Live Review: Sugar Mountain

Trying to locate the festival site via Grant Street proves very challenging indeed thanks to endless barriers and detoured access through to Sturt Street. Many punters pause to consult maps along the way and some are overheard phoning friends who are already inside Sugar Mountain for directions. It's a full half-hour walk/stand looking around and scratching head in bewilderment from parking on St Kilda Road to arriving at the box office. It's also windy and dusty AF onsite, but there's nothing that could really be done about that.

Unceremoniously plugging in her guitar, Stella Donnelly begins the day on the Dodds Street stage to a small-but-devoted crowd. A midday set time complements her jazz-inflected, hazy, plainspoken energy as she runs through songs off her 2017 EP Thrush Metal. Midway through her quiet and rapturous set, the opening notes to Boys Will Be Boys ring out. As they hang in the humid air, Donnelly recounts the story about which this song is penned, telling us one of her friends was sexually assaulted. She then addresses the perpetrator through this song's lyrical content: "I will not let you rest." If 2017 was the year of #MeToo, 2018 will be more #ittakesone with Donnelly helping to lead the conversation.

Over at Boiler Room, Eclair Fifi plays some '80s soundtrack-esque jams as people sit or stand around and gawk while gently bopping their heads. Hey, what do you expect? It's just gone 1pm, ok? Strings of silver and gold streamers hang from the structure's ceiling and resemble disco Muppets blowing in the breeze. Punters are seen reaching for their sunnies when smoke machines are activated since smoke can easily be mistaken for dust.

Curious as to whether Merlyn Theatre houses music, theatre or a combination of both, we enter the space to get a good posi for Marcus Whale x Athena Thebus presenting Lucifer and discover the stalls section is standing room only. Multiple punters wave paper fans to keep cool in the front section and this is definitely one hellava coolsie crowd. There's a mound of boulders on stage. A robed figure stands atop and sings plaintive, beseeching songs. We're captivated. Had the performance continued in this same vein, we would be perfectly content. But then spotlights bookend the singer to illuminate a pair of drummers and the beats further elevate what we already define as fantastic. When a brass section comes into focus up in a stage-left balcony, like a group of celestial angels, we collectively lose our shit. Unbridled creativity such as this achieves inspired results.

In Merlyn Theatre's foyer, there's an old-school Pac-Man-style arcade game called Snackade. As we watch, we notice actual snacks such as chocolate gold coins are manually fed into the machine from the back before moving along a conveyor belt and being spat out the other side. An assistant is on hand to catch the snacks with a fishing net. So good!

Not so good is the smiley-face-decorated deal bag we spy floating in one of Merlyn Theatre's ladies' toilets after two 'ladies' suspiciously exit the same cubicle. Think of the marine life, people! We're pleased to see the "Sugar Mountain Is For Everyone" safe spaces manifesto on the backs of toilet doors, however.

By the time we leave Merlyn Theatre, Eclair Fifi is now dealing piano-driven bangers with perfectly placed hi-hats so we shuffle in Boiler Room for a bit. We'll keep a keen eye out for the return of this captivating Scottish DJ to our shores. It's so good seeing squads being SunSmart and applying sunscreen to mates' bods. But then Love Deluxe is a bit of a slow build, people are overheard announcing they're bored and then clocked leaving the area. We follow suit.

Continuing the theme of solidarity for the day at Dodds Street, Sydney four-piece Body Type arrive on stage, all wearing local band Camp Cope's T-shirts that read, "The person wearing this shirt stands against sexual assault and demands a change," to campaign against sexual assault at music festivals. Their set starts grungy, fuzzy and slyly upbeat, and stretches that same numbing feeling through 45 minutes. The lead singer's air kicks and cheerful energy are part Iggy Pop part Karen O. Vocals are shared through different songs, with a drifting jam extending through the middle of the set. A brand new, unreleased track is a highlight with tight harmonies and squalling guitar cutting through the oppressive and inescapable sun. Premiering new songs live is always the best way to hear them!

