Live Review: Splendour In The Grass 2017 Day One
Splendour's back!
If there's one band to kick off something like Splendour In The Grass, especially the biggest stage of them all, the Amphitheatre, we're glad it was a band that utilised the whole space. WHARVES walked out onto stage like they belonged up there - any first-festival nerves were not present (or at least very hidden very well) - and within their very first few songs, they were throwing themselves across the stage, playing like mad men, with the small but dedicated crowd hanging onto every motion, every word that frontman Matthew Collins shouts out.
Winston Surfshirt is the perfect choice to kick things off in the Mix Up Tent, their chilled brand of hip hop-soul making for a nice slow transition into the frenzied motions of this vast festival. Things stayed pretty chilled for most of the set, but the time they drop their single Be About You the energy well and truly ramps up and the festivities really feel like they are shifting into gear.
Jarrow are tasked with kicking off the GW McLennan stage and they do so respectfully by acknowledging the Aboriginal land and Elders past and present. Led by 20-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist Dan Oke, they're quietly talented with unexpected groove (songs in 9/8, anyone?) with charming vocals and honest lyrics. The turnout isn't too bad for this early in the day and the bassist gives a little shoutout to their mates whooping in the crowd. They're talented garage poppers already - and young too.
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Groups of gypsies, skaters, metalheads, and a spandex Waldo all bounce as one as Ocean Grove seemingly explode out of nowhere through the Amphitheatre speakers. Their nu-metal and alt-hardcore cuts from debut album The Rhapsody Tapes receive only two reactions: pure headbanging elation or quizzical whispering between huddles of friends. Bassist Dale Tanner and frontman Luke Holmes cover every inch of the grand stage, delivering vicious refrains and raspy, catchy choruses atop a wall of distortion. Intimate Alien and These Boys Light Fires see Splendour 2017's first circle pit and teepeeing, but the thrashy vibe is brought back to earth with their anthemic The Wrong Way - dedicated by Holmes to the late Chester Bennington. The enjoyably chaotic set finishes with Thunderdome, with band member Running Touch delivering some serious sinister vocals between his accidentally comical rollerblading around the stage.
Perfectly timed to coincide with the release of her new album, Perennial, today's performance by Vera Blue is a celebratory occasion to say the least. Each element of her show, everything from her costume to the visuals and lighting, is tuned to near-perfection and her astounding voice brings the whole package into wondrous fruition. She has the crowd completely enamoured throughout the entirety of the set and brings it all home on the most powerful of notes with the gorgeous closer Hold.
Whoa, The Wilson Pickers quintet are all lined up in one row with their mics and instruments Mumford-style! Lush three and four-part harmonies foreground the band's bluegrass sound and we're sad to see no one in the crowd is having a bit of a hoedown. With jaunty harmonica lines, slide guitar, a banjo (care of Ben Salter), and taking it in turns with lead vocals, the band are a great taster of the calibre of country acts coming out of Queensland at the moment.
Acting as if every second of their 40-minute set is crucial, Melbourne rockers Kingswood get straight down to business with one of their strongest rock tunes, Micro Wars. Tracks from their new album Golden and Atmosphere induce instant singalongs and approving head bops from the growing Amphitheatre crowd. The warm harmonies of frontman Fergus Linacre and lead guitarist Alex Laska soar across the mini-valley, but the inclusion of female backing vocalists and a two-person brass section threatens to unravel their soulful-blues sound - largely due to a poor mix. However, the band's swagger and several confetti bursts keep the crowd absorbed and grooving along to their upbeat setlist. Laska almost steals the show with solo after solo and a stream of guitar changes, but Big City comes across a touch lame compared to the barnstorming Ohio, a punchy cover of Destiny's Child Say My Name, and the deliciously fuzzy closer Creepin.
People are getting down to Cosmo's Midnight's loud, trappy beats when we head back to Mix Up around 3pm. The duo play tunes like Trapped as glittered punters throb and wobble their legs to the beat. They mix songs like Calvin Harris's Slide into their set which sends the audience into a singing frenzy, especially when the pair rip into triple j favourite, History, featuring a guest appearance from the song's vocalist Page IV - her voice isn't as controlled as it is on record but it's still cool to have a live singer.
