The JD Set (29/5/2009)

Once again, the Prince of Wales dissapointed me with it's lack of tap beer and expensive bottled drinks. But, being the fact it was a free gig were there there for softened the blow somewhat. The gig tonight was to promote some up and coming bands, with classic Aus band You Am I headlining. Sounded like fun on a Friday, so after arriving early to secure entry (we could have arrived two hours later and we still would have made it in), we eagerly awaited the first band we had never heard of.

The Glass Ceiling

This was a perfect electro-pop band. They had 'the' in their name, wore skinny jeans, were from Sydney, had songs about the 80's, and the lead singer looked like Jules from the Presets. Sounding kind of like a poppier Placebo, they weren't too bad, and considering they were all pretty young looking. I enjoyed it, but can't remember any of their songs, and the music playing in my Itunes (right now Slipknot) is just that little bit better than listening to the songs on their myspace . But here's a video incase you're not lame like me.

The Glass Ceiling

Ah... they're from Adelaide... that explains it. This band were also decent, but nothing to keep me interested longer than the 45 minutes alloted to them. The singer had wayyyyy too much energy and enthusiasm for a crowd that wasn't really returning any of the love... but I guess that's hardly a bad thing, can't blame a man for trying. They're a band that you could describe as having 'Angular Riffs'. Don't ask me what the hell that means... just watch the video.

You Am I

After being a quasi-fan for ages, this was amazingly the first time I'd seen You Am I in a proper live venue. And..... I was somewhat dissapointed. The show was rockin, Tim Rogers is a perfect rock star, admitting that he'd given up everything in his life for his tunes, for this band, almost as a warning to the youngins that had preceded him in the night. While You Am I have a lot of respect from Australian music lovers, they never really achieved the worldwide success which some had expected of them when they first hit it big in Grunge city USA in the early 90's. And while I respect the band wholly, I know shit all of their songs, and that is why I didn't enjoy the gig as much as I had hoped. To be honest... I knew about 5 songs they played. Out of the 7 You Am I songs I can name. But the ones they played they played the hell out of, but not enough for me to want to go out and buy an album. I'm lame for wanting to hear the hits, but everyone has a moment of weakness right?

I'm pretty certain the above review is an uncohesive mess, so much so that I don't want to read it to check. But here is a video of Heavy Heart live, a song I desperately wanted to hear... and am pretty certain the only time I'll ever see it live was when they played it on Hey Hey it's Saturday 10 years ago.

And because it's cold outside and there's nothing better to do than watch videos on the net... here are my three other fave You Am I tracks. (You Am I fans probably hate me right about now).

Purple Sneakers

Berlin Chair - Acapella

Rumble - Awesome Tune

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.