Live Review: Falls Festival Fremantle

There was a strange mixture of excitement and disappointment to head through the gates at Fremantle Oval for Falls Festival 2018.

The festival had put together a fantastic showing, but the open caldron of the main stages and the tucked away Valley Stage just didn’t have the same charm as last year's Downtown location. In its place, though, punters were given more toilets, bars and food options then they’d probably ever seen at an Australian event, so the tears hardly lasted.

The 1pm gate time meant some fans were sprinting to stages in order to catch opening acts. If you want to warm up a day’s worth of arriving punters, DZ Deathrays know exactly how to do it. Kicking off with their latest firestarter, Shred For Summer, the Brisbane garage thrashers were relentless in their aggression to the still dreaming Falls crowd.

Being no strangers to a midday festival heat having cut their teeth in the Brisbane scene, the overflowing setlist packed punch after punch with Cops/Capacity and Blood On My Leather and Gina Works At Hearts closing off a brilliant launch of live music for the two-day stretch.

While some moved across to catch The Jungle Giants get things jumping with On Your Way Down, the majority seemed to be making the journey down towards the sun-baked Valley Stage to catch Alex Lahey. Quickly on her way to becoming a festival must-see, Lahey created a backyard band vibe with her contagious enthusiasm and sounds like she should be taking over the main stage. Opening with the hook-riddled title track of her latest LP, I Love You Like A Brother, her set was remarkably catchy, even for the freshest of listeners.

Hometown heroes Methyl Ethel boosted their mainstage slot with another local on assist as Stella Donnelly took on guitar, bass and keys duties throughout, giving an extra luscious sound to Femme Maison/One Man House, though a great deal of eyes locked on the opposing stage.

2017 meme culture has given us two things - the first is an incessant need to refer to everything possible as ‘dank’, the second is a near fetish degree of obsession for the works of Daryl Braithwaite. The ARIA Hall Of Famer had the crowd eating out of his 69-year-old hand, dropping the best of Sherbet as well as a selection of his solo catalogue, it was all destined to pale in comparison to one. Who knew back in 1990 that almost thirty years later a simple cover of a Rickie Lee Jones track would have an entire festival screaming along, people dressing in dedication and people literally sprinting towards the stage to join the experience, but ladies and gentlemen, that is The Horses.

You’d struggle to find another band that creates an atmosphere as positive as The Smith Street Band at a festival. From frontman Wil Wagner speaking out of his own mental health issues and encouraging others to do the same to whipping together a bouncing cover of The Killers' When You Were Young, it’s constant smiles from both the band and crowd. It’s taken some time for their latest release, More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me, to create the sort of live power as something such as Young Drunk, but the strength of Song For You, Death To The Lads and Birthdays is undeniable now.

Angus & Julia Stone have managed to adapt their recent theatre tour show to a festival stage with success. Stripping the set down to core tracks like Big Jet Plane, My House Your House and Snow and keeping a wonderful mood defining lighting production, the pair's slow-burning performance did what was needed to capitalise on the previous high energy sets.

It likely wouldn’t have mattered anyway as the main stage lights were soon locked onto the scrolling visual approach of Glass Animals and an immediate dance party. The English indie pop outfit were electric from the start, dropping in their Like A Version cover of Crazy and setting feet ablaze with Season 2 Episode 3 and Pork Soda, it seemed a strange turn to have them playing three sets from close when they are clearly capable of tearing the house down.

The jarring juxtaposition in energy of the aforementioned and Fleet Foxes was too much for many. The clearing of the main stage area was no account for the band's sublime performance though, the wonderfully rich instrumentals, whimsical lyrics and sweeping harmonies were entrancing for those who remained. Taking in the majority of their 2008 self-titled album and drenched with emotion with each song, it was a salivating show for fans and one that some will be jealous to have missed.

Ultimately, the day belonged to Flume as a sea of dancing punters would attest to. Standing alone under a lighting array that at times looked more like a space battle than a festival stage it was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, the Sydney producer's mix wavered between hit and miss as oddly his stellar Skin record failed to resonate with the crowd.

