NeverEverLand feat. Daft Punk @ The Riverstage, Brisbane (20/12/07)
For an event about which there is so much to say, it’s curious how difficult it is to pin each word down into sentences that are more than vaguely intelligible, particularly when you’ve waited eleven years of your life to go to it. More so when that wait has been without the knowledge of what to expect or even if the day will arrive at all. Out of all the bands and DJs which many wish they could see perform but haven’t, Daft Punk (Guy-Manuel De Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter) seemed one of the least likely they would get to experience. Prior to the NeverEverLand tour, Dafty Punk had not been stage borne for years; touring had after their first album Homework become obsolete, a hindrance and a burden. It was a withdrawal from the public eye that was the stuff of record label executive’s worst nightmares: how would Daft Punk maintain an audience if they were to never tour their albums? After their last studio album Human After All, it seemed like a reality that nobody would ever again see Daft Punk perform live. The album polarised critics and fans alike, if you didn’t hate it tehn you probably loved it but either way, there was an agreement that the wait for it had been too long and the lack of a Daft Punk tour was disappointing in the extreme.
Several years later, when the feebly flickering flame of hope seemed destined to be snuffed: the NeverEverLand tour was announced. The question was however, what are Daft Punk fans going to get from one of their shows? Well the eager souls that went to the first show at Coachella in California found out, and courtesy of their cameras and a little website called YouTube, so did the rest of the world. Suffice to say, the promoters charged with dutifully putting on shows for the rest of the tour could very well have gotten away with hardly spending a cent on marketing, as the hype that THE pyramid and THAT retouch of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger more than did their job for them. On the back of the NeverEverLand tour Daft Punk rose from the deep of public consciousness not as a ragged Lazarus, but a robotic neon coated, anthem-breathing leviathan with a really nasty temper.
Being the second last date of the tour, Brisbane had the hype of not only the international community feeding the flames of anticipation, but also that of it’s Melbournian countrymen and women. Of course, come the day of the event punters had become so excited that they could be forgiven the odd bit of foaming at the mouth, and unfortunately it did spawn many early casualties, something which sadly seems to have become de rigueur. One can only hope that bearing witness to a fellow attendee being dragged out to an ambulance after having had too much before getting to see the headline act forms as a deterrent to those who are a little more ambitious than what their bodies to handle. The depressing nature of people making obscene spectacles of themselves thankfully didn’t seem to take too much cheer out of the afternoon, but enough of that and onto the task at hand.
Not being a fan of big egos and in my opinion worse music, and having seen him perform briefly at Splendour In The Grass, I saw fit to give Muscles a miss. With it also being a Thursday close to Christmas his 5pm time slot didn’t well compliment the schedules of most as the sparsely populated hill at The Riverstage around 5:40 attested. Shortly after arriving, Cut Copy took to the stage and belted through a short forty five minute set with a minimum of stage banter, and the consistent evocation of New Order that they seem to channel so well. In fact, they did a vastly better job than most of the warm up acts so it was a shame that the volume levels were kept quite low for all but Daft Punk as a little more would have made a big difference to the overall feel of their set. Not that it could ruin them playing Hearts On Fire though!
The Bang Gang DJs were at it again, filling the gap between Cut Copy and The Presets. Honestly though; how many people does it take to play records across a forty five minute set? Do they get cramps and spasms from being crammed like sardines into their DJ booth tin? And does that ‘tin’ smell funny? Let it be said that the music emanating from it did smell somewhat funny, as did their mixing despite the fact there was half a football team in the booth. Then again; maybe that’s the problem? Don’t expect fragments of a tracklist either, working towards the bottom of a beer cup was far more fun than paying that much attention. Simple distractions are always convenient when bored.
On the rescue mission were The Presets and despite a couple of occasions where they seemed to be losing the crowd a little, managed to valiantly get some backsides wiggling (or feet shuffling, which ever trite cliche you like will work). Although watching Julian and Kim spending time behind a laptop isn’t too exciting, their music sure as hell is as anyone lucky enough to have seen them can relate. This performance was well timed, consistent, technically faultless and despite consisting mostly of tracks from their fairly well worn album Beams, effortlessly entertaining. Girl (You Chew My Mind Up) drove the swelling crowd to fever whilst The Girl and The Sea lapped over it delicately, the toughened up drums underneath it keeping people moving despite the sombre lyrical content. As always though the real highlight was I Go Hard I Go Home, there are few anthems that come nastier with that massive lead and Kim’s gated vocal stylings never likely to disappoint anyone with a pulse. Fingers crossed for their upcoming album to yield such precious tones.
With The Presets done, the clock was ticking and Daft Punk weren’t more than the next forty five minute DJ performance away, the night air doing little to combat the heat of a vast and packed crowd squirming in anticipation. Sympathy is in order for Sebastian & Kavinsky as the better decision it seems would have been to simply plug a iPod in and let people dance to that if they liked, given the crowd’s indifference to the duo’s presence. Conversely, a crowd that was so electrified could be said to be up for just about anything in the lead up to a headlining act, so why not toy with that freedom more willingly? Sure, playing Rage Against The Machine at a dance event could have qualified as a creative choice several years ago but is now little more than ‘Big event DJing 101’ and old hat. Another non-event of a DJ set then.
