If you’ve been wondering where your hard earned tax dollars have been going, then you clearly haven’t been enjoying the fruits of nights like the Beck’s Festival Bar, part of the larger beast that is the Sydney Festival – and what a celebration it is. A raft of excellent events have been hosted at the Hyde Park Barracks over the past month, and Friday night saw Sydney Festival coming together with community station FBI Radio for a night that delivered a variety of weird and eclectic treats.

Upon entering on Friday night we were shocked to witness a Sydney hip hop outfit that wasn’t fucking around. On stage and in full get-up gear, this group known as Curse ov Dialect even had their own gimp (I have decided that I will only give such bands props in the future if there is some sort of gimp involved, or at least a sexual deviant of some kind: long live the gimp baby). Not that the performance was overshadowed by the theatrics happening on the stage; these boys had the lyrics to match what was an excellent performance, and showed they hadn’t forgotten their rock n’ roll roots. Good stuff.
Next up we were treated to a once-in-a-lifetime, out-of-this world, please-give me-some-more group of misfits that simply had the crowd jumping. Hailing from Japan, the Incredible Beatbox Band aka IBB, served up a half an hour set of sheer madness. They played at the Big Day Out and their album is about to hit the record shelves in Australia. When interviewing them I found them to be very down to earth, ‘for the people’ sort of chaps. They commented on the fact that the hip hop movement has now become a global affair, a passion that you can find examples of from Paris to Rio and of course Japan. They reckon hip hop is finding new popularity in the country, with the likes of DJ Krush paving the way, while still keeping its underground roots. Their heroes were in fact people like the infamous Rahzel from The Roots, and you could see that they had drawn influences from a diverse a range of influences: old school like Rectangle and LL Cool J to new rock outfits like The White Stripes (a bassline from one of the band’s more popular songs whipped the crowd into a frenzy). Without a doubt, IBB are ‘ichiban’, which means Japanese for number one, and I’d highly recommend you pick up a copy of their new album.

Other acts on the night included BLOX, featuring Quan Yeomans of Regurgitator fame together with SPOD, who rocked the spot with a highly theatrical duo performance. The Telemetry Orchestra gave it up, quite literally, with a show that fused analogue, digital and live sounds in a roots-infused blend of electro-folk. Along with the eclectic electro sounds of Bleepin’ J. Squawkins, all the live acts played well and satisfied Sydney’s taste for diversity very well.

DJs Lorna, Mark Pritchard and Annabelle Gaspar kept the night flowing, and a lot of good things can be said about FBI Radio who organised the night, showing why the station has quickly become an institution in its very short lifespan. And of course, props to The Sydney Festival for keeping it real, and making sure we see only the best over the summer.