Future Music Festival 2011 was a roaring success over the Long Weekend, despite the fact that mother nature rained all over our dance music parade.
Granted a reprise by mother nature, however, was Ke$ha. She was an unlikely pop addition to a normally dance heavy festival. Ke$ha pranced through her hits with explosions and more glitter than any human needs outside of the Mardi Gras including her latest single ‘Blow’, which had her using a ticker-tape gun and dancing with a blow up penis. Naturally she closed with her magnum opus, ‘Tik Tok’. Despite her pop star status, judging from the horde of parents ushering their kids out of her side show during the week amid a tirade of expletives, aforementioned blow up dick and warnings of “strong language and sexual references” it turns out Future Music Festival and its throbbing mass of horny teens and early 20s dance devotees was probably a much better fit.
Next up was Mark Ronson on the Mazda2 Flamingo stage (yes, it was actually called that). I’ve always been a big fan of Ronson but, having experienced a significantly lacklustre performance at 08’s Global Gathering, I wasn’t expecting too much. I was supremely wrong. Ronson was complemented by what some would call a back up band but I would call more of a supergroup, also known as “The Business Intl”. The band features Alex Greenwald (Rooney/Phantom Planet), Naaem Juwaan (Spank Rock), Andrew Wyatt (Miike Snow), plus singers Rose Elinor Dougall from The Pipettes and MNDR. Not only did Ronson pump out some of his finer hits from his first album Version and latest LP Record Collection, he also treated us to a 10 minute DJ set, playing the eclectic mix of music for which he made a name for himself. With a killer band like The Business Intl behind you it would be a crime not to let them rip out a few of their own tracks. MNDR showcased one of her brilliant solo numbers, MC Spank Rock did a tune and Andrew Miike Snow got to do his now legendary hype track ‘Animal’, but the best was yet to come.
Around midday the weather had been sitting at a hot and muggy 30 degrees and thus, punters had dressed in their skimpiest jean shorts, singlets and for some fucking stupid reason, thongs and sandals. This was all well and good until part way through Ronson’s set when the heavens well and truly opened. Unlike Meredith 2008 (aka the worst Meredith of all time/Rainpocalypse 2008) the temperature stayed at a relatively comfortable mid 20’s and we experienced one of those special moments when the rain added to the euphoria of this incredible set, which reached fever pitch when Mark introduced Greenwald to perform his band’s most recognisable hit, ‘California’, as somehwat of a rain dance. ‘You’ll know this as the theme track of for The OC (“Californiaaaaa, Californiaaaa, here we coooome…”) and it induced a heady moment where the entire crowd was getting absolutely drenched but having a cracker time. The set finished off with Ronson’s biggest hit from his last album, ‘Bang Bang’, featuring MNDR. Perfection.
Next up were MGMT, otherwise known as THE.MOST.DISAPPOINTING.LIVE.BAND.OF.2008. The last time I’d seen them was coincidentally also during Rainpocalypse 2008 where thousands of sodden punters weeped into their watery beers as MGMT played the shittest set possible, without once mentioning the torment that we were enduring. No, not even a “hey guys, thanks for standing in knee deep water and watching us.” Anyway, that was the last gig of a one and a half year tour for them and it seems they’ve lightened up a bit. While still mostly not talking to the crowd or you know, looking at them at all, there were moments that made up for it. While the set was heavy on mostly boring new songs, there a couple of face melting moments, but the peak of the gig was when they performed their most popular song to date ‘Kids’. Grabbing the mics, Andrew and Ben cruised around the stage singing and climbing along the railings side of stage and at one point Andrew (the dreamy one) grabbed one of Flemington racecourse’s signature roses and flung it into the crowd of screaming ladies (the girl next to me caught it…no I’m not upset AT ALL). Then, inexplicably, the song finished and for some unknown reason THEY PLAYED IT AGAIN. Just because they felt like it. They looked like they were actually enjoying themselves and it was awesome.
Next up was Dizzee Rascal over on the Future Music stage. By this time, although the sky was a many shades of grey, at least it had stopped raining and the punters were pretty inebriated. Although his oversaturation on the radio/TV/everywhere and in spite of the fact he seems to come out to Australia every six months, he was a punter favourite at this particular festival and had a large turn out for his set. He is definitely no longer Mr Underground Grime King and the suburban bogan contingent knew the