Good Vibrations @ Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne (09/02/08)
Another weekend another festival, or so it seems in this ever cramped calendar of events. Good Vibrations returned to the Music Bowl for another year with a headliner at the peak of his powers – a change from recent years with headline slots from James Brown and the Beastie Boys – but the crowd seemed to be slightly down on past ventures. Maybe it was the overcast, occasionally rainy conditions; maybe there’s too much competition; maybe those sniffer dogs out front were working especially hard this year. But, with slightly fewer punters and little sun to cause the sort of boozed and shirtless wankery of some other festivals, Good Vibrations kicked off its 2008 season with a solid, if not always perfect, performances.
Damn Arms had the unenviable task of opening the main stage to a curious handful of early arrivals. They offer up rock washed out under heavy synth, though they’re surprisingly not signed to Modular. They’ll jostle in the queue for support slots for Cut Copy, Presets and Midnight Juggs. Meanwhile, local crew Diafrix were the first live act to take to the Roots stage, a setting that has been notorious at past Good Vibrations for an appalling sound mix; notably the muddy mess of Talib Kweli’s set two years ago. However, Diafrix had no problems with their mix of reggae vibes and easy flowing hip-hop, but this early in the day the crowd are content to ease back in the early afternoon sun with a drink rather than dancing up front.
Over in the relatively plush surrounds of the heavily branded B-Live stage, Gameboy/Gamegirl offered an early highlight with their electro sleaze. Their stage presence that suggests future librarians who’ve raided their mother’s wardrobe to dress up and act out to their favourite Fannypack and Uffie songs. They may rap about their crack addictions, but if there was any doubt about their tongue in cheek lyrics, they chant that “this shit is ironic”. The crowd may have been split between the fans and the baffled, but no one could deny that the Gamegirl’s put on a very entertaining show and a special mention has to be made for the Gameboy’s striping antics. A very game boy indeed.
Australia’s own equivalent of the Dap-Kings, funk act The Bamboos, restored the class and clothing on the main stage with their dapper suits and super tight funk and soul. They may lack the star presence that the Dap-Kings offer as the backing band for Sharon Jones or Amy Winehouse, but they still manage to deliver the soul grooves. On record they offer vocals from Ohmega Watts and Alice Russell, but while their touring vocalist may not have the same level of recognition, the band sound fantastic as ever with Step It Up and a cover of Barbara Acklin’s Am I The Same Girl?. Back on the Roots stage, Kuya has managed to lure a crowd of punters – same dancing, some headbanging – to his set of crowd pleasing cuts. Essentially a greatest hits mixtape of past and present Good Vibrations artists with a selection of tracks fro the Beastie Boys, Kanye, Cypress Hill and some Rage Against The Machine thrown in for good measure.
Promising a twenty piece band, Thievery Corporation were the first group to fill up the seating section at the front of the Music Bowl – though few remain seated during their set of Jamaican and Indian infused tunes. With the sent of incense drifting over the crowd the band manage to overcome the cocktail lounge vibe that occasionally dull their records and lure the dancers up front with an early airing of the sitar of Lebanese Blonde. The Thievery DJs Rob Garza and Eric Hilton have assembled an odd collection of musicians to flesh out their live show, including a horn section that appears to have been stolen from a community radio show specialising in dusty 78s. Their parade of vocalists includes two Rasta MCs, an Indian diva and a few female one-track guests while their second percussionist steps up to takes care of the vocals, and run laps of the stage, on The Heart’s A Lonely Hunter. While they fail to keep their twenty-member promise, they won over a hefty legion of fans.
Pigeon John is a regular visitor to Australia, though it’s usually as a support act for the likes of Blackalicious and Lyrics Born. He’s part of LA’s Good Life Café crowd that spawned hip-hop acts including J5, Black Eyed Peas and Abstract Rude, but his gimmicky performance and songs are unlikely to ever see him touring as a headliner. Nonetheless, he always seems manically compelled to entertain. Few MCs would offer a song with references Super Mario and drinking coffee with squirrels while jokingly proclaiming themselves to be “so damn gangsta” on the chorus. He plays his goofy image for laughs with tracks about his failings with the opposite sex and even has an onstage conversation with God, who reminds him that the audience is just there to see him make a fool of himself. The highlight of this foolishness is the genius of the ‘Pigeon Dance’ – a hilariously awkward move that really should bring the ever suffering John more attention from the ladies. Maybe it already has; after all his first album was titled Pigeon John is Clueless, but his 2003 was called Pigeon John is Dating Your Sister.
