Being my first Foreshore experience I was always going to be interested to see how the event compared to other festivals I’d been too. Luckily for Foreshore this year there was no rain after the last couple of years and the breeze certainly helped to keep it a bit cooler across the day.

Overall I thought the set up was pretty good – nice big open areas for all the stages and the tent at the Lawn stage created a great atmosphere and allowed for much better effects with lights. The Sun stage seemed to have an interesting setup with the red bull car, but all reports are this was a pain for changeovers between DJ’s. Unfortunately as with all festivals I’ve been to there was some cross pollution of sound but to some degree that just encourages everyone to get closer to the stage they want to be at.

Getting there about half way through the first acts I managed to a grip on where things were and spent some time kicking back to the tunes of Luke Ellis who opened up in the Lawn Stage and had quite a few punters dancing around on the open matted dance floor. What struck me was the electro theme which was certainly predominant throughout the day, but also the number of people in fluoro (I thought we got rid of that stuff) and the groups running around in the same outfit.

RyFy picked up where Ellis left off with the safe and solid electro tunes and had the crowd really getting into the basslines provided. Early in his set the dance floor was about half full as the shade on offer made the Lawn Stage the place to be early on. Dropping Art v Science – Parlez Vous Francais? proved be a good a move towards the end of the set as it sent the crowd absolutely nuts as the lead up the headline acts continued.

With probably half the crowd arrived, Crookers took to the Lawn Stage with enthusiasm and had the crowd jumping around to the beats. This was the place to be evidently as the tent became pretty chockers as word of the massive beats spread. One highly memorable part before I left the area was a whole bunch of anthems (_Benny Benassi – Satisfaction, Kid Cudi – Day and Night_ + more) being cut up and mixed together for the punters enjoyment.

After heading off from the Lawn Stage I headed to the Lake Stage to see John Dahlback where a much smaller crowd was enjoying the sun, the odd bit of spray from the Captain Cook water jet and the Housey tunes being served up from Dahlback. The crowd here wasn’t limited to the floor with the spacious hills providing great viewing combined with the opportunity to relax and unwind. One thing that must be said for this stage was the incredible sound coming from the speakers – particularly when the sound went more into Electro as Dahlback dropped his own track Everywhere (of Ministry of Sound 2008 Annual fame). To my mind the Swede was using some great breakdowns that kept building up into huge basslines that just kept the small crowd going for the duration of his set.

By the time 3pm arrived there was a swelling crowd at the Lake Stage as Deadmau5 came to the party with crazy hats (which one lucky punter scored one of). Whilst Deadmau5 was pre event pumped up to be one of the top two acts I would say he probably didn’t live quite up to that billing. There were a lot of very solid songs and an overall good set which the crowd definitely enjoyed with hands in the air however he didn’t blow the crowd away with the performance.

Continuing to stay with the Lake Stage, Stanton Warriors were next up and they impressed with a mixture of electro and breaks. The crowd was having a great time and was filling out the whole main arena by now as security ditched the bottleneck at the entry. Stanton had the crowd pumped up so much that the main dance floor was like a moche pit whilst there were people dancing on both hillsides. The highlight of the set was the remix of Good Vibrations which sent the crowd crazy.

Trying to fit as much in as possible I headed across to the Lawn Stage to catch some of Jaytech – a Canberra DJ who now lives in London and travels with the likes of Above and Beyond. Jaytech evidently enjoyed being back in the capital as he interacted with the crowd and was really revving everyone up with his Electronic style music. Helping add to the performance was the lighting which was by now kicking in as the sun slowly began it’s descent. There was still quite a large crowd in the tent and they were enjoying the set, with many even participating in keeping a beach ball afloat.

I briefly managed to catch a bit of Shane Burgess as I went to chill out for a bit and found that the Sun Stage was grooving along nicely. The people and atmosphere over there was pretty relaxed as punters shuffled around on the slope down to the stage kicking up plumes of dust from the dry ground.

