NeverEverLand feat. Daft Punk @ Sydney Showgrounds, Sydney (22/12/07)
So it’s over. After an almost inconceivable amount of rumour, hearsay, speculation, gossip and hype, the mystical pyramid controlled by our favourite French robots has packed up its light show and may never be seen in Sydney again. Almost 35,000 people braved the inconsistent weather to experience one of the most unique musical acts of our time. The endless hype that has been circulating for almost 2 years surrounding the potential tour of Daft Punk did have me slightly worried. The big concern before the show was; would Daft Punk turn out to be like Y2K, Weapons of Mass Destruction, sourdough bread, the cross-city tunnel and Tiesto… all hype and no substance?
Daft Punk have somehow managed to carve out a completely unique niche in the world of music. By giving fans a taste of what they can do, and then almost going into hibernation, music lovers the world over are always left wanting more. At a Christmas lunch earlier in the day before the concert someone old asked me who were these Daft Punk people. With great enthusiasm I explained that they are these cool French robots who play music from a giant neon pyramid. When you say it out loud, it does sound a bit ridiculous. It is testament to the mystique that Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo have created, that two guys in robot suits have almost boundless credibility.
So I need to get some obvious gripes out of the way. As much as I would like to be able to give you a thorough review of the event, I missed the first part of it standing in queues. On arrival at about 4pm the sounds of Van She were floating over the crowds as we went on a fruitless search to find a bar without a huge snaking line. This never materialised, so we stood in the rain for about 40 minutes to get two warm beers. Ho hum, I tried to stay positive. This pattern repeated itself for most of the day, as most of the bars seemed woefully ill-equiped to handle the partying massif. In the end, getting a drink simply became too hard.
After much faffing about it was time for the music. My day started with Muscles, and what an odd performer he is. At the beginning of his set Muscles was draped in a plastic poncho and it almost looked as if a random punter had made his way onstage and hijacked a keyboard and microphone. He kicked things off with current smash Sweaty, and the crowd immediately started to sing along. However, after a while all of Muscles’ songs started to sound a little like drunken singing along to a karaoke machine. He seems to have been deprived of treats as a child, as most of his tracks seemed to be about wanting some ice cream or lemonade. While it is unlikely that Muscles will ever win any awards for his vocal abilities, he has bashed together some pretty fun party music and plenty of people were feeling his vibe.
The intermittent rain killed the flow of the day early on, and Cut Copy probably bore the brunt of this with the crowd not really getting into their performance. They busted out some of their bigger numbers, like Future and Saturdays, although at one stage their front man yelled, “isn’t this a dance party? Then let’s dance!” By the time they rounded out their set with Hearts on Fire, the masses had responded. There was plenty happening away from the main arena with a cool little amphitheatre behind the stadium going off to some tougher electro house sounds. There was some decent DJs spinning tunes in there, but I could not find set times anywhere so I’ve gotta say I have no idea who they were!
Probably the best support set of the day belonged to The Presets. Dropping bombs from their uber popular album Beams, like Are You The One? and Down Down Down, they got the crowd jumping. The beautiful sounds of Girl From the Sea also proved a suitable soundtrack to the setting sun. Julian Hamilton has great energy and charisma as a frontman and was clearly excited by the size of the crowd. Sebastian & Kavinsky had the job of doing the final warm-up for Daft Punk, and while they played some fun tracks like Killing in the Name Of, it was all a bit predictable as everyone was clearly itching for the entry of our galactic friends.
Before I get to the main event, a few qualifications. I won’t be able to tell you if Daft Punk’s set was similar to the one the played here or there, or if it was the same as this CD or that. I diligently avoided watching/listening to any of their live-sets, youtube clips or live CDs so that my Daft experience would be pure. In many respects, everything else at NeverEverLand was simply window dressing to the main event. On cue at 9.15pm, the interstellar melodic call from Close Encounters of the Third Kind rang out across the stadium and everyone knew the real show was about to begin. The pyramid began to light up with the chant of “robot” ringing out across the stadium before the immense riff from Robot Rock heralded the beginning of the madness.
The fantastic thing about their set was how they managed to recreate almost all of their back catalogue into something fresh and exciting. Around the World was mashed into the crazy lyrics of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger; the soaring guitar solo from Aerodynamic planted in the middle of party anthem, One More Time. They seamlessly flowed from one track to the next, often teasing the massive audience with stabs and excerpts from other tunes. There was moments of unadulterated thumping insanity that were effortlessly broken up with the more melodic sounds with that undeniable Daft touch. Nothing appeared in its original form as they twisted, cut-up, looped, chopped, filtered and recreated everything from Revolution 909 to Human After All. However, the Daft Punk experience is about so much more than just the music.
There is simply now way to adequately describe in words the pure awesomeness of the mystical musical pyramid. The visual effects only became exponentially cooler as the music progressed, with explosions of light and colour filling the stadium. There was an unmistakable sense of awe as new colours and images swirled through the pyramid and onto the giant curtains of light that framed the two most familiar helmets in music; it was like the first time you look into a kaleidoscope as a child. As if to underscore the magical powers of the Robots, an almost full moon appeared during their set floating directly above the apex of their pyramid, like some lunar homage.
