Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Golden Debut

The inaugural Golden Plains music festival has been run and won over the long weekend out at the site of the Meredith music festival on the Nolan family farm. The atmosphere felt similar to Meredith and the venue looked and felt the same. By reports from Meredith veterans (I’m not one of them), there was a slightly younger, less alternative crowd. Food options were pretty much the same and in the same location, the relatively new compost toilets a huge hit with the fans (if that’s possible with toilets???) and the Pink Flamingo Bar still there. No Meredith Eye though. Apparently it was unavailable given all the other carnivale type activities around this time of year. While there were smaller numbers at the festival than recent Merediths, ATR is happy to report that the festivities were every bit as enjoyable as the December version with a smorgasbord of different musical treats keeping the punters happy over Saturday and Sunday.

There were many acts worth talking about, and opinions will obviously differ between the diverse group of campers, but there were three acts who I found particularly engaging.

A clear number one highlight was eight piece indie dance act !!! who generated plenty of much needed heat late on a cool Sunday night with a fun, pulsating hour and a half show. The band’s earth shattering four man percussion assault and infectious disco grooves provided the impetus for serious some limb shaking down at the farm, while frivolous front man Nic Offer pranced all around (and all over) the stage in a brilliant performance involving fans, security guards, and a plastic inflatable crocodile. I would have loved to catch these guys again at their side show on Monday night at the Prince.

Apologies to French DJ duo Sebastian and Kavinsky and soul rockers, the BellRays (the latter whose set I largely missed, but did appear to spark the crowd), but the second international act who did it for me were psychedelic freakout noise rock prog jammers, Comets on Fire. These boys barely drew breath in their reverb-sodden cathartic performance. I also wonder if this set also saw the beginning of the first Golden Plains tradition when one punter removed his shoe and held it aloft in the air and was promptly mimicked by around a hundred others.

The last major musical highlight for my weekend was Melbourne’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring. While these guys have a reasonable amount of hype around them regarding their latest release and live performances (see Mess and Noise ‘06 critics and fans polls, and also feature article), I had only caught snippets of their garage punk/pub rock from the radio and their myspace page prior to Golden Plains. But this was a quality, kickass, rock and roll performance; energetic, tight, riff-a-plenty. Lead Brendan Suppression continuosly paced back and forth like a kid deprived of Ritalin, black leather gloves adorned his hands like an underworld standover man. Making the most of the occasion he finished off the set by scaling the crowd barrier and immersing himself in small group of enthusiastic moshers at the front of the stage. In true rock ‘n roll style the group lifted Suppression up on their hands and returned him to back behind the barrier after the completion of the performance.

While there are plenty of other things I could mention, there were a couple of things that I was disappointed with. The first was Yo La Tengo. I saw them play on Tuesday night and was really impressed, but at Golden Plains on Saturday they sucked. They seemed like they didn’t adapt their show at all to suit a festival crowd. The second was the scheduling of dubsters Fat Freddy’s Drop. While their music isn’t really for me, and I didn’t mind their set, I can’t believe they were allocated the prime position of a 8:00pm start on the Sunday night – and not only that – it was 100 minutes long!

But, hey, these are just a couple of gripes, and if Golden Plains returns, I’ll be back, and I think others will agree. ‘Cause two Merediths are definitely better than one. Right?

Footnote: As you are all probably aware by now, a 21 year old guy from Prahran tragically passed away on Sunday night/Monday morning at the Golden Plains Festival. Deepest sympathy to family and friends.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Nice review, pretty much sums up my experience. Shit weather, awesome time.

Not a fan of the Presets?

7:52 am  
Blogger Pat said:

The weather was shit. Next time I'm definitely going to bring a jacket. I was bloody freezing waiting for Fat Freddy's Drop to finish.

The Presets were really great - I guess I forgot to mention them. In fact the crowd seemed more into them than any other act. I was right up the front for !!! though, so I didn't see how that went down.

9:37 am  

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