Live Review: Jungle Love Festival

It's hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since the magical, third Jungle Love Festival, yet here we are again. While the bar has been set pretty damn high already, the festival's continual evolution has been nothing but promising and the fourth certainly looks set to be a cracker.

The forecast is set for rain all weekend and it's pelting down pretty hard for most of the Thursday night drive up to Imbil. Once arriving, it's obvious the weather has shaken things up somewhat, but the Jungle Love team do well to keep their calm, renegotiating the camping spaces to accommodate all the wide-eyed arrivals. A familiar sense of wonder and anticipation pervades the fields of Borumba Deer Park and no amount of downpour seems capable of dampening the collective optimism.

Friday

The overcast weather influences a slow start, leaving the Chai Tent's morning yoga workshops a little less busy than in past years. The creek is a different story, however. The humidity is high and everyone seems as eager as ever to jump in and chill. If anything the clouds make for a more relaxing float and the reduction in sunscreen is a definite bonus in terms of ecological concerns. Water aerobics stirs up the early dippers, then a Major Frazer DJ set starts to ramp up the day's celebrations, and by the time Chaux B2B Kundu take over the decks the festival is truly alive and kicking into flight mode.

The dance floor clears out for the first couple of songs by King Colossus, but a particularly powerful rendition of werejustmonkeysmadetoseeblue draws the circles back in. From here on the momentum continues to build, with more gyrating bodies letting loose to each successive song. This time 'round he's without his usual projection display, but the music is strong enough to hold up on its own. Another fantastically eclectic and unpredictable set, that sees the one-man-band pushing into new and exciting realms.

A walk around the festival grounds provides one with a veritable feast of street art and theatre, with many opportunities for audience participation among them. A quick trip up to Love Shack provides an array of workshops throughout the day, and right next store is a great little food market catering to an inclusive range of diets with deep fried bananas, vegan burgers, acai bowls and chip cones, to name a few. Not to mention, of course, festival favourites, Govindas, too; because no festival experience can be considered complete without a bowl of koftas! And to answer the prayers of many a coeliac, there's now a gluten-free kofta option too - yep, kinda like having a decade of Christmases come at once!

The skies open up and send many seeking shelter at the Chai Tent right as JB Paterson is commencing his set. Perfect timing really for the artist and punters alike. Paterson's gorgeous folk sounds makes the refuge that bit cosier and his charismatic banter between songs is damn entertaining. He wins some hearts over with a cover of Jackson Browne's These Days and has the whole tent participating in a singalong before his set winds down.

Photo: Aimee Catt

We're taken on a rollercoaster ride of styles between the two main stages in the later afternoon, with Mesa Cosa, Kaiit, and Karl S Williams respectively serving up another potent feast of punk, soul, and folk to whet a range of appetites.

With the night time finally upon us, the UK's Z-Star take control and charter a voyage deep into the dark heart of rock'n'roll. Frontwoman Zee Gachette's voice and playing is completely off the charts and the whole band sound absolutely explosive from the get-go. Their cover of Whole Lotta Love is so damn electrifying that Zepplin themselves would be hard pressed to deliver it with such success these days. To experience Gachette perform is like taking a lesson in musical electricity, leaving one bewildered, gasping for more, and grasping at the sole hope that she returns to our shores in the near-future.

New Zealand's Weird Together pull a world of musical flavours into an electronic cauldron and brew up an enlivening mix of dance music. Though they really bring the party, they also use their music as a platform to voice political concerns of compassion and unity. "Solidarity with Palestine," frontman Nick Dwyer yells, before wrapping the set up by repeating a mantra of "being nice to people from different countries!"

After a two-year hiatus LeSuits return to Jungle Love to remind us just how crazy and heavy funk can get. They take us on a manic journey through a funk odyssey complete with prog riffs and death metal growls, which somehow, oddly, don't feel out of place.

Festival favourites Monster Zoku Onsomb! ascend to a bigger stage this year, allowing them to showcase their freak rave to a larger audience and really turn their ghoulish mashes up to 11. There is something lost from the intimacy of the smaller stage, but the pros of having projections and a better PA make it a fair enough trade, allowing for an immersive experience that overloads the senses. They work the crowd into an absolute frenzy and send us all off on a high note, leaving us to monster wobble and wander our way into the deep of the night.