Like most live acts playing, an encore is given. Our robot friends really made the crowd work for the encore with a good few minutes of darkness on stage before the pyramid burst back to life. A funk fueled final stanza of Daft classics, including the sounds of Stardust, wrung every last drop of energy from the heaving crowd. And the encore was not just musical, as the robots themselves became illuminated in a red outline to create a quite surreal image, almost like two characters from Tron… Monkeys. One of the few things in the world that live up to their hype. Monkeys are really cool. Well, you can now add Daft Punk to that illustrious list of “things that justify their hype”.
Despite the sometimes shambolic queues and organisational errors, nothing can really take away from what was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s official – Daft Punk deliver.
The3rdPlumpDj says...
The only real let down from that show was the after thought that we may never see it again...
Middy1986 says...
best event of my life BUt crowd management was sh@# and ppl munted of there face who wont even remember anything of the day
Fiveby5 says...
It was sensational, best gig ever... I am so very very happy. They didn't play revolution 909 - much to my disappointment... one of the best mashups (in my opinion) was of Too Long and Steam
ccombe says...
awesome daft punk performance.. once in a life time opportunity.. put up with the bad organization because of their mastery of the funk
cheechvda says...
purely amazing,,,it was the best thing i have ever experienced in my life.....was purely emotional....watched videos of it the other day and it brought tears to my eyes.......i feel privelidged to have seen such a specticle
cheechvda says...
definetly the best thing i have ever experienced in my life...iwas watching videos of it the other day and it made me cry,,honestly...,,,something that we will never experience ever again.... our generation will be talking about it til we die........
Spekman says...
MASSIVE LET DOWN!!! terribly organised, everything in the main other then Daft Punk was sh!t, even The Presets, who i have seen before and they were sick at other events... this event just lacked something, WAY too much hype for it... Daft Punk were awesome but i was expecting so much more...
silver_coal says...
I'm sorry but has everyone forgotten the crush to get in? Three girls collapsed in the heat, the line didnt move for 1.5hrs and there was no water or crowd control. Whoever organised this event needs to be shot. I lined up for an hour for 2 drinks at the bar... if u have 50000 ppl at event u should have provisions for them. Thank god daft punk was awesome otherwise there would of been a lot of fkn angry ppl.
locho says...
great day and great review...especially the bagging of muscles! where does this muscles guy get off, he clearly has limited vocal ability and lacks any real muscial aptitude. the guy is a toool! muscles you suck and didnt deserve to be playing on such a great day
emma96 says...
i came down from birsbane to go to the sydney one, and i love it besides the fact of the drink ques and everything being so daam long!
omgROFL says...
all i could ask for was that they not tease me with the beat of Music sounds better with you and drop some of those lyrics and also that they played digital love
humdingaling says...
The whole wristbands thing wasnt explained properly and hence everyone just rocked up early to get them. if it wasnt for that im sure alot more people would of rocked up abit later so they wouldnt need to deal with the crappy overpriced food inside. lines for drinks werent that bad, depends which side of the venue you were at i saw the line behind the main stadium and that was f
tfarrow says...
I am sorry to say that I was a little disappointed. Maybe it was my own fault for buying the "Alive" CD (but as a fan, I just couldn't help myself), but the show was almost identical to the live album.....to the point that they might have just been playing the CD and no one would ever have known. Surely the point of playing a live "dance music" set is to be spontaneous, so that there is an element of surprise and excitment. Sure, the show was good but if they are just churning out the same mixes, in the same order on ever gig on the tour, what is the point? I know there are many that will disagree with me, but because I knew exactly which song was coming next and even how they would be mixed, I felt let down. On a second point - I absolutely agree that the event management behind the entire day was a disgrace...but does anyone know who is to blame? If a band is cr@p then I don't go and see them again, but if I don't know who is to blame for the ten mile queue for beers, the wristband shambles, the bad
mikeyl81 says...
Poor organisation and communication. The last minute email from the organisers about the wristband restriction to the field area was simply daft. I arrived at 2pm and got in after spending 1.5 hours in a sweaty crush, luckily receiving one of the last wristbands. Turned out I never even needed to show it to anyone. There were no event guides, no set times posted and frustratingly long drink queues. The organisers couldn't stage a piss-up in brewery. Lucky for them they couldn't go wrong with Daft Punk.
rocingit says...
Tiesto… all hype and no substance? ummm.... i'm not sure if you have been living under a rock or don't know very much but Tiesto. but let me just say 'best DJ in the World 3 consecutive times by DJ magazine' or maybe you should check out a few dvd's - Tiësto in Concert · Tiësto in Concert 2. That is a concert! no comment
Bognashavin says...
Horribly organaised event, brilliant Daft Punk set. Will never attend another modular event ever, as long as I live. At one stage queued for 40 minutes only to be told No beer at this tent, even though they adevertised beer for sale. The quickest we were able to buy drinks was 33 minutes, whicc is disgustingly inadequate. The wristband scam to get people there early would not be half as bad if they were actually set up to cater for people coming early, but then they couldn't cope later on as well. An all dayer like that should have had way more alternate activities/stalls etc to occupy the punters. Modular are retarded, they should rot forever. Next time Daft Punk please use other event organisers!! Apart from Daft Punk being absolutely brilliant this was the worst event I have attended in more than 15 years of partying. Modular suck. Modular suck.
ninjaskillskill says...
Best time ever. Except I was really waiting for Digital Love to play, but oh well. Too Long xx Steam Machine..so good. The worse thing is they probably won't play here again :[