Last week on Valentine’s day was the opening leg of the 2009 Good Vibrations music festivals. Unfortunately Sydney was not blessed with the best summer weather with rain, rain and more rain forecasted for the entire day. In genuine UK festival style the rain set in to stay and by late afternoon Centennial Park was riddled with hordes of people dressed in gumboots and plastic rain ponchos ready to dance around in the mud to some great local and international music acts ranging from electro, house, techno, breaks, and drum ‘n’ bass.
The line up included Australian acts such as Van She, Kid Kenobi & MC Shureshock, The Presets and The Potbelleez as well as a range of international guests like headliner Fatboy Slim, Roni Size Reprazent, Q-tip, The Cuban Brothers, Stanton Warriors and Deadmau5 and many more.
Here is a little of what my schedule consisted of:
Roni Size Reprazent – The Roots Tent
After being wet for most of the day it was nice to dry off in the Roots Tent in amongst the body heat of other fanatic drum ‘n’ bass heads. I hadn’t seen Roni Size with his drum ‘n’ bass crew Reprazent live since they was last in Australia promoting the album In the Mode back in 2001. The hour long set was cleverly planned to get the crowd moving with a lot of hard drum ‘n’ bass beats fused with a combination of hybrid hip hop, dub, jungle and jazz. It was definitely an extremely satisfying set with all the MCing, scratching and rewind’s which is exactly what you would expect from the successful drum ‘n’ bass powerhouse.
The Presets – Main Stage
2008 was definitely a big year for Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes of the Presets. With the success of their second studio album Apocalypso the electronic music duo have become widely known and popular throughout the world. After a year of winning music awards and touring all over the globe in a range of both intimate gigs and big name music festivals the boys were back in Sydney for the end of the summer festival season at the first of the 2009 Good Vibrations gigs.
Having seen the Presets a number of times over the past four years I was extremely excited to see their set as they rarely disappoint. I was lucky enough to catch them last year in London at the small intimate music venue Scala. They were touring and promoting their award winning album Apocalypso and I was blown away. Naturally I was hoping for the same experience in festival form but somehow they didn’t quite manage to have the same electric atmosphere.
Opening all their shows with the popular track Talk Like That it was off to a good start. Julian was dressed in a sparkling gold jacket and the crowd was extremely excited and receptive dancing and jumping around ready for a killer set. However there were some sound issues on the main stage and although the Presets didn’t encounter any technical glitches the sound was very low and the crowd became easily distracted. From memory the stand out tracks were Are You The One? My People, Down, Down, Down and Together but apart from that the other tracks seemed to be lost with the combination of low volume and loss of sound in the large open space of the main stage.
Fatboy Slim – Headliner on the Main Stage
There were a lot of people who came to the Good Vibrations festival to see Fatboy Slim. Not playing any side shows around the festivals this particular headliner obviously proved to be highly popular with the Sydney crowd on the day.
Last time Fatboy Slim was in Sydney it was in 2006 for the New Year’s Eve party at Bondi beach. I myself hadn’t seen Fatboy live since his free gig on Brighton Beach in the UK back in 2002, so like many other fans I was also excited to say the least. The only thing that concerned me was could he live up to the high expectations of this Sydney crowd?
As with all live music concerts, gigs and festivals the artists are there to perform and entertain their fans as well as promote their new music, album or sound. At the same time all the crowd wants to hear are the big popular hits or their personal favourite tunes. In a festival setting there should be a happy medium between both parties and on this occasion Fatboy Slim lucked out big time.
Not only did the headliner act disappoint the crowd with a lack of playing his own original tracks as part of his DJ set but he also seemed to struggle to overcome technical difficulties obviously beyond his control with faulty equipment that kept cutting out leaving huge gaps of silence.
Ten minutes into the set and the music completely shut down. All that could be seen was a very annoyed and angry Norman Cook on the big screens frustrated at the poorly supplied equipment and festival crew he had to work with. Finally when it was up and running again we got to hear a few mixed tracks including the Beach Boys, Good Vibrations referring to the name of the festival and the John Paul Young track Love Is In The Air obviously referencing that it was Valentine’s day and then there was silence again.
In an hour and twenty minutes full of technical and equipment difficulties the only Fatboy track I remember hearing was Praise You as it faded out into the White Stripes track Seven Nation Army. Not even an impressive LED laser show could help salvage what turned out to be an unfortunate and disappointing situation for both Fatboy Slim and the fans who had waited all day long in the rain to come and see him play.
In the end a very wet and rainy Good Vibrations seemed to be a musical washout where a potentially great line up on paper didn’t quite manage to get it right on the day.
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