breed” were fun, but it was the Farsia organ enriched “Candy Kane” and ode to onanism; the iPod/video game licensed hit “Jerk it Out”, which packed a meatier punch. Leaving the best to last, the new wave smarts of “Punkrocker” from one of Webcuts’ all time favourite Swedish indie albums, Cherry Kicks, was an astute move but overall we were left a little underwhelmed, craving a set of greater substance, something which we hoped the next act to grace the tent’s stage would provide.

Like a (silver)bullit from a gun – Silverbullit at the Linné stage

Silverbullit were the dark horse of the festival; a local five piece with only three albums, a smattering of live shows and a modicum of press under their belt, but who have managed to generate an aura of mystique and reverence. The tension in the humid air was palpable as the band clambered onto the stage, most eyes focused on singer Simon Olsson whose past performances have become the stuff of legend. With the band providing a heavy wall of sound backing he did not disappoint, employing the classic Jekyll and Hyde tactic; still and intense one second, violent and manic the next. One “holy shit!” moment came when he ripped a synthersizer from its stand, threw it to the floor, and then body surfed the helpless instrument, before brutally rearranging the stage monitors. His colleagues didn’t batter an eyelid, and instead got down to the business of creating primal, fucked up rock ‘n’ roll. While on record Silverbullit concoct a guitar and electronic haze in concert it was initially more Stooges than Suicide, with the remaining synths (luckily they had three more) not getting used until after the half way mark. While this meant some of the subtly and melody of favourites such as “Magnetic City” and “Star” were lost, such was the brazen energy of the performance no one really cared. The band retired to a hero’s ovation, but luckily they were one of the few non-headline acts to be granted an encore, but first an armchair was wheeled out, and soon after a bald, sickly looking gentleman to sit in it. Silverbullit returned and provided backing for the man, who we later learn is Freddie Wadling something of a Gothenburg legend, to bark out the lead vocals. Somehow the bizarre pairing worked and instead of lessening the previous hour it only strengthened it so when Silverbullit finally retreated the audience were elated, realising they’d witnessed one of the best shows of the weekend, but also devastated, knowing it could be a long, long while before they witnessed the band again.

Fleet Foxes were a band we knew nothing about, bar a passing familiarity with the name and a report that they were better than Beach House when both bands played in London recently. “Heresy”, we said, but as it seems there may have been some credibility in this, as Fleet Foxes played one of the most memorable and captivating sets of the entire festival. Showcasing material largely from their astounding debut of this year, Fleet Foxes were both enthralling and uplifting, a mix of My Morning Jacket style Southern country and Crosby, Stills and Nash harmonies. It was a far more rustic and earthy sound than most Americana-style bands could ever hope to achieve. It was on a song a like “Oliver James” that we noticed the similarities between vocalist Robin Pecknold and that of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James. Their choral vocals rising together as they do on “White Winter Hymnal” felt like you were standing in the middle of a church while listening to the Beach Boys sing acapella as their voices all fall into one. It was an unforgettable moment, both in front and on-stage, as the rapturous applause seemed to take even the band by surprise.

We only caught a fleeting glimpse of Håkan Hellström and his band while carefully traversing the mud and strewn bodies on our quest to cross the festival’s arenas, but it we couldn’t help but admire his on-stage energy and showmanship. His everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mix of anthemic rock, pop and soul, mixed with piano based ballads was perfect festival fodder and naturally “Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg” (“Don’t feel bad for me, Gothenburg”) received a warm welcome by his fellow Gothenburgians.

Webcuts planned to sit down during The Flaming Lips, our legs and backs not being as young as they used to be, but then we spied? Wayne Coyne encased in a plastic bubble rolling over the heads of thousands of gig goers and had to get a closer look. As “Race for the Prize” filled the arena Way Out West was assailed by many spectacles — dozens of huge helium filled orange balloons, a stage full of teletubbies, Wayne shooting a ribbon gun into the crowd and a blinding rear projection screen to name a few. True we had been warned to expect something similar but to experience it in the flesh was another thing entirely. When Wayne strapped on a twin neck guitar for the ’70s hard rock vibe of “Free Radicals” and an oversized alien joined the dancing ‘tubbies things veered from the absurd to the ridiculous but by that point weird was a relative concept. After the initial visual and aural blast a couple of the slower tracks such “Vein of Stars” and “Yoshimi” were played and the crowd, like a child bored with a new toy, started to lose interest. A verse from “After the Goldrush” intended to pay homage to the headlining artist backfired and instead prompted people to start leaving en masse to the other stage, a shame as the majestic closer “Do You Realize??”, was probably the best of the set. Entertaining to a fault, The Flaming Lips had both the songs and the spectacle but need to learn how to pace both to keep the attention of an audience.
 

Old men fuckin’ up – Neil Young at the Flamingo Stage
 

While the Flaming Lips were trying very hard to win over the audience with confetti and teletubbies, numbers were slowly drifting away from their side of the park to where Neil Young’s stage was being set up, hard as it is to compete with a living legend. From all reports, Saturday was sold out long before Friday, indicating that most people were here with the sole intention of seeing Neil. Mixing up a set of his classic hits and fan favourites with two brand new numbers, Neil and his ‘Electric Band’ set out on a comprehensive two hour journey through the past. With wife Peggy in tow on backing vocals, Neil opened with a stirring “Love and Only Love”, he quickly played the distorted notes of “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” and set his intentions for what was to come immediately. “Cinnamon Girl” and “Cortez the Killer” were delivered with characteristic aplomb, Neil surveying the amassed crowd with a genial “Nice to be back in Sweden”. He also chose this occasion to debut new song “Sea Change”, a mid-paced rocker built around Neil’s squealing guitar riff and environmentally charged lyrics — “Come on, who’s gonna turn this thing around/It’s not too late to make a difference right here on the ground/I think you’re ready now to ride a sea change”. Encoring with the Beatles “A Day In The Life” seemed an unlikely, but appropriate finale, Neil’s voice echoing “I’d like to turn you on” across the park as his band bring forth Way Out West 2008 to a tumultuous and successful close.

Way Out West 2008 Part 1 (Thursday-Friday)

Craig Smith and Caleb Rudd