A very vocal crowd welcomes American songstress Maggie Rogers to the GW McLennan Tent. Rogers - sporting a striking blue and white jumpsuit - immediately entrances the adoring crowd with a lullaby built upon a sample of chirping crickets. With moves similar to fellow young pop sensation Lorde, Rogers and the crowd dance in jagged unison to her saccharine soundscapes and falsetto melodies. Dog Years and On + Off see Rogers serenade with beautiful dream-pop choruses and steady beats, while performing a sort of stomping ballet routine with bird-like arm movements. Each song in the set showcases Rogers' experimental take on electronic-pop, while funky bass lines and progressive live beats keep the tracks from sounding too alike. Her breakthrough single Alaska triumphantly closes her first Australian set, but the tune halfway through - which saw her sling on a guitar for a song "written back when I was 17" - shows Rogers is not yet ready to be pigeonholed to just her quirky pop offerings.
After a forced lunch and break from the bands and the sun, we rush over for garage pop angels Big Scary. Everything about the set is absolutely magical. Front and centre is Tom Iansek and behind the drums Joanna Syme is throwing some chat to the crowd. It's a beautiful time, even though the sun is bright just sitting on the hill and letting the music flow over you, we realise there's nowhere we'd rather be than here.
Dressed in white and accompanied by a ball-of-energy guitarist, Alice Ivy greets her modest crowd - which includes four shaggy Pikachus - with some absolutely throbbing beats. After a few minutes building up her mix, Ivy commandeers the guitar and delves deep into her thumping samples and in an expansive rendition of Touch. Inviting her guitarist back on stage, Ivy introduces her voice to the infectious house soundscape for a surprising and very cool medley of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams and her own originals. Promised as a track "to get freaky to", Get Me A Drink sees shapes thrown in every direction as the melancholic synthesisers sweep through the Tiny Dancer tent. The mix slowly descends into a trippy take on Almost Here, featuring a tasteful amount of swing and horn samples, much to the delight of the now large crowd of glitter queens and rave lords.
It's a week in from the release of The Kite String Tangle's debut album and today Danny Harley is firing on all cylinders. Not only is it a pumped-up stage production compared to his last Splendour performance, but the addition of two accompanying musicians, plus an alternating two-piece horn section and feature vocalist, go a long way in making the set feel like a much more complete live experience. While the new material comes across well, it's still the familiar gems Arcadia and Given The Chance that are the real movers.
At the GW McLennan tent, we're embraced by the soft, crooning vocals of Julia Jacklin, shining bright and vibrant in a blue dress. The way she sings, it's almost as if she's the only one on stage, even though her backing band are nothing short of terrific. We're so absorbed in the music, but a quick glance around brings us face to face with all manner of friends; the true, beautiful serendipity of Splendour. Jacklin ends her set, and we depart in a big huddle of mates, happy as can be.
Riding high on the currents of her whirlwind success, Tash Sultana brings an electrifying presence to the Ampitheatre main stage. The one-woman-music-machine completely delivers with the kind of highly charged performance that demonstrates just why she's fast becoming such a worldwide sensation. She confidently springs back and forth between synths and loop pedals to lay the foundations, before whaling away on her guitar with an ecstatic fervour that is absolutely infectious. While the set doesn't quite connect with the audience on the same level it does at an event like Woodford, it's still nothing short of a success.
Set Mo have actually started a couple minutes early at Tiny Dancer, the circus tent under which a smaller but similar crowd to the Mix Up tent dance and frolic. The guys are dancing behind their decks, one in black and one in white, as they switch between tunes. The cold is settling upon punters now so we're all really trying to move and keep warm. One guy is fist pumping the big plastic placards with the Splendour emergency patron helpline number on it - hilarious, but also sort of helpful. The guys play a new tune with Asta that we're the first to hear, too.
Over at the Mix Up tent, we're excited to see American rapper Lil Yachty, and throw some high energy dance moves about. We've got nothing on Yachty though, as he jumps around the stage like a monster, almost never stopping, and never missing a single word. It's exactly what we needed though, reaching that halfway point in the day, and we meld into the crowd of people. Just as quickly as he started, the set's finished, and as we leave the throng of bodies behind, we realise the sun is slowly falling, and we quickly redress ourselves in the many layers that were shed, to avoid the oncoming chill of winter.
