Live Review: Falls Festival Byron Bay: Day 1

1 January 2017 | 1:49 pm | Mitch Knox

"We’re ready for you now, 2017. "

It is much too hot to think, let alone actually act — but something must be done.

We’re sitting on the side of the road about two-and-a-half kilometres from our planned destination of North Byron Parklands, readying ourselves for another year-ending party at Falls Music & Arts Festival, as smoke plumes out from the engine of our hired campervan. The vehicle — a last-minute stroke-of-genius that was intended to bring added convenience to our adventure — appears to be harbouring some unexpected mechanical issues and, if this thing doesn’t start cooling down soon, it looks as though we’ll be in for a long and seriously uncomfortable afternoon in the baking afternoon sun.

As it happens, those two options don’t end up being mutually exclusive. After an ultimately fruitless phone-call to Roadside Assistance, we do indeed get the van to a working (enough) state to make it into the Falls campsite and grab our event passes, and thus any problems under the hood (well, seats) instantly become Tuesday morning’s concerns.

But arriving and being at the festival in no way does anything to stem the oppressive heat bearing down on all sides. Judging from the constant hive of activity surrounding the Palm Springs pools and man-made beach throughout the day, it appears to be the #1 feature weighing on people’s minds today. Breeze is sadly non-existent, and shade is rarer than finding a clean toilet after 2pm; as we approach the Amphitheatre for the day’s opening set from Northeast Party House, I’m struck by the vast emptiness of the sprawling field in front of me, broken only by a group of onlookers huddled under the sole tree in reasonable walking distance.

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It’s a situation not lost on the artists — the band make repeated reference to the skyrocketing temperature, conceding they’re “already melting” after their infectious, energetic opening gambit of Any Given Weekend and Perfect Lines. A nearby festival-goer makes the observation that they’re a little bit “early Bloc Party” — not an inaccurate assessment — and Heartbreaker sticks another landing for the Melburnian six-piece, though vocalist Zac Hamilton-Reeves laments that he may have “started with too much gusto”. As the band soldier through evergreen crowd-pleaser Wallflower, it’s clear that all — performer and punter alike — are feeling it hard already.

This is becoming an issue that Falls will struggle to ignore in future years; while they obviously can’t do anything about the temperature — and it’s nice to see bottled water down to $2 a pop this year, the cheapest it’s been in several events — there is so much to be done in terms of enabling general-public comfort if we do have to combat unfortunate weather. Indeed, as the day wears on, it becomes increasingly obvious that — aside from fans much too dedicated or drunk to care, the Amphitheatre in particular harbours little refuge from an extreme day such as today, and the crowd largely develops only as shadows consequently form over the nearby hills.

We head back out from the Amphitheatre in search of something cold and, by the time we return, the hill-shade has grown sufficiently for us to park ourselves for the next act. We watch a Good Samaritan help a woman with her inflatable bean-bag, which is definitely more of a mission to set up than it should have been (our little pocket of onlookers keeps cheering him on as he sprints from side to side, desperately waving the sad, pink sack alongside him as it takes too long to catch air), and applaud his ultimate victory.

Soon after this, the pit crowd starts to blossom, and out comes the young Brisbane alt-pop/R&B/li’l-bit-of-everything songstress Mallrat. She’s had a mammoth year in 2016, turning a whole slew of heads along the way to her well-attended outing here today. Joined by a schoolfriend DJ (from Mackay) and promising us a “weird time”, Mallrat easily kicks off her early shakiness to unleash a hotpot of old and new material, sure to please the well-versed and the just-introduced alike. Enjoyably, she peppers in a raft of lyrical references to make any Brisbane locals in the audience feel right at home (her sing-song assertion that “I don’t like the Valley/but I’ve got nowhere to be” is some #relatable #content). Oddly, a newly premiered (Falls exclusive!) track written in collaboration with The Jungle Giants and The Belligerents proves to be the weakest thing she does (perhaps a case of too many cooks) but her one-two punch of closing with standout track Inside Voices and a capable cover of Drake’s Pop Style ensures the lasting impact is a hugely positive one.

Less positive is the fact that, in the immediate aftermath of Mallrat’s set, parts of the crowd dissipate and leave a trail of garbage in their wake, despite a) the plentiful presence of bins, which are pretty much still unfilled because b) this festival is all of three hours old. Falls organisers and crew work their butts off to maintain the event grounds, and we (well, “the general public”) can’t even do them the courtesy of trying to keep things clean for less than a quarter of a day. As we stroll the grounds in between acts, it becomes clear this isn’t an isolated incident: it’s an abominable effort from the audience across the board.

 

This festival is less than three hours old. This is kinda disgraceful tbh #fallsfestival #byronbay

A photo posted by TheMusicComAu (@themusiccomau) on

Here to interrupt any chance of going down an environmentalist rabbit hole, however, is the always-reliable, ever-entertaining Spit Syndicate. The prolific Sydney pair proves so aware of the discomfort permeating the grounds that they’ve conscripted security guards on standby with hoses to provide their crowd with regular cooling, and the appreciative punters give 110% back in gratitude.

They grab us early with Inhibitions, win us over by advising, “No one’s been working harder than you guys — let’s show up the southern colder temperature!”, and continue to charm with a seasoned display of cocksure showmanship and deeply danceable grooves. We even score a cameo from “one of the most incredible and important voices in Australia right now”, Thelma Plum, who steps out to lend her brilliant vocals to a heartily received rendition of Hold On Me. A couple of One Day covers follow — Love Me Less and a re-jig of the collective’s take on Not Many by Kiwi rapper Scribe — before they round out with one of their own in Know Better (and a quick stage selfie for posterity).