There were queues forming to get down front in time for Calvin Harris, though perhaps it was more a rush to take cover from the rain than get close to the upstart who claims to have invented disco. In recent interviews Calvin has noted that in the UK he’s seen as a pop performer, while the American media tends to align him with artists like Justice and Digitalism – proving just how wrong Americans can be. Harris recorded his hit making album as a solo artist, but has taken to the road with a group of ring in band members. They’re all too clearly an assembled backing crew as the competent, if hardly thrilling sound they produce proves, while Harris runs about soaking up the adoration of the crowd. As the latest wonder kid providing beats for Kylie and other popsters, he just seems like this season’s Mylo, but he’s more than acceptable to those born in the late eighties with his hits, in particular his joking Girls, receiving huge cheers.
Back at the Roots stage the feared sound issues had appeared, with Canadian MC K-OS and his band running a good twenty minutes late. When they finally began by launching into a murky sounding take on The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog the contingent of girls to my side promptly announce that they’re ‘not feeling it’ and depart. Unfortunately for K-OS it doesn’t get much better as his rock-rap struggles to connect with the audience, and his efforts at free-styling offer little more than a dull observational ramble.
Thankfully The Rapture were on hand to show the others what a live dance band should sound like. Seemingly picking up hosting duties while on holiday, Lyrics Born steps up to introduce the Rapture’s second Music Bowl in twelve months. But unlike the last time they played the Music Bowl – as part of the abysmally planed and attended Melbourne edition of the ‘07 V Festival – the Rapture are playing to a large crowd eager for their cow bell beats and scratchy guitar. Like recent tourists and fellow New York hipsters LCD Soundsystem, the Rapture mix post-punk with disco and rock influences to create an infectious meld that translates easily from the studio to the live arena. Gabriel Andruzzi again proved to be the music world’s most important cowbell/saxophone player – as LA punk band Fear proclaimed, New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones – while their clipped guitar and electronics provide plenty of dancing fodder. After they belt out Whoo! Alright-Yeah…Uh Huh and House Of Jealous Lovers in quick succession it’s time to scamper over the hill to catch Pharoahe Monch.
It’s been eight long years between records of the former Organized Konfusion MC, and the Roots stage was packed with punters eager to catch his set. But as fans scurried up the nearby trees for a better view and Lyrics Born hyped the crowd, it was clear that sound issues at the Roots stage still hadn’t been worked out. Already behind schedule, they continued to struggle with the mic sound hampering what should have been a blazing opening, as Monch, his live band and DJ Boogie Blind of the X-Ecutioners burst into their take on Public Enemy’s Welcome To The Terrordome. They were met with angry cries from the crowd begging the sound man to turn the mic up, and a frustrated Monch was forced to pause early in his set to demand that the crowd chant for higher volume. While the sound issues are never totally resolved Monch plieed his way through a set list focused on the more soulful cuts his latest record Desire with the assistance of two fantastic backing singers. But the crowd seemed to be there almost purely to hear Simon Says before showing their true allegiances and fleeing to take up position for Cypress Hill.
A dash to the B-Live stage caught the final beats of Kid Sister’s Pro Nails playing to a disappointingly small crowd. She’s a star in the making and hopefully when she returns to Australia she’s met by far larger crowds. Oddly the hype of working with Kanye and her enviable list of family connections – her boyfriend A-Trak is Kanye’s DJ and brother to Chromeo’s Dave 1, while her own brother is J2K of Flosstradamus – hasn’t pulled many curious listeners. Despite the favours she pull in the music biz Kid Sis has the skills to ensure she’s no nepotistic upstart. Once she leaves the stage A-Trak continues with his set his crowd has swarmed the hill to see Cypress.
Sharing the stage with a monstrously oversized inflatable golden Buddha holding an obligatory pot leaf, Cypress Hill gave the crowd a hit of their smoke hazed back catalogue. Hits From The Bong, How I Could Just Kill a Man and Insane in the Brain all had the crowd indulging in the goods they managed to get past the police dogs out front. It’s been years since Cypress released any new material (even it’s dubious that you can count yet another slew of tracks about getting high as new) and much of the massed crowd seemed to only be interested in hearing the classics, rather than committed fans. But they stuck it out on the hill chatting and drinking between the more recognisable tunes.
A venture to the Laundry stage behind the Bowl found a tiny group assembled to hear Sinden’s set. For a man with a regular gig at London’s Fabric nightclub it must have seemed bizarre to have come so far to play for so few. The early evening is hardly the best time for his raw mixes of dance music in all its dirty glory as he dices up electro, Miami bass, dancehall, grime, baile funk and garage cuts. Tittsworth also played to an undersized crowd, but as the sounds of his set seep out to the distracted folk on the hill watching Cypress the room does begin to fill. With a track selection as unashamed as his DJ name, Tittsworth includes tracks from AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Lenny Kravitz and even Queen’s Fat Bottom Girls all overlayed with his cracking beats and delivered at a rushing pace. Like Girl Talk he has no pretension about rocking a crowd: if it works, Titts plays it and while today he’s playing to a smallish group on his return he’s likely to cause the same hyped, over-sold chaos as Girl Talk’s recent tour.
