Live Review: Paradise Music Festival

Friday
On paper, the inaugural Paradise Music Festival is a beautiful mix of ingredients: homegrown, up-and-coming talent; an insanely gorgeous mountaintop location in the Marysville region, still rebuilding after the '09 bushfires; a slick image and friendly vibes on the preparatory emails.
A carpark attendant directs punters from the back of her early '80s V8 ute. “I don't know where you should camp, but everyone seems to be heading that way,” she says, pointing up the hill between Lake Mountain's two massive, brand new – and only – summit-top buildings. It's 3pm on Friday, there are only 40 cars here. Certainly no two-hour crawling queue for entry. Campsites are dotted throughout the bush a few hundred metres away, which means Eskies, chairs and tents are lugged Tough Mudder-style uphill through the thin mountain air. Not a great start.
But the whole mountain is populated by these haunting dead gum trees, desolated by the fires. They're a blanket of light, light grey that creaks in the wind and creates stunning silhouettes in the daylight, twilight and moonlight. There are clearly not nearly enough people here, but the setting is just insane. Campsites are well grassed and close to the action, signage is clear and amenities are great. The two stages – Stage Paradise, set up on a toboggan run, and Clubland, in the basement of the Lake Mountain Visitor's Centre – are inspired set-ups.
Dark Arts' shoegaze, surf-haze and washed out lines are the perfect starting soundtrack on Stage Paradise in the early evening. Only 36 people watch on, but the vibe's still there, as frontman Gabe Strachan points out after the show: they're stoked to be here. The Red Lights follow, rocking their new EP with happy, Brit-smash energy and some pretty cute drum lines to offset the real catchy, rolling melodies. It's also really fucking cold. Like, the bands are having trouble hitting keys. And the fog's rolling in. Cold and empty. Feels like Canberra.
Up in the Alia Arts House (cafeteria area) Kumbucha Tea and Mountain Goat is flowing and Polat's on deck in the bar throwing out easy trip hop to the pre-drinking crowd. Downstairs in Clubland, through the installation-style glitter cave entrance, and past Paradise's first passed-out patron (face down and inert only a couple of hours in) in-house party starters Soccer Legends cheese things up to a half full, but jumping and smiling, crew.
The standard set is 40 minutes on the main stage and things move quickly. Melbourne cuties Alta really amp things up with a tight-as, grooving set that's oozing with control. A few months of solid gigging on the back of their Workers Club residency is paying dividends. Tell Me makes the hill-dwellers shake hips. Later in the night, headliners – inasmuch as Paradise has headliners – Elizabeth Rose, Oisima (getting trippy) and Client Liaison all kill it in a special trilogy. Client Liaison are a weekend stand-out – '80s synth-stepping for loving. Their cracker End Of The Earth echoes out fittingly, the duo bathed in a red stage glow, set against the alpine wind. Naysayer & Gilsun round out the night on the toboggan run, while Glass Mirrors and Mu-Gen explore whacked out territory in Clubland, to blissful yachting projections, way past the hour of three. Despite the lack of numbers (maybe 500 people all up), the punters are responsive and down to party.
Saturday
The gorgeous acoustic stylings of WAFIA ease the hungover into a picture-perfect day on Saturday. Only the sigh of relief from organisers threatens to interrupt the enraptured picnic vibe on the hill. This is what Paradise was supposed to look like. Like Elizabeth Rose the night before, WAFIA works in some '90s R&B, mashing and looping XX's Angels into TLC's Scrubs to finish. I'lls follow with a set of cruising, glitchy, soulful numbers – a cross between Thom Yorke and Wild Beasts that gets hard-driving and swirly at the end. Squarehead bring a big-stage oceanic sound next, working tension nicely, while up at Alia ZTN DJs keep the latte-sippers happy with some easy listening. Keeping the hazy guitar bands coming, The McQueens send out some The Kooks-sounding gap filler – Phoenix and Lana Del Rey covers – before House of Laurence class things up with their heavier, sunny beach rock.
Bloody Marys are passed 'round the hill, skin is roasting (a guy at the info desk says it's because the air's much thinner at altitude), and the espresso machine in the bar is doing a roaring trade. One gripe for many is on the food front: there was talk of food trucks, but instead there's only fries and sausages served out of the bar. The token system (one token for $2.50, two tokens for a beer) works well.
Into the evening, Rat & Co build up their simple chord progressions into a set of impressive jams – sparse and spacey with some real sweet work on the kit. This is howling dog music à la Explosions In The Sky. The slow jam to finish, with its reflective lead guitar line, is nice and mushy. The cute cheek of Brisbane garage crooners Millions fills out the little dance space at the front of the stage. Slow Burner breaks hearts and there are plenty of super fun moments in a tight collection. Chief Sydney act Glass Towers don't disappoint, although their Halcyon suffers from sound-tech issues. A giving bunch, obviously stoked to be here, triple j airtime hasn't exploded their egos too much. Melbourne Euro-drum machine, trance duo Forces deserve a larger crowd. Their mock elemental sound is almost the sound of the festival: super evolved, but playing the roles of primal creators. Their '80s disco tracks are a nice change-up. Young ones, Animaux, smash their big-band party set, replete with stage invasion, while post-funk derivers No Zu battle through more tech issues to thrash out a rocking end of night on Stage Paradise.
Friendships particularly, but also Boom and Deer, have Clubland going baller, with Thomas Russell's moving image projections setting things off in what is really a fucking awesome space to party in.
Sunday
Saturday night's high is not really repeated on the lacklustre, strangely post-punk/Aussie rock-leaning last day line-up. As the carpark empties, Darts and The Supporters push through, throwing out the weekend's best banter at the expense of a poor dude chundering conspicuously on the grass.
Paradise has the right set-up, it just needs the people. A slightly stronger technical set-up on the main stage, better food options and playing up to 'the art' potential of Paradise's brand (projections into these awesome trees, surely!?) should make next year a ripper.