In a rare spot of weather luck, Melbourne welcomed the masses into a sunny Birrarung Marr for Parklife 2009. This year broke down more barriers than a crowd of 17 year old fence jumpers (and there were plenty), with the premier performance of Empire of the Sun, the first visit of ‘so hot right now’ band La Roux and an enormous lineup of international and locals spread across four stages; the close proximity of which made it difficult to escape a forcibly packed in crowd…and resulting in me spending the day hanging around the smaller, easier-to-deal-with stages.

The Earth and Fire stages surrounded the ferris wheel, with a steep hill making a sound barrier between the two. The fire stage hosted plenty of live acts; pop, hip hop and a bit of indie-electro while the earth stage showcased some fun, niche genre DJs. To kick off my fun in the Melbourne sun I made it onto the hill that overlooked the fire stage in time to catch the second half of The Cool Kids’ set. By far the heaviest hip hop of the day, the duo had a small crowd bouncing to slower dub beats before ending with the festival-friendly “put your hands in the air” while their deep, throaty voices wound up what was a smooth set to sit down and bop your head to.

At that moment, punters began making their way down the hill, rounding up by the front of the stage for the beginning of Lady Sovereign. The stacks and stumbles provided evil entertainment, with one memorable girl in particular stopped to wait for a friend and lost her footing before taking a backwards tumble over the top of a couple of unimpressed people. If it were raining that hill would’ve been a circus.

Lady Sovereign; the rude-girl; the hard-ass idol of middle-class teenage ladettes all over the world, came blasting out from the back of the stage with flat brimmed hat to the side, attitude-a-plenty and a ridiculous amount of security guards waiting at the back of the stage. Pity you couldn’t hear a bloody thing. In fact, the sound across the festival was kept extremely low – something to do with the closeness of the four stages perhaps?

Curious to find out if Sov’s attitude would carry across to her live set, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. The only pleasantries exchanged with the crowd was in the lyrics of her opening song Let’s Be Mates. After that, the friendliness disappeared and banter was filthy. She pulled the microphone close to her mouth to let out a belch that’d make the roughest, country council worker in the pub cringe. There was no spitting, but she emptied an entire tinnie over the front rows and managed to make the crowd flip the bird simultaneously before breaking into Love Me or Hate Me. Everyone busted out their best London street accent and sang along before the short, 40 minute set came to a close and Sampology took over for half an hour.

Metronomy took the stage next, complete with matching costumes that lit up in sequence and good ol’ band choreography. Only three were present, missing their female band member. Their live electro-pop sound was cute. Smooth and happy synths and keyboards, a little like Devo meets TV on the Radio. Satisfied with catching a clean-cut pop band do their thing and do it well, I ran the gauntlet back up stack-hill to the earth stage for a cheese break with The Glimmers who brought the sun down spinning what sounded exactly like their Fabriclive promo; an eclectic mix of disco and house originals with ‘80s remixes (including the token remix of Sweet Dreams, of course) and the odd, out-of place banging techno and electro tune played by David, before Mo reeled him back into the safer, easier to handle house. Perhaps he was just trying to make sure Claude VonStroke had a decently warmed-up crowd?

I ran down to catch a little of Metric back at the fire stage and rocked out with the sexy Canadians to Help, I’m Alive and Dead Disco. The blonde vocalist, Emily Haines was on fire in black tights and slouchy singlet as she ran all over the stage, swapping between keyboard and guitar. If she just had a microphone she was getting the crowd involved. Her energy was infectious and got the crowd pumped up for the final couple of closers on the fire stage. After running (yes, much running) back up the hill quickly to get low to some dirty techno with Claude VonStroke, I headed back to The Rapture who closed the festival’s fire stage in clean, rocking style. Unfortunately, from where I was, I couldn’t see the New Yorkers (I was told that the front man was super short) but was amongst an energetic crowd and enjoyed every moment. The Rapture opened with favourite Whoo Alright Yeah Uh Huh before moving through 45 minutes of uplifting indie-electro. We chanted along to No Sex for Ben and wound down with Pieces of the People We Love.

All in all, I wish I could’ve seen more on the main stages but the crawl-factor of the audience moving in between stages just didn’t seem worth it. I was extremely pleased with the acts I caught on the smaller stages and was thankful for the happy vibe and people hanging around Earth and Fire; something I’m certain would’ve been different if I were crushed amongst the crowds at Air and Water. And finally, I’m coming to Melbourne for festivals from now on! After constant Sydney festival trips resulting in a sore attitude from dealing with the young, loose (yet somehow still uptight) drunkies, Melbourne was a dream. You should be proud!