Finally it was time to make a move in the direction of the front of the Music Bowl for the unmissable Kanye West spectacular. With only three shows down under it’s fair to say much of the crowd had turned up just to hear the superstar producer, musician, rapper, blogger, search engine pioneer and all round self-promoter. The anticipation of the waiting crowd grew as the Steve Lind spins the Mr. Oizo mix of Killing in the Name and the screens flash with the chorus lyrics, whipping up a frenzy of anticipation. The track has seemingly a prerequisite to build excitement in a pre-show crowd – SebastiAn and Kavinsky used it to similar effect before Daft Punk at the same venue a few months ago. With Kanye due on stage the DJ cheekily played the Justice Vs Simian tune that famously caused Kanye’s tantrum at the 2006 MTV Europe Music awards. But with an elaborate stage set up too complicated, Kanye’s not quite ready and there’s plenty more waiting before he takes stage, including a bizarre airing of Enya’s Sail Away courtesy of the Bag Raiders remix of Yo Majesty’s Club Action and a second outing for the Fat Bottomed Girls.
When the curtain finally dropped to reveal the ‘Lost in Space’ stage setup of stalagmite shards, a five piece mask-clad sting section, two futuristically costumed backing singers, a full band and DJ A-Trak, the crowd is ecstatic. A credits sequence announces the ‘Glow in the Dark’ tour, running through the performers and foretelling the mysterious prescience of a dancer. Kanye himself emerged through a gap in the risers between the strings and band, shrouded in smoke and backlit and like a championship boxer. The show began with Graduation opener Good Morning and rarely let up for the next hour and a half. Highlights included a stripped back version of Heard ‘Em Say which loses the twinkling keys of the album version in favour of a more percussive approach.
For Can’t Tell Me Nothing the dancer was carried to stage in a flowing cape that creates a wind blown backdrop to Kanye’s latest mission statement, though he declares the more introspective I Wonder to be his favourite tune of the moment. Following a dazzling Flashing Lights the dancer returned as a robot controlled by Kanye using a comically large stage prop remote control. Snippets of the disappointing Mos Def colab Drunk And Hot Girls echo through the night before Kanye returned to play Addiction (is he trying to come clean about a fetish for drunken robots?) Then a costume change into a white suit for Touch The Sky and a claim that Melbourne’s one of his favourite cities in the world before celebrating the Good Life.
Certainly it’s a high flying life as he’s only in town for a matter of hours, jetting off to the Grammy’s before returning to Australia to finish the tour later in the week. He’s expected to use his Grammy performance to pay tribute to his mother who died recently following surgery complications and after encoring with Diamonds From Sierra Leone and Jesus Walks, he slows to play a genuine and heartfelt version of Hey Mama. Standing under a single spot light Kanye adlibed few words to explain how important she was to his career and life. It’s a moment that could feel manipulative, but Kanye has always been brutally honest in his music and it’s difficult not to be touched by his tribute. Further proving his open, unashamedly assured style he then dedicated an unexpected cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin to his mother and her unfailing support.
No one could close a show with a down note – or a Journey cover – so he soon returned to close the night with an extended take on Stronger. Last time he toured he was fantastic, but the show’s energy lifted with the seasoned presence of Common on stage. Tonight no one could have lifted the energy any higher. As a showman he’s harder, better, faster, stronger and though it may not seem possible, even more flashy than before. It might have been a festival show, but there’s absolutely no doubt that this was the Louis Vuitton Don night.
JackT says...
Really excellent review!
srljb says...
What a review! Comprehensive doesn't come close. Thanks.
Kat_in_Japan says...
16 Bit Lolitas did a really great set too - kept us dancing in the rain! Katalyst were also fantastic - their lead female vocalist is awesome!
DJ_PK says...
Great review. Very much looking forward to the Sydney gig now!
untitled-1 says...
nice review ...
dobrien75 says...
You didn't mention that the sound levels for the last 2 hours were unacceptably low. The Sidney Myer is simply an awful venue for these sorts of events. Kanye West was awful as well, and had none of the hill jumping. Though I'm sure the crew in the D section were enjoying the fact they could hear anything at all.
Skirtchaser says...
wow rad detailed review for one person! stay rad skirtchaser