“Cat Empire's on next – they're supposed to be good!” a man says to his mates gathered on the overcrowded steps of St Paul's Cathedral, observing the massive human gridlock at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. It's just past 1am on a humid morning. The church's doors are flung open and disembodied choral hymns fill the interior, accompanying astral projections on the stained glass windows. Back outside, masses dance rapturously on the streets to Felix Riebl and his band as they perform on a floodlit stage under the clocks of the train station.
The near-full moon is past its nadir. Beneath it, the streetscape of Flinders Street is awash in large scale projections of poems, budding tree branches, and harlequins. The Forum Theatre is manic with patrons in 3D glasses dancing to a psychedelic track in front of a screen of flying geometrics. Across the road at ACMI, thirsty undead killers pack every session of 101 Zombie Kills and hundreds more learn to salsa and shake to West African beats under mirror balls at Fed Square.
A heart thump-thumping beat calls from the banks below: six huge satellite dishes on Birrarung Marr flicker with minute details of nature to an ominous soundtrack of chirping insects, rotating aircraft blades and elements of the soundtrack from The Thing.
Flap! keep punters grooving at the intimate Jazz Stage on narrow Degraves Street, while Kerelan Touch Music in Campbell Arcade below invites people to run their fingers over found objects suspended on string to create low-ringing harmonies.
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The Ghost Tour at the Arts Centre is 'totally booked out' to 3am but Low Headroom is still enticing crowds of up to 40 to descend five levels down to a narrow, short service corridor no higher than a residential bathroom where Sabbatical, an experimental/fringe collection of musicians, perform loud and meditative sets. Outside, The Famous Spiegeltent pumps funk and soul at 5.05am. Next door in NGV's Great Hall, the two storey high cascading foam installation of Michel Blazy's Bouquet Final 2 tempts visitors to strain close and blow at it, gleefully dislodging flights of shampoo-scented, sticky bubbles.
A silvery dawn arrives and there's still time to view Jeff Wall's photographs at Ian Potter Gallery. A tiny skeleton marionette handled by Smallpox Theatre croons morosely to a dozen tired people seated on the curb of Flinders Street. The grass lawns of St Paul's are littered with entwined couples dreaming of the next all-night party.