Some dreary heads of punters were caught out from gates again at the beginning of day two, the odd few who forget that weekend festivals need some form of pacing is inevitable, but having the first day starting at 1pm and then shuffling back an hour earlier on the second is just cruel.

Ironically, it’s Dune Rats that managed to awaken most from their possibly substance-fuelled slumber of the previous day with their high energy blasts at the main stage. Turning Fremantle Oval into a West End house party, the Dunies gave it all with reckless abandon, Red Light Green Light, Scott Green, 6 Pack, Bullshit and a special appearance from Drapht, at this point, there were no longer excuses for not being awake.

It was probably the most important and buzzed about sets of the weekend after recent events at the other Falls Festival dates over the new years period, but the appreciation beamed to Camp Cope before they’d even played a note justified all actions the trio had taken. Given the band's songs are already emotionally charged in their lyrical themes, the bursting passion of their set and fresh sound in a few tracks from their upcoming LP How To Socialise & Make Friends further fuelled the crowd into outstretched applause at each song break.

The main stage received two Vince Staples performances in a way, the first, consisting of the first half of his allocated slot, was complete fire. Spitting vicious rhymes and shaking the crowd as he stepped along the stage, this was the Staples that has been given such high billing at Coachella later in the year. The second half was a hot mess, seemingly losing sound in his monitors, Staples was visibly agitated and didn’t take a step further, locking himself to the mic stand and gritting teeth until the set ended. The technical issues didn’t stop there but thankfully didn’t get any worse either.

Being that the immediately following act has a little bit of a history of walk-offs, having a noticeable volume cut just a few tracks in did surprisingly little to alter the rock god demeanour of the former Britpop frontman Liam Gallagher.

Gallagher was not only showing that he can still be every bit in his prime these days as he could back then, but he’s not afraid to remind the crowd just why he’s on that stage. Rock'N’Roll Star, Morning Glory, Some Might Say, Cigarettes & Alcohol and a crowd charged Wonderwall all fuelling that '90s tingle. Between the flares being lit, shoulder stacking three people high and strangers clinging to each other to belt out a tune, it was only one piece of Oasis, although when it’s this close it also may not matter.

The noticeable wave of the unknown hitting the crowd whenever Foster The People fired up a newer track consistently followed the same pattern, discovery, confusion, acceptance, dance. Perhaps it was the chiselled style of frontman Mark Foster or possibly the bands unyielding vigour, nevertheless it was amassing new fans by the minute and choice covers such as The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop or the teasing bassline to 2011 megahit Pumped Up Kicks was keeping the crowd heaving enough to form a last-second mass exodus to Stage 2 when the final chord hit for Richard Wilkins to introduce Peking Duk.

Over the two days to this point, no act received the type of hysteria that Peking Duk grasped in this Falls crowd, throwing in their complete bag of tricks with bootleg remixes, dirty beats and an endless stream of stage antics like air blasts and confetti canons, the pair completely laid waste to Fremantle Oval to the point that not even they would have expected.

This didn’t really make things easy for The Kooks to follow up on. Garnering a bit of fanfare from the previous Gallagher attendees, their pop rock just didn’t resonate with the impact which you’d expect from a band playing so high on the bill. The atmosphere would build on occasion for a single or most anything from Inside In/Inside Out, it just couldn’t sustain on such a large stage.

The curse of the Peking Duk set didn’t stop there either. We’ve seen from previous tours that Run The Jewels can bring the party, can close a festival and can snatch every inch of attention there is, but it just didn’t happen. From the second Killer Mike and El-P took to the mics a steady stream of listeners were heading to the gates. RTJ was present and firing, giving Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck), Blockbuster Night Pt.1, Stay Gold and Sea Legs as well as even hitting their trademark banter throughout, the crowd was simply already spent, and it resulted in one of the smallest main stage crowds of the day and even for fans of the duo, it was a disappointing end to the weekend.