Breathe in, now breathe out. Feel that tightness in your chest on exhalation? That tight restriction you are feeling is what the music festival product life cycle is going through at the moment. There are two exceptions to this rule – Meredith and Stereosonic – but overall the festival boom is over and festivals are either disappearing or getting smaller.
However, one festival that has handled the impact of opportunity cost with much aplomb is Listen Out (formerly Parklife). The festival has moved from Sidney Myer Music Bowl (about 15,000 capacity) to the Royal Botanic Gardens’ lawn outside the Observatory cafe (5,000 capacity) and the lineup was DJ/producer heavy with only one full live band, Australia’s RUFUS, although to their credit all the production duos – Classixx, AlunaGeorge and Disclosure – attempted to have a live set-up.
With the said band RUFUS‘ 3pm set an early highlight, the day only got better, with the only real low when Azealia Banks lasted 90 seconds before a plastic bottle sent her offstage and off site.
British duo AlunaGeorge were incredible, Aluna Francis cut a supreme figure of invigorated womanhood as she delivered her vocals to their supreme hit Your Drums, Your Love – it reminded me profoundly of Santigold and MIA’s live performances.
The final three hours of the festival were a dream with Hudson Mohawke and Lunice’s heavy heavy heavy bass project TNGHT beginning at 7.30pm on the 909 stage and then dance music wunderkind Disclosure sent things into the stratosphere of awesomeness on the Atari stage.
Disclosure’s set was positively life-affirming, with the amazing When A Fire Starts To Burn second song in. The stage set-up was just Guy and Howard Lawrence at two live production booths with microphones through which they sung the vocoded sections of tracks such as F For You – if you’re familiar with the film-clip for this song, that was the set-up.
Although, due to the smallish size of the grounds, there was some sound bleed between the stages, though overall this festival was a triumph in quality acts and execution. Plus the drink container trade-in booth kept the grounds clean and helped broke cunts get a drink.
BY DENVER MAXX