Over in Merlyn Theatre, the darkened space's cavernous static energy carves a wide divide from the sweat-soaked masses and joyous noise outside its walls. It's a perfect setting for English electronic producer Actress, whose ambient tunes seem handcrafted for this sparse, industrial setting. His set is free-flowing, with barely discernible drums bubbling above the washes of white noise and digital hiss. The lighting and liquefying, contorting projections are crucial to keeping the audience entranced and the subtle, recurring keys at set's end are a shimmering palette cleanser after the futuristic density of the past 50 minutes.

The Boiler Room is a crowded, sweaty pit of dancers and chances of glimpsing the performers are next to none, so the Dodds Street stage beckons once more. Walking back through Sugar Mountain's site, there always seem to be an endless supply of lounging punters entrenched in conversation and eating Philly Cheesesteaks or chips. Roving Sample beer carts are a welcome addition this year.

The food truck section is a gastronome's delight. Overheard: “I dunno if you’re talking about gobi or misu.” Um, mac’n’cheese croquette, anyone? Hell, yes! Just one, please, so that we also have room for an After Dinner Mint ice-cream sandwich from the Messina truck. While we munch, we enjoy the distorted sounds of Beaches - who sport aforementioned, Camp Cope-designed "The person wearing this shirt stands against sexual assault..." tees - on Dodds Street stage. And many more of these T-shirts are spied on the bods of punters throughout the day. Wow, one of the riffs in their song Arrow calls to mind Before Too Long by Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls! The shimmering, psych-rock sounds of Beaches are like an aural heat haze and those assembled are silenced by their brilliance.

The Sugar Mountain site incorporates the 'Yellow Peril' in 2018, making the controversial sculpture a centrepiece for the day. 

Best bar onsite: Trash Tiki pop-up, which utilises milk crates for its structure and serves super-strong (bordering on moonshine) cocktails. It’s awesome to hear Barcelona Bar pumping out Pull Up To The Bumper as we wander on by, which amplifies our anticipation for the Grace Jones live experience in a coupla months. There's heaps of waste scattered around the site, though, and it would be wicked to see a few recycling initiatives implemented down the track.  

Suddenly, Ara Koufax take us to da club (probably Revs) before 4pm. We're not really ready for this vibe yet, so we scoot back to Boiler Room in search of some prime dancefloor real estate. Is Fantastic Man actually fantastic, though? Up for discussion.

The CTRL + ALT booth is a trip. We’re handed bottles of naturally sweetened soft drink and instructed to lie back on a giant waterbed to wave the soft drink bottle at an interactive digital ceiling and, voila! It becomes a GIF photo booth! What is the world coming to?

Via Alice, the immersive virtual reality film experience that pairs Le1f (Khalif Diouf) with Bangarra Dance Theatre's Waangenga Blanco, is innovative beyond belief. We remove shoes to feel more in touch with the sandy ground inside Grant Street Theatre, put VR headsets and headphones in place and settle in for the ride. Swivelling around in our chairs and looking down as the virtual reality film allows us to fly over various locations, we wonder whether this experience may have made any partiers spew throughout the day. As we remove our headsets, we witness Le1f and Blanco - who also feature in the VR film - dancing before us in the sand to a score composed by Daniel Stricker (Midnight Juggernauts) and John Carroll Kirby. Exquisite and awe-inspiring.

Next up in Merlyn Theatre, the stage is prepared for Amrita Hepi X Pasefika Victoria Choir. Only 20 minutes long but worth watching every second of, the performance features three female dancers front of stage dressed in gold tinsel and a large choir on raised platforms at the back. Like a story told in three phases, the choir and dancers perform a Waiata (or Maori folk song), the warm backing music scored by Marcus Whale. The contrasting power and frailty of the dance is mesmerising, the audience glued in place and pin-drop quiet. Wardrobe malfunctions aside, the energy crescendos and peaks two-thirds of the way through, settling on a final subdued ending and grateful show of appreciation from the performers.