There's really no going wrong with an electronic music experience that heavily incorporates wind chimes and sax and DD Dumbo has realised this better than most. His live band brings an added organic feel into the live translation of his songs, with gems like Alihukwe and Walrus sounding better than ever. The set feels like it covers a lot of territory, drawing elements of funk and soul into a vast fabric of relaxed electronic, which makes for a great journey for the entirety of the duration.
Back at the Amphitheatre, we're just in time to see Canberra duo Peking Duk, and we're hard pressed to find a spot on the grass close enough to see their faces, let alone get into the thick of it up the front. Peking Duk are playing an intense show, and the cold isn't setting them back at all as they whip out banger after banger for a delighted crowd.
'80s synthesisers and neon lights announce Luke Million well before his silhouette appears behind his keyboards and MIDI consoles. He jumps between his many music-making toys, crafting layers of fantastically dated electronica - all with comedic grandeur. Million's use of vocoder, especially in Fear The Night, his signature keytar (which unfortunately became an air-keytar during Light & Sound), and heavy strobes keep the Tiny Dancer crowd grooving. While his glitchy progressions, retro tone filters, and charmingly cheesy sound effects all fit his smooth aesthetic, his yet-to-be released track Come Together unfortunately sounds more like a Daft Punk Discovery B-side. However, his covers of Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall and the Stranger Things theme song, plus Sam Sparro's guest appearance in Back To The Rhythm make Million a damn good choice for anyone feeling like a carefree boogie.
Bathed in red lights, BANKS has brought contemporary dancers and a finessed stage show to the Mix Up tent. The dancers are cloaked in weird black body socks so their arms are webbed when they wave them around, creating odd silhouettes. Diehards scream back lyrics to Fuck With Myself and Gemini Feed to her, with the tent packed to the hilt. She's got huge black sleeves, swishing around like a musical witch, always shrouded in smoke and shadows, rarely ever spotlighted or fully visible. Sometimes she and her dancers arch their backs in rapid succession, looking almost possessed. It's obvious that a huge contingent of Splendour-goers have come specifically to see Banks though, screaming at literally every advent.
While it may have been a surprise to see American indie-rock band Real Estate on this year's line-up, the early evening slot for the polite five-piece makes perfect sense. The band's easy-going sound belies the anxious and contemplative lyrics from lead singer Martin Courtney, with lines like "There's too much to focus on" from Younger Than Yesterday serendipitously capturing the spirit of feeling washed out at a music festival. Their set is a broad selection from their four studio albums, opening with Stained Glass and Serve The Song, and featuring a dazzling performance of recent single Darling within the first few tracks. However, it's the songs from Atlas and Days that resonate the most, and the band finish their set with It's Real as the crowd sing along.
Brisbane's Young Franco gets the Tiny Dancer stage absolutely cranking with his heavy mix of hip hop, disco and electro beats. It's packed pretty tight from the get-go, but soon turns into a crammed sweatbox half way through when his massive sound draws in a huge number of stragglers departing the close of Banks' neighbouring set. Don't U Want Me and Drop Your Love draw us deep into the folds of what is a wondrously cathartic dance session, and by the end most in the crowd are left dazzled, wishing for more. It's surprising highlights like this that really make the whole festival experience so valuable.
Vance Joy is playing headline sets at festivals these days, and his band has grown in number to accommodate the demand. As a result, there's five additional musicians on the stage with James Keogh, including a two-piece horn section that makes every song sound like a sunset. The setlist is mostly songs from his debut, self-titled album, now four years old, so it feels strange seeing him visiting the festival without a new record. However, he promises a new album is on the way, and plays some new tunes towards the end of his performance, including Lay It On Me and Call If You Need Me. It's the sincerity with which he sings that is the reminder of the wholesome, good-guy image that won him his popularity in the first place, and it will be interesting to see how far this folky-charm can run until he feels the need to broaden his sound. There's an indicator of this before the obligatory performance of Riptide, when he throws in a jumbled cover of Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al, the slinky bassline and surrealist lyrics perhaps an indicator of where he could still go.
DJ HMC is well and truly into his set at the Tiny Dancer stage. The throng of dancing people we immerse ourselves into helps us warm up, and all too soon we're back out into the cold.