Heading back into the Lake Stage sometime after six, Bass Kleph had taken over and had the crowd from the last set still going absolutely nuts. Over one 10 minute period he brought in songs such as Bass Kleph & Stellar – Spend My Money, Steve Angello & Laidback Luke – Be and Dizzee Rascal – Bonkers, mixing in some melodies and choruses from each and more. Amidst all this Kleph was playing with his effects unit and egging on the crowd to get them involved even using a megaphone at one point.

Back over at the Lawn Stage The Only were banging out some awesome electro beats and they even had an extra half an hour to play with as there seemed to be some technical issues setting up for the next act (either that or the next act was running late).

Deciding to get out of the general area anyway I headed over to the Sun Stage where Sam Scratch was playing. Sam seemed to be playing some breaks and the whole area had turned into a chillout area under the red bull tents whilst people dancing away in front of the DJ booth, sending up huge amounts of dust. Probably needed some extra rubber matting down there to be totally honest as the coughing fits hit when Basement Jaxx’s – Where’s Your Head At got dropped and more people ran to the area.

At the Lake Stage, Chris Fraser had taken control for his short set between the big names which was always going to be a tough job. The MC seemed to be pretty hit and miss with the crowd, but Fraser was doing a good job of keeping the crowd going – those that hadn’t made the mad dash to get food before the next act anyway.

Hanging out for Axwell I was excited when he came on at about 8ish when they also unveiled the cool visual display they had been working on during Fraser’s set. The theme was an upside heart which was beating in time with bass. Was very cool but seemed to take Axwell some time to work up into his rhythm before he settled into a combo of progressive house and big house anthems. From about 9 onwards though he started playing the bigger more cheesey songs but the crowd enjoyed it clearly and responded when Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams and Chemical Brothers – Hey Boy Hey Girl, were played. Overall seemed to do a decent job with people either really enjoying it or not at all.

Cruising over to the Lawn Stage via the Sun Stage I saw Jamie Vale who was entertaining a reasonable crowd with what else was going on. Good to see that the smaller acts weren’t being forgotten and were being supported and even scouted by overseas music peoples.

Walking into the Lawn Stage the crowd was lapping up the techno that Miss Kitten and the Hacker was dishing out. Hadn’t heard their stuff before but they put on an awesome visual display and that combining with the sheer energy of their performance created an awesome atmosphere within the tent. Music was good fun and lots of people dancing around to it as well.

The end of that set ended in applause, but possibly the loudest cheer of the night went to Bloody Beetroots feat. Steve Aoki as they came on stage. It seemed from most people I spoke with that this is who they had been hanging out for all day. All that can be said is that they didn’t disappoint! Right from the start they were incredible from the music they played to the visual lighting display to go with it. The crowd was the most intense I had seen all day and everyone was jumping with arms in the air.

Making sure to get a look at both major final acts, I ducked over to the Lake Stage to see Empire of the Sun. Sadly after just having seen the Beetroots opening songs, Empire was a major letdown. The visually impressive show was let down by some major sound issues and in comparison to the other acts that had been on totally lacked the energy to the point of much of the crowd standing with hands on hips or arms crossed. Empire finally got the crowd going with their last song of the night Walking on a Dream.

It didn’t help that the volume from the Beetroots stage was able to be heard by most of the Lake Stage crowd, and given that was still going I headed back there to hopefully see the finale. Coming in I saw two crazy guys climb the tent support structure and cheer from up there as the last song got played. The crowd demanded an encore and after much chanting and teasing from Aoki, the Beetroots came back for an encore of Warp which left the crowd going absolutely crazy.

Foreshore 2009 was a great time for Canberrans at the end of the day. Friction and Lexington Music (Now Kicks), have done a good job of bringing to Canberra a festival of music that caters to some different styles, promotes the locals and brings in some headline acts from around Australia and overseas – long may it continue.