Live Review: Pharrell Williams, Baauer, Nina Las Vegas

Pulling the back fences forwards has made the Riverstage feel a bit more intimate tonight, a star-littered sky suitably complementing a show from one of pop music's biggest names. First on though is triple j party princess Nina Las Vegas, and she once again proves herself more than up to the task, her sonic versatility and choice track selection showing she's on point with the sounds of now. Flashes of Ryan Hemsworth, The Aston Shuffle and Wave Racer provide highlights, but if she complains once more about us relaxing on the grass hill we'll never tune into House Party again.

Things take a turn for the intense when NYC trap lord Baauer steps behind the decks. His thumping beats are made even darker by strange visuals which feature everything from masked prison guards with batons to piles of skulls. And fire – lots of fire. He breaks up bottom-heavy hip hop tracks with a bit of Flume and AlunaGeorge, and shows off his solid remixing skills through his rework of Disclosure's You & Me. But Baauer doesn't play Harlem Shake, which is as big a middle finger as he could give to his fans considering that without that track, and the help of TheSunnyCoastSkate, he wouldn't be standing on this stage in the first place.

Then without much more accompaniment than DJ Eque's beats and two dancers' moves, the cat in the hat Pharrell Williams struts on stage, soaking up the adulation before launching into an introductory party medley featuring but not limited to Swedish House Mafia's One, Snoop's Drop It Like It's Hot and Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl. Ten minutes have barely passed and already you get a grasp on just how much hand the 40-year-old has had in popular music throughout the last 20 years. The hat, by this stage, has begrudgingly taken a backseat.

Ditching his shirt to rip out N*E*R*D bangers Lap Dance and She Wants To Move, Pharrell calls for some “beautiful oestrogen” onstage, before running through Beautiful, Frontin and Blurred Lines as a bevy of ladies fawn all over him. But none of them can hold a flame to local lass Cherise, who wins Pharrell's heart by flying through the verses of Major Lazer's Aerosol Can and just parties like a general legend. She's lucky to get side of stage for the rest of the show, Pharrell admits he's lucky to have shared the song with her, and then we all Get Lucky with the Daft Punk mega hit. But the showman isn't done with the clunky segues just yet, waxing verbally about world peace, overcoming differences and moon men on that “little white planet”, before concluding with not one, but two run throughs of Happy, even diving into the crowd for the final effort to graciously get mobbed by the adoring masses.
You can't help but smile.