An over-spilling GW McLennan tent greets Fremantle's San Cisco and the super catchy hooks they're known for quickly turn the crowd into frontman Jordi Davieson's private choir. About You sees a rare fiery vocal delivery from Davieson, while drummer Scarlett Stevens keeps the vibe upbeat with plenty of fun drum fills. The wobbling guitars in Magic help the song match the laid-back, tropical stage design, which is further emphasised by Stevens and Davieson's charming falsettos in the appropriately-named summer-pop anthem Beach. The Distance takes on a funky, disco groove with a killer guitar solo by Josh Biondillo, while Hey, Did I Do You Wrong? evokes a singalong supported by seemingly every female voice in the festival grounds.
There's an impatient atmosphere in the Mix Up tent before Cut Copy take to the stage. The chilly night breeze barely has any room to run between the legs of the crowd members, who are packed together like sardines, and everyone seems particularly disgruntled with the irksome DJ duo killing time between bands. People have come here to dance, and it doesn't help that the Melbourne electronic band open with Need You Now and new song Airborne, neither of which are particularly dancefloor starters. Thankfully, Nobody Lost, Nobody Found and Saturdays arrive soon after, and the crowd gets moving without any further hesitation. However, the set list feels uneven, and the stray highlights like Take Me Over and Lights & Music feel like necessities to keep the crowd engaged, as the lighting crew overcompensate with an abundance of flashing strobe lights.
Greeting the crowd first and foremost with big waves from the front of the stage, the sisters HAIM are straight into blockbuster single Want You Back. It's way less '90s-sounding live - more country, actually - but it's still so much fun. Este 'Bassface' Haim and Alana bounce off each other, grinning back to back, while Danielle leads the crowd with her soulful croon. The girls are all lined up at the front, each wearing a piece of black patent leather (or is it PVC?) - true family band behaviour. They're playing a lot off their first album, If I Could Change Your Mind, Don't Save Me, The Wire and even My Song 5, interspersed with a few newies. Este is a super talented bassist and slaps and pops like it's second nature, and Alana juggles her guitar, keys and cowbell with ease. Este jumps into the crowd for a little surf (never mind that she's wearing a mini skirt), then they all have an onstage dance party which just puts a smile on everyone's face. They're all so lovably goofy - no pretense, just a good fucking time. They end with an epic drum face-off between the three of them plus their live drummer for new slow burner Right Now: literally mindblowingly awesome.
We're back to the GW McLennen tent, for an act we've been waiting all day to see. It's the man himself, Father John Misty, and we push as close as we can get as he softly croons to the crowd, embracing us with his voice as children, lovers, friends, wrapped up and teleported away, hanging onto his every word with sincere devotion. There's something about that man that can instil such adoration in his fans. His set is so full of a subdued energy that it's absolutely captivating.
Melbourne DJ and producer Nite Fleit is spinning some aggressively-fast techno tunes over at the Tiny Dancer stage, with a small but loyal group of dancers in front of her. It's the type of set that skirts between genres - sometimes techno, sometimes house, sometimes techno and house - and it's all the sensory stimulation once could ask for at this time of night. Nite Fleit's presence is cool and collected behind the decks, as she foregoes any stage antics and focuses on playing one banger after another. It's probably a bit much for some punters, but it seems like the audio-equivalent of an energy drink for those getting down to the sounds, as the crowd rave into the night.
Four years since they last performed in Australia, British mournful dream-pop purveyors The xx take to the Friday night headlining set with plenty of flair. Wearing black, positioned in front of six gigantic rotating mirrors, and illuminated by a swarm of white lights, the trio burst into their minimalistic back catalogue Intro and Crystalised. The vibe and lighting hues then quickly change with the emotion-packed Say Something Loving, encouraging many couples to hold each other tighter than they already were. Tracks from their new album I See You come thick and fast, raising the melancholic vibes to a more relatable Friday night level with soft dance tracks Dangerous and I Dare You. Compared to their earlier releases, everything about their 2017 crop of songs sounds stronger, bolder and more energetic. Brave For You morphs into a morbid dance track, but is immediately countered by their irresistibly cute indie anthem - and rare hopeful narrative - VCR. The set is then turned on its head by Jamie xx, as he hits the decks to turn Shelter, Loud Places, and the beginning of On Hold into bonafide club fillers. After professing their unconditional love for everyone at Splendour, Romy Madley Croft leads the crowd in the night's final sing-along with Angels - an uplifting end to a set that shows the trio are completely at home in their new musical direction and live show.
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