St Jeromes Linewait Festival (1/2/2009)

It would be so incredibly easy to write a diatribe about this festival, but there'll be enough of that in every music press over the coming year, so I'm going to focus on the good! Which there was a lot of, despite what you may have heard...

Tame Impala

Due to a late start, the Tame Impala set was criminally short... about 4 songs I think. Godd thing the songs are awesome, drawn out and a whole bunch of fun. There's a whole bunch of hype about this band, which of course means there's just as much backlash. They don't seem to care... they're doing what they like, getting stoned and playing stoner jams and covers of 90's soul songs. The moment when the drums start rollin in Skeleten Tiger was one of the best moments in live music so far this year. Real back of neck stuff. The crowd loved it.

Beaches

These girls looked like they would all eat me alive, so in case of them reading this I'll stay nice... Really cool proggy rock, plenty of guitar effects and general mania. The songs started sounding a little samey, but when the piccolo/recorder/whatever bloody instrument it was appeared, it added a strangly large amount of depth to the tunes... no mean feat considering it could have easily been drowned out by the 3 guitar onslaught of bitch rock.

Still Flyin'

My new favourite band. Fun funky reggae type stuff with about 15 people on stage. I'm not sure what half of themn even did, but the crowd were totally spastic for it. Singalongs, dancing... I hadn't had this much fun since the first time I went on the Gravitron at Luna Park. Seriously... if this had of closed the festival there would be nothing but smiles today. 'I want to bicycle kick my worries away'... 'nuf said.

Spiral Stairs

Only saw a little of this guy and his band, but seemed ok. Rocky stuff... apparently he used to be in Pavement. So all them indie types cared a lot. The crowd seemed a little warey of him though, but inviting members of Still Flyin' to assist in the last song really got the party going. Wish I had of seen more.

Port O'Brian

Looked a little bit country, played some countryfied rock in the style of Band of Horses. Actually... sounded a lot like Band of Horses. Pity none of the tunes did anything for me. And I always find it hard to get motivated when a member of the band is sitting down. (hey, dummers are band members too! -Pat)

No Age

No Good.

Cut off your Hands

Only really heard this from behind the sound tent as I waited for the drones. I knew a few of the songs from the wireless, the crowd that knew them really got into it, but everyone else didn't seem to care.

The Drones

It is absolutely criminal that The Drones are not recognised as one of Australia's best rock bands. Get fucked Jet, the Living End... whatever shit is on Triple M now. 'I don't ever want to change' should be played by every shitty cover band in shitty pubs in between 'Khe Sahn' and 'Run to Paradise'. Gareth sang like a lunatic and the crowd absolutely ate it up like I ate a delicious Colossal Chicken burger from Burgers Edge. 'Sharkfin Blues' was a highlight, as was 'Oh My', 'The Minotaur'... and shit... everysong they played. See the Drones people... before you miss the boat and your kids will be like... 'Hey Daddy, when you were little did you ever see the Drones', and you'll be all 'Yeah... heaps' then have to change the subject.

Mountains in the Sky

To close the festival for me, the uplifting electronic rock of Mountains in the Sky. While the majority of the festival whinged about not being able to see the Girl Talks, me and 150 others saw a great show that was everything that was right about the festival. A bunch of people dancing to great interesting music and not giving a shit if they'd heard it before or not. Everybody in the room shared stories about the trying day, missing out on bands here and there... but in that room we were united, and as the beeps looped and the guitars drifted... we danced the shit away.

Also... Tiger beers were 4 bucks!

Solar Music Festival (3/1/2009)

By Pat

Hello friend! My name is Pat and I will be joining Jimmy in our quest to see and review 100 gigs in 2009. Fantastic isn't it?

An (optional) quest I have undertaken for this time is to devise a "perfect" rating system for gig enjoyment with an aim to actually predict how good a gig will be prior to attending!! This seems like an impossible task currently but i believe it is possible and imagine it will evolve as time passes.

Anyway the purpose of this post is to review SOLAR MUSIC FESTIVAL (click the link for background).

Summary
Poorly organised, bogan crowd, 4 beers and 4 jagerbombs consumed, some good bands and great friends!
Highlights: Cog, Pnau, revolution of the drinking pens, not finishing one drink card all day,
Lowlights: Everything not mentioned above with the exception of the bands mentioned below that don't have the description "you suck".
Final Comments: Despite the poor reveiw, I had a great day and didn't get too sunburned!