Retro dance lords Client Liaison are arguably the first truly fortunate act so far, stepping out to greet the biggest crowd of the afternoon as the bulk of the day’s heat disappears behind a cloud and, consequently, the Amphitheatre’s hill. Flanked by their usual contingent of live performers (which includes triple j host Tom Tilley on the four-string), central duo Harvey Miller and Monte Morgan — who even slots in a costume change from black-leather-clad stud to golden-suited performance god — deliver a barrage of funk-and-groove-laden jams to their eager audience.

No step goes mistaken in their standout showing, which steamrolls through foot-moving attention-grabbers Pretty Lovers, Feeling, Hotel Stay and Feed The Rhythm, ably coaxing the crowd out of their already-seemingly shattered shells — and all before said wardrobe switch even takes place. “You guys have beaten the sun today,” Morgan beams, “because tonight the sun will go down, but you will stay up!” To keep the vibe alive, we’re then treated to Queen, Off White Limousine, and even a cover of Savage Garden’s Cherry Cola before World Of Our Love carries us through to their finish. If we had any sweat left in our bodies before this set, we sure as hell don’t now.

That’s ultimately probably a good thing because, as the first band of the actual night proper, NZ electro-pop luminaries Broods are the perfect soundtrack for some sitting way the hell down and not sweating at all. That’s not to say that the pit crowd — or those who have tagged in — don’t bring the noise: quite the opposite, in fact. The audience gives much back to the band as they drop early highlights Are You Home and Heartlines, the reaction to which leads vocalist Georgia Nott to marvel, “Damn, I’m done; I think that might be the highlight of the year!”

She and her co-conspirator, Caleb Nott, are seasoned performers, and their growing wealth of festival experience shines through the assured stage show they offer this evening. The pair carry themselves with obvious comfort but at no point appear entitled about their place on stage; rather, appreciation positively radiates down to their appreciative crowd, and the band finish their 2016 strongly with huge renditions of Burning All The Bridges and Couldn’t Believe, Georgia thanking the crowd for making “the last show we play in 2016 the best show we’ve ever played” as we ready ourselves for the final batch of acts.

A quick dinner later and we’re back at the Amphitheatre to watch the legendary Grandmaster Flash do his mythological thing. Opening with a (slightly too long) historical video about honing his DJ techniques after becoming obsessed with turntables back in the ‘70s, Flash ultimately lets fly with a solid hour of hits, all scratched up and intermixed. The relentlessly hyperactive hype man is accompanied by constantly changing, swirling visuals, and an undying insistence that we put our hands in the air. Among the laundry list of well-known tunes to get partial plays, N****s In Paris, Under Pressure and The 45 King’s 900 Number all score spins, before Flash takes the opportunity to pay tribute to late superstar George Michael by spinning the majority of Faith. Also nabbing a longer play than most is The Jacksons’ Blame It On The Boogie, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, and a ream of other old-school delights. We round out with a crowd sing-along of Happy Birthday for the man himself, celebrating his 59th at the stroke of midnight.

It seems an odd programming choice to follow one legendary DJ with another DJ legend in the making, but far be it from me to act like I know how to organise a festival. Either way — and despite his own misgivings — Hot Dub Time Machine comes out after Grandmaster Flash and takes us on a similarly schizophrenic sonic sojourn through the past 63-or-so years. “Before I do anything, I gotta give massive respect to Grandmaster Flash,” he says. “It's fucking terrifying to DJ after a man like that, but I'm gonna have a red-hot go!”

What follows is an almost-literal time-hop through the past half-a-century-plus, as Hot Dub Time Machine busts out snippets of countless chart-topping songs in chronological order. We move from 1954, where we start with Rock Around The Clock, to pass into the ‘60s (Twist & Shout, Born To Be Wild and more) and beyond, the audience treated to bits-and-pieces from the likes of The Jackson Five, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Fleetwood Mac, Spiderbait, AC/DC and even Easybeats frontman Steve Wright (Evie). It’s essentially the live-music equivalent of shuffling through iTunes previews, but the lush visuals and Hot Dub’s mischievous demeanour make it a hell of a party. He ultimately closes out the year with streamers, champagne and cameos from many of the day's performers — but we’re not quite out of the woods yet. As Hot Dub wraps up, we have just a little spell to catch our breaths and ready ourselves for the night’s final burst.

Soon enough (and at last), it’s the moment we have all literally been waiting for — the annual 10-second countdown ends, the hammer falls on 2016, and it officially hits 1 January in North Byron Parklands.

“Auuuuustraaaaliaaaaa…” a come-hither voice coos from on-stage, and with that we’re aware that Donald Glover’s Childish Gambino is in the house, helping us get the new year off to as stylish and soulful a start as possible. It’s only a couple of songs before Glover strips off his shirt as he woos the clearly fading audience by coaxing out a hugely energetic response — all things considered — for the dual punch of The Worst Guys and Worldstar, while Have Some also proves a highlight, as does a late appearance from The Palisades. A nearby punter admits he’s only interested in watching the set out of some perverse curiosity, “because I definitely don’t like his music”, but scores of others who probably actually do enjoy his tunes continue to filter out of the Amphitheatre into the wider festival grounds and campsite regardless of the show on offer. By the time we hit the campsite just after 1am, unusually, there are large lines for the shower already — often, those don’t start building up until later, or even the morning — which only reinforces that today’s revelry may have been a bit too much under the weight of the circumstances.

The day thus ends in weirdly sedate fashion; I’d arguably have switched Gambino with one of the earlier DJs to keep energy levels up, but, again, scheduling is not my forte. However, after the heightened exhaustion wrought by the unfortunate intensity of today’s weather, it seems we’re all just happy to see the back end of 2016 in every regard conceivable. We’re ready for you now, 2017. Let’s friggin’ do this.