It’s been 13 years since Portishead last toured Australia, so there’s a lot riding on the legendary act’s return this month for the Harvest Festival. As it turns out, the band itself is taking matters very seriously for the sake of fans. In the Sydney and Brisbane timetables released today, Portishead is closing the festival from 8:45pm on the Great Lawn stage – after the other stages have gone silent.
In an interesting blog post, Harvest’s AJ Maddah describes Portishead’s ultimatum. “At the beginning of this saga, we had what Declan (my Harvest co-conspirator) and I thought was the perfect timetable. Then came word that 1 of our headliners wanted absolute silence on other stages. We had to comply with this for 2 reasons:
1. Their amazing, melancholy and ethereal music would be ruined if there was any noise bleed from other stages; &
2. They would cancel. And this was no bluff.
Now usually I don’t react well to these situations. This time, however, it was a band I had chased for a decade. I had got down on my knees and begged them to play Harvest. It was a band whose final acquiescence had prompted me to launch the festival this year.”
MELBOURNE TIMETABLE – COMING SOON
MELBOURNE MAP
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