What We Learnt At Splendour 2016 Day Two
"My phone may be dead, but I feel alive, and I have Splendour to thank for that."
There’s something magical yet hilarious about the palpably pathetic energy that permeates festival grounds on the second day of multi-day events.
Splendour In The Grass is no exception from this phenomenon and, as we wander around the festival grounds waiting for the day’s events to unfold, it’s clear that those noble souls already up and about have the best of intentions, if not the physical follow-through, to party as heartily as they did yesterday. Oh, sure, there are lots of people inside; they’re just not really moving, the majority of folks just happily chilling in the shade of the hills near the entry to the Amphitheatre.
Despite the fact I’m holding a laptop, tweeting things on my phone and generally carrying myself with the air of completely unearned superiority that all media types possess, surly security guards block me – and several other working people laden down with bags of equipment – from entering the media tent (which is located in the gold bar, which I’m pretty sure the guards think I’m trying to scam my way into) until one o’clock in the afternoon, for no apparent reason. This is now a full hour after the day’s opening act, PLTS, starts their set.
Whatever, though; we use the setback to our advantage and go and check out Ngaiire at the Mix Up Stage, where she reigns resplendently in front of her doting subjects. We enjoy the shade and the tunes, and I wonder why I gave myself another act to review in the uncovered midday heat of the Amphitheatre.
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With the gold bar finally open, I make a very obvious point of bee-lining past security for the media tent in order to get rid of the kilograms of shit weighing me down before sprinting back to the Amp to catch Harts’ set.
What I do see of Harts is magnificent, the virtuosic guitarist bringing out a two-piece horn section borrowed from City Calm Down to provide a hearty dose of bombast to proceedings while I marvel (from nearby shade) at the dedication of those in the pit, rocking out in the unfiltered, searing 1pm heat.
We hang around for fun-loving US rockers Beach Slang, who offer up a set that seems to be a half-half split between actually playing music and just screwing around with each other. The band’s frontman James Alex tells the crowd to “Go out there and fall in love today”, which admittedly lifts my spirits a bit.
It’s Manchester post-punks Spring King who do actually snap me out of the funk that threatened to tank my day. Unlike the previous act, the English outfit carry no air of pretension, no entitled or bratty undertones seeping through. They’re all appreciation and professionalism from start to finish. That’s not to say they’re rigid or boring; in fact, they are also clearly having fun on stage, which – don’t get me wrong – they absolutely should be (in fact, I’d argue it’s a crucial element of performing), but they’re also clearly here to play a show, and play it well, and not even a minor technical setback can throw them off their game. It’s a fantastically energetic set, and exactly what the doctor ordered.
We head past the Mix Up Stage, where Joyride, aka one-half of The Meeting Tree, is manning the decks for the first of three DJ sets today, the final Meeting Tree gigs ever. His collaborator, Raph Lauren, only appears in cardboard cut-out form, though it doesn’t seem to have bummed out the audience, who are hanging on every beat, build-up and drop. Out of curiosity, we take a detour into Splendour In The Craft, where a group of dedicated seamstresses sit under a banner that reads “MEND IT LIKE BECKHAM”, promising to fix you up just right if your pants or other apparel has had a mid-fest mishap.
We swing back past the second Meeting Tree set, but Raph has not yet made a surprise appearance and it all seems to be more of the same, so we keep moving towards Paces and the promise of his special guests. The first, Tkay Maidza, makes her appearance relatively early in the set to wild applause, while the second (the winner of Australian Idol 2003, as Paces cheekily reminds the audience), Guy Sebastian, receives the kind of response I would never, ever have expected at a festival so heavily tied in with triple j. Regardless of your feelings about his music, his voice is objectively incredible. G-Seb laps up the adulation and steals the show, seemingly effortlessly. Honestly, it was such a subversively genius move on the part of the Gold Coast electro whiz at the decks to have made him a part of proceedings. I’d never have seen it coming.
We zoom back past the final Meeting Tree gig, where Joyride finally does something of note by getting his shirt off at the very end of the set, goaded into it by newly minted stage partner Sam Margin, of The Rubens. We don’t really have the time to dally, however, because At The Drive-in are about to take the stage back at the Amphitheatre. Despite being disappointed by their previous Splendour appearance a few years ago, I am so glad that I gave Cedric, Omar & co. the benefit of the doubt in 2016, because their set proves to be an utterly incredible one. Although his voice has weakened with age, Cedric’s stage presence has only intensified. I was trepidatious that this would be an appearance without founding guitarist/vocalist Jim Ward, but his replacement proves so adept that there are times that I actually forget Ward isn’t there. It’s a set crammed with personal and crowd favourites, and finishes with the promise of seeing us next year with a new album. I am ecstatic.
We stay put for The Cure – fuck trying to leave The Amphitheatre now and get back in – and watch with amusement as thousands of people pour in from the wider grounds to fill out the crowd space for the iconic act. Sensing three hours straight of watching Robert Smith might be a bit much (although apparently there is indeed an intermission, so… rats, I probably could have handled that), we venture towards the GW McLennan Stage, expecting that we and a few other souls will be the brave/stupid few who have left The Cure to give Matt Corby an audience.
Turns out we needn’t have bothered – his tent is literally overflowing with people by the time we get there, so much so that we’re forced to watch him from an adjacent bar enclosure rather than attempting to actually broach the sea of punters here to watch the honey-voiced troubadour. As Corby wraps up his unexpectedly mammoth set, we decide to end our night with Santigold rather than attempting to cross back to the Amp for the second half of The Cure. Judge me if you will, but squinting out into the poorly lit, utterly claustrophobic mess of people that have packed the grounds from our vantage point, you’d probably have done the same thing. It’s not long before we realise that it is not even close to a hard decision to justify, given the quality of Santigold’s performance; a vivid, technicolour light show, costume changes and back-up dancers all complement the chanteuse’s charismatic and powerful stage presence as we in the audience give ourselves over completely to the beat and let the music carry us to the night’s end.
On the way back to camp, I marvel at how my day has turned around, given the way I was feeling this morning. I make a silent vow not to let minor affronts sink my vibe tomorrow. After all, my phone may be dead, but I feel alive, and I have Splendour to thank for that.
check out our full day two review and gallery here.
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