Organisation
Organisation, planning and management are critical enjoyment factors for any gig experience but I would rank them even higher for a music festival as there are a butload things that can go wrong. Solar music festival sadly scored poorly in all of these categories, it took us an hour and a half to get in, causing us to miss a potential 5 acts! The waiting didn't stop there, on average there was a 20 minute wait if you wanted to do anything except see an act, including: buying drink cards, buying drinks with the drink cards, toilets, food and migrating between pens (farcical! - set up at an 18+ gig??? then torn down by the public in 2 hours). At times I doubted the festival organisers had attended a music festival before! This was a poorly organised event however to their credit (excluding the withdrawal of 1 act) the bands i wanted to see ran within 15 minutes of schedule which is probably below average but solar did such a good job of setting the bar so low this seemed like a benefit.
Sorry for ranting so much up there, I'll try to keep it brief now...

Bands
The key feature of the day! I was impressed with the majority of what i saw, however due to the massive amount of waiting in queues I did, I didn't see as much as my companions.
I saw:

• Josh Pyke - not impressed generally, but i didn't know any of his music, watched it on a audio delayed LED array, and he played an acoustic guitar for most of his gig. So he was probably pretty good if you were closer and liked him.
• Miami Horror - disappointed, I've seen Miami horror play 4 shows now (3 in gameboy/gamegirl) and I was expecting some original stuff, however if I was expecting a DJ set, he is a skilled DJ and uses his own mixes so he's still alright in my books. I expect he would have whipped out his stuff for a more appropriate crowd.
• You Am I - These guys were the first rocking band for the day, being the most experienced band at the festival they delivered an awesome set. I only knew 2 songs and watched it from that same LED array with the delayed sound, so maybe Josh Pyke sucked after all.
• Kisschasey - you suck
• Pnau - Awesome, I only knew 1 song that kind of annoys me (baby?) but they played it early and delivered and entertaining show. Biggest surprise of the day for me.
• COG - Wasn't expecting much more than I had seen at a previous big day out (seen them at 3 gigs, and 1 festival) but they managed to deliver a great show. Their set was dominated by stuff from their latest album but they did throw in a great version of 'Open Up' (mixture of the versions on the open up EP), as well as a good selection of songs from the new normal. Easily the band I enjoyed the most.
• Presets - I was expecting the crowd to seriously jeopardise my experience here and they didn't surprise. During some of the Presets' more awesome songs (anywhere, aeons) some of the crowd got bored and decided to climb a fence and jump over it, cheer for the people that jumped over the fence being chased by security guards and send a massive plastic barrier crowd surfing. Despite these interferences, I still managed to enjoy half the presets' gig (i missed the an extra 15 mins due to the below average timeliness of the bands).

Crowd
The crowd was exactly what I expected of a peninsula music festival, and all I'll say is there was little kinship, trust or general happiness that makes a festival great.
A funny thing happened when I was on my way from Cog to the presets; I was making my way through the crowd when I came to a point where crowd density denied my further passage. All of a sudden the bogan in front of me looked at the guy next to him and started yelling "What the F$%& is your problem? You better hope...." blah blah, you get the point. So I stepped in and tried to reason with the agressive bogan to enjoy the show and stop being a d!ck. He looked at me now and yelled "He just pissed on my leg!". My reaction was confused and I proceded to get away from them.
At Cog the crowd (I'd estimate at roughly 400 people) towards the front started one of those circles where people get a run up and crash themselves into others inside the circle or the people unlucky enough to be standing around the edge. This behaviour baffles me, but each to his own, they didn't bother me.

Venue
The venue was as good as any I suppose, a little interference from other stages could be audible between songs which is never a good thing, especially when it's John Course. One of the bar staff who's name has been withheld (thanks again!) was incredibly friendly and made mine and my posse's festival experience much better - however even with such a massive helping hand the queuing system made it impossible to get drunk past 5pm - not sure if that's good or bad.
Drinking pens were a stupid idea, wtf were they thinking? overage gig = free range booze! At least the crowd were good at trampling the pens in a revolution!

Solar Festival (3/1/2009)

By Jimmy

Artists/Bands Seen

• Josh Pyke
  
• Miami Horror
  
• Snob Scrilla
  
• You am I
  
• Ajax
  
• Pnau
  
• Presets
  

4 Beers Consumed

Good Stuff

• Miami Horror played Lykke Li. 
  
• Snob Scrilla can work a crowd like nobodies business.
  
• You am I rock and Tim Rogers is sarcastic. 
  
• Pnau is great.
  
• Presets are better- played most of the latest album (including 'Anywhere'!) plus 'girl, you chew my mind up' (which nobody seemed to know), 'Are you the One?' and 'I Go Hard I Go Home'. 
  
• Crown Lager cans are genius. 
  
• Some very friendly bar staff.
  

Bad Stuff

• Lining up to get in for at least an hour, including a delightful crowd segregation segment- Also causing me to miss Lisa Mitchell. Who is cuter than my fish.
  
• Miami Horror not playing any of his original material, only his remixes.
  
• Josh Pyke not bringing his giant guitar boat.
  
• The few people circled in these photos-
  

So I'm a Snob. Here's a few other photos.