So came the fateful moment, one in which to be human meant to have you heart relocated to somewhere in your throat as you pulse quickened and hands shook. As the curtains drew open, the months of waiting melted away before the heat of sheer awe: the pyramid was huge and the music set to be more gargantuan still. Daft Punk had arrived, they were preparing to rewire some brains and what better way to start it than on the searing guitar samples of Robot Rock, with the gargantuan video screen which loomed behind the pyramid and it’s triangular neon lattice flashing the words human and robot in bold red and black as the vocodered voice of our duo echoed the call to arms. A swift segue into the electro of Oh Yeah made a fast track into Technologic with that enormous video screen bearing each lyric, if anyone didn’t know some of the lyrics before, they certainly wouldn’t forget them.
The robotics convention didn’t cease with the scratchy funk guitar of Voyager; as the light show shifted up a gear and the stage burst into light as the pyramid came to life, Television Rules The Nation became the dancefloor destroying pavement upon which the Around The World Goliath stomped. It became obvious at that point that the manner of Daft Punks performance was going to continually exceed brashness as they took the crowd by the proverbial appendage and swung them whichever way seemed the most fun at the time. A DJ performance on a near lethal robot growth hormone cocktail (sic) inside a glowing monolith. Geek hour had suddenly become sexy!
But with circuits near overload it was a well-planned move to reel the crowd back from funk annihilation with Crescendolls and Verdis Quo before the sexed up Too Long had Daft’s audience screaming in ecstasy. The time had come for THAT mix of Around the World and Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Trance officially came to town, destroyed and swiftly left again having left a vast path for the coming techno onslaught. But not before that path was given a good tidy up with some spot Burnin’ (yeah okay that was a bit cheesy). Layered up with Face to Face though it made a great warm up to the more traditional version of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger which itself seemed little more than a warm up for One More Time. Not since Jamiroquai played Vibes on a Summers Day at The Riverstage several years ago have I personally seen a Brisbane crowd react so strongly, the response was distinct. For Aerodynamic it seems the robot duo had a Kraftwerk homage in store: their suits lit up in unison with the stage like the set from Tron! As if it wasn’t enough just to see Daft Punk in the full robot suits, they went and had lighting fitted to them too and the fifteen tonnes of equipment around them almost paled into insignificance because of it. Heaven IS made of neon after all and just as it seemed we were all indeed there as Forget About The World loved its way from the speakers whilst the pyramid and video screen behind it turned into swirling a starry night sky.
But onto the real musical destroyer of the evening (or several if you prefer). From the crucible of techno came Prime Time of Your Life with a side of Rollin’ & Scratchin’ melded to Alive which brought Da Funk quick smart; Daftendirekt even (oh no make him stop), whilst the Superheroes claimed they were Human After All and belted out a bit of Rock’n Roll to prove it. Whew! Breathless? Thought so, and that was it for the evening. No more . . . Well, until five minutes worth of the crowd screaming the band’s name brought the encore to end all encores which was a total Thomas Bangalter love in.
They reanimated Human After All by fusing it to DJ Falcon and Bangalter’s Together, the Para One remix of Prime Time of Your Life, Stardust’s (Thomas Bangalter) Music Sounds Better With You, One More Time AND Aerodynamic. You would think that hearing a couple of these tunes for the second time would be tedious wouldn’t you? NO! Whilst it seemed to take most punters a while to notice that what Daft were playing was Music Sounds Better With You, once they recognised it and heard it morphing slowly into One More Time (ah the irony) the effect was so devastatingly euphoric that precious little moments will dare to come close to the high drama it produced. To top it all off, when Guy-Manuel and Thomas decided to call it a night they didn’t merely wander off but lit their suits up again and turned their backs to the crowd with switched on glowing red Daft Punk logos emblazoned upon their jackets, their departure from the pyramid as kooky luminescent robotic cowboys walking towards a setting sun every bit as cinematic as it sounds.
In short, it was more than worth the punishing day at work that preceded it. There aren’t too many gigs that yield tears of joy, but Daft Punk’s performance at The Riverstage for their NeverEverLand tour on the twentieth of December two thousand and seven was one of them. Lets all hope we don’t have to wait so long for a second one.
chico_brisbane says...
Sweet as review! Bang Gang = SNAP!
laszlo says...
Very sweet review... Although I can't believe you didn't mention that before the robots came on stage the lights dimmed and the speakers boomed the theme from "Close encounters of the third kind" TAAAA DAAAAAAAAAA DAAAAA DAAAAA DAAAAAAAA Also tres epic cool... :)
palaeo-tech says...
Yeah I forgot to put that in but you've made up for my brain drain so thanks! Poor old Bang Gang . . . . ah well there'll be a next time . . . . or not . . . .
existenz says...
So it wasn't just some beautiful dream? You covered everything that I'll be telling my grand kids, well done. "Yes kids, the aliens landed at the river stage in 2007 and decided we weren't quite advanced enough to go back with them, so here we remain"