Saturday

It's another slow start with the seductive sound of the falling rain keeping many tucked away in their cosy nests until the later parts of the morning. It's actually a real relief to escape the typical tent torment of summer festivals. There're no rude awakenings by the unforgiving sun this weekend, and once it does finally heat up a little, the creek is a hangover's best ever friend. Rejuvenation is the order of the day out on the water, and once sinking in one can't help but wonder "is this real, or are we living in some strange and beautiful dream?"

One Dragon Two Dragon help to pump some new life into any floating cadavers and then Hemingway raise the energy a little more with some novel covers of the Avalanche's Frank Sinatra and Cypress Hill's Insane In The Brain. The Jungle Boogie position facing the creek entrance is prime real estate and it's hard to pry oneself away from this area at times, but the heavy sounds from afar have a lure all of their own.

The doom-laden riffs of Zong deliver on all their distant promise. These wondrously lethargic explorations of time and space feel right at home in this setting and are yet another affirmation of the far-reaching scope of this festival.

The weight of mountains continues to be conjured through the soundscapes of Sunny Coast stoner rock stalwarts Hobo Magic. Their stoner grooves are among the most potent in the country and do a great job of adding a little extra mass to the wonderfully heavy aura of this cloudy afternoon.

Once again the Chai Tent plays host to another year's Ruckus Slam (poetry slam) event, which invites a varied mix of talent to get up and showcase their linguistic style. The highly imaginative pool of performers are as unpredictable, funny and rambunctious as ever but what hits home the most is the good nature and heart shared by all.

Those lucky enough to catch Astro Travellers' amazing set at Jungle Love 2015 probably think they know what to expect, but this time 'round they get even more than they bargained for. With Bullhorn's Roman MC joining them for their set the seven-piece deliver an astounding hour of hip hop, pushing the genre to its live limits. When there's hip hop this good, right in our own backyard, one starts to wonder why we even bother with half the stuff being plugged on the airwaves.

Sliding on smooth and seedy, Sex On Toast are hugely entertaining to say the least. The ten-piece are a finely tuned and refined unit that bring the grooves and the laughs in equal measure. They amass quite a crowd early on and keep them amusedly transfixed for the duration of their set.

Photo: Kalem Horn

While the scene may have become a little oversaturated with 'post-rock' bands over the last half-decade or so, Sydney's Meniscus are a standout among many. The three-piece are tight as hell, and the live projections of visual artist Martin Wong help to translate the musicians' stark atmospheres into a powerful and immersive experience that transcends the norm.

Perth's Koi Child relay the baton for another stellar set of live hip hop. They float in an ethereal space that is reminiscent of the earlier eras of The Roots, yet the remarkable subtlety of their three-piece horn section brings something fresh and invigorating to the table of contents. MC Shannon Cruz Patterson's rhymes create an access point, inviting listeners in, so we too can glide effortlessly through their dreamy world of sounds.

None could be better suited to closing the festival than guitar maestro Darren Hart, aka Harts. It quickly becomes apparent why Prince, Quincy Jones and Questlove have sung his praises. His blazing concoction of funk, soul and rock is infectious to its very core. He pulls out all the moves, playing guitar with his mouth and behind his head with astonishing success, before telling us he's retiring his prized old guitar after this performance. His bass player and drummer are locked in super tight throughout and three of them deliver an absolute standout set, which stirs up one of the most elated dancefloors of the festival. The playing really says it all, but just before leaving the stage, he voices protest against major powers in the Australian music industry for not supporting him, leaving his message ring out with the final words "Msy music is for the people, not the industry!"

With the fourth Jungle Love coming to another climactic close, the atmosphere across the grounds is one of inspired tranquillity. The capacity festival has once again stood testament to the enduring potency of our creative communities and the potential of collective action. Few other events ever seem to deliver on so many fronts, and all this without reliance on major sponsorship, big-name bands, BYO bans, and major policing. The location, the curation, and the philosophy; the organisers and all involved haven't missed a beat yet. Thank you Jungle Lovers! Here's hoping something this special can be sustained for many years to come...