Arriving just in time for Kardajala Kirridarra to emerge through the stage fog, they start with an acknowledgement of traditional owners and declaration of origin. Melbourne producer Beatrice has crafted a sonic backdrop that's spring-soft, slow-moving and warm, allowing the three Marlinja and Kulumindini singers free rein to spin tales of mysterious sandhill women and odes to Country. Props also for involving rapping in the performance.

It's really difficult to drag ourselves away from the soulful, housey goodness served by Vancouver-born Montreal resident Project Pablo at Boiler Room and we're pretty sure our dancing translates to a record amount of steps taken on the pedometer app. But it's time for AB Original on Dodds Street stage. We're geed-up. “Do you know what time it is?” Enter AB Original complete with live drummer, keyboardist and DJ. Briggsy shouts, “Fuckin' Shepparton in the house, bee-arch!” Trials has a lot to say leading into January 26. "We're not trying to talk to an old Indigenous minister who says he's never heard [laughs in disbelief] of black people saying, 'Change the date'. I'm not talking to them, 'cause that's not where change comes from. Change comes from the youth, it comes from me and it comes from fuckin' you. Thank you very much, Melbourne. Let's go!" And Dan Sultan's on hand for the hook. Prompted from the stage, there's a sea of middle fingers waving in the air, a “no justice”/“no peace” call and response and all this compounds to create an unparalleled festival moment ("FUCK THAT, HOMIE!"). 

Back over at Boiler Room, Honey Dijon deals a remix featuring Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech to remind us just how fucked everything still is while we dance. The American underground electronic music producer, DJ and fashion icon takes our limbs hostage. You can't get anywhere near the decks. She drops a version of New Order's Blue Monday that makes us wish to hear the original versions, though. Who dat on the vocals? 

Arguably the most rapturously received performance of the day is from the Iranian-born artist who was raised in The Netherlands: Sevdaliza. Being front and centre to experience her show is intoxicatingly mesmerising. Dressed in a black leather studded bra and skirt, Sevdaliza leaves the diverse crowd deafeningly entranced, moving through songs off her debut album ISON like random chapters from a book. There is a strong element of dominant and submissive roles between her and her muscular dancer, beautifully dictating the blurred lines between the two in romantic interchange with an unspoken story clearly defined by movement. A strong standout, in a sea of standout performances.

We catch the tail end of Joey Bada$$ on Dodds Street stage and note his bright yellow vest calls to mind a life jacket. Maybe it is? And it's probably sprayed with fire retardant, because there's explosions, CO2 jets detonating and actual sparks flying during his set. Devastated sees festival posses jumping around with arms around shoulders while having rap-offs to see who's best memorised the rhymes and can therefore be declared the Brooklyn rapper/actor/producer's most Bada$$ fan.

WHAT!? How is it time for the closing set already? We've spotted assorted Cut Copy members enjoying the festival, wandering around or even busting a move at Boiler Room throughout the day and now it's their time to shine. We ponder whether their sound, which spearheaded an Australian electronic music movement at the turn of this century, will seem like a time capsule today. Dan Whitford looks smart in a crisp, white long-sleeved shirt and the enthusiastic response to their set can't be denied. Fan-favourites such as Hearts On Fire and Lights & Music resonate. Visuals take us down corridors to view fields through 'windows'. It is a tad nostalgic, but it's also joyous and we sing along with every wistful lyric: "If that’s what it takes/Then don’t let us tear it apart/Even if it breaks your heart!” There probably are a few Sugar Mountain revellers Out There On The Ice, but if it's a question of, "Yes, no, maybe"? It's a definite yes in terms of Cut Copy getting the job done.

As we file out of the gates, there are a few punters trying to secure lifts: “50 bucks to Tullamarine?” And one Sugar Mountaineer is overheard declaring, "This is the most Melbourne thing I’ve ever seen.”