The first night of Splendour 2016 was, for the most part, a pretty excellent start to the weekend. After a short sleep, our writer Nick Cheek jumped back into the fray to run you through the highlights from the second day of Splendour In The Grass 2016.
It didn’t rain…again!
For the second day in a row it was clear skies and sunshine at the North Byron Parklands. Those who were at the amphitheatre stage early found shade where they could; the shadow of trees, speaker stacks, and crowd barriers. Whilst some were looking a little weary, most were ready for another full day of live music.
Harts impressed early on
Melbourne’s Harts proved once again why he is so well suited to festival sets, his funk infused rock songs seem to get any crowd moving. He has a swagger and showmanship that is perfect for the big stage, and his amazing guitar playing is the x factor that gets the crowd cheering.
The amphitheatre was slowly filling up as he began his set, the usual duo of Harts and his drummer joined today by the horn section from City Calm Down. The forty minute set, triple j streamed, included his big songs ‘Peculiar’, Breakthrough’ and ‘Red & Blue’. An extended guitar solo that included his trademark, albeit Hendrix borrowed, guitar behind his head met with a huge cheer, and commotion from the media in attendance to get a classic festival shot.
The set finished with his new single, the Michael Jackson tinged ‘Power,’ putting down the guitar to lead the crowd in arm waving singalong.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard whipped the crowd into a frenzy
The Melbourne band have very quickly developed themselves a large cult following, and ability to almost continuously release albums. The crowd was massive for their mid-afternoon set, with an enormous mosh pit in a frenzy despite the full sunshine. Their blend of psychedelic stoner rock has clearly has gained the band many fiercely loyal fans.
The band’s two drummers playing perfectly in sync is an impressive site to watch, and more impressive when it was maintained for the whole set. ‘Evil Death Roll’ turned the already frantic crowd up a notch, including quite a large circle pit, meaning the true fans would have left the pit happy, but perhaps a little bruised.
Dreller – the set that almost nobody saw
Dreller is the work of London based Australian Thomas Rawle, the frontman of the now defunct Sydney band Papa vs Pretty. Rawle hasn’t played in Australia as Dreller, and you had to feel a little sorry for him as he took to the Tiny Dancer Stage mid afternoon to almost no one .
The ‘other, other other’ stage wasn’t as much a stage as a thoroughfare for people heading over to the Mix Up tent. Joined by a drummer, Rawle played guitar, along with backing tracks, and loop pedals, the singer repeatedly looping his voice to give the songs depth. A keys player joined the duo for their last song, a fantastic cover of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain,’ the song showcasing Rawle’s vocal prowess and impressive skills on the guitar.
Dreller is an exciting talent, and is seriously impressive live, hopefully next time he visits more people get to see him.
Sticky Fingers are huge, but were a little bit average
Sticky Fingers took to the stage to what was arguably the biggest crowd of the entire day (including headliners The Cure). The Sydney band have a huge following, and their blend of reggae indie rock perfectly suits a festival like Splendour in the Grass, or any festival for that matter. The band certainly have enough well known songs to fill an hour set, and the crowd were hugely vocal with tracks such as ‘How To Fly’, ‘Liqourlip Loaded Gun’, and clearly the crowd favourite, their set closer ‘Australia Street’.
The problem was (deep breath), they weren’t as good as they could have been. They definitely had the songs, the crowd, the smoke machines, confetti cannons, and the image onstage (singer Dylan Frost was splendid in his fur coat, Keys player Freddy Crabs not so much in only his underwear). Their sound wasn’t great, and in part it seemed to be due to a mixing issue, but mostly it seemed due to a band that were just loose, even at time seeming like they were each playing different parts of the song.
Perhaps they were tired, overwhelmed by the crowd, or had been involved in a little too much festival fun. Either way, what should have been one of the defining moments of SITG 2016 ended up being sadly underwhelming.
Fifteen years hasn’t made At The Drive In any less intense
Their last album, Relationship of Command was released in 2000, and apart from a few appearances, the world hasn’t heard much from the Texan band. Despite delivering a scare by cancelling some shows pre-Splendour, the band arrived on stage with attitude and begun what was a blistering one hour set full of songs from their album of 16 years ago. Whilst they no longer had founding member Jim Ward, it didn’t matter too much as the band has always been the Cedric (Bixler) and Omar (Rodriguez) show.
There was a surprising mass exodus from the Amphitheatre Stage prior to the band starting, the call of Ball Park Music or Crystal Fighters too strong for some. In fairness, with such a long absence of any new material, many wandering off would have been learning to walk rather than rocking out to ‘One Armed Scissor.’
The charismatic singer was in fine form, not liking the stage light that was near him, and after refusing help from a stage hand, promptly threw the light off the front of stage. Later, when he was sick of the smoke machines, he asked “Can we cut off the smoke on stage, this isn’t Spinal Tap.”. Whilst vocally he perhaps hasn’t got the range that he once had, the punk attitude was still there, the songs still sounding as relevant as ever.
The big hits like ‘Pattern Against User’,’ Invalid Litter Dept.’ and the set closer ‘One Armed Scissor’ were enormous, so many in the crowd ecstatic that they finally got to see these songs live. The band still have the energy on stage, throwing themselves about just as they did many years ago. The most important moment of the night came at the end, when Cedric thanked the crowd with the words “See you next year, we’ll have a new record.” Are we finally going to see new At The Drive In?
The Cure played for three hours, and somehow it wasn’t too long
Well okay, it was actually two hours and forty minutes, but close enough. Many wondered how The Cure could maintain for that long, both in terms of songs, and stamina (after all, they are getting on in years). Although many were at Matt Corby or Santigold, the Amphitheatre was still largely full, those down the front in awe of the iconic five piece.
What The Cure delivered was a musically flawless set, filled with so many hits that it seemed impossible that they had any left, and then they would bring out more. Robert Smith has lost very little in the way of vocal ability, the band full of over 50’s showing the young kids how it was done.
‘Pictures of You’ was second song in, ‘Friday I’m In Love’ not long after it, and then the big hits kept rolling in. After an hour and half they walked off, but only for about 2 minutes. The small walk offs were repeated for the rest of the set, the tech’s would reset, the band would come back on stage. Smith jokingly referred to it as “getting our oxygen levels checked” however it may not have been too far from the truth. Young and old in the crowd were dancing and entertained the whole time, every second song someone would shout “this is my favourite song!”. ‘A Forest’ brought out another wave of smartphones, the band closing the epic set with their 1980 hit ‘Boys Don’t Cry.’
Robert Smith, still wearing his trademark makeup and red lipstick, kept referring to himself as being on a spaceship, one that he hasn’t been able to get off for 55 years, hurtling through space to an unknown destination. As he thanked the crowd before walking off for the final time, he explained that we were all on this spaceship, flying towards an unknown destination together. What we can say for sure, Mr Smith, is that we are all very happy that you are on the spaceship with us.
A fantastic way to end the night, and set up an exciting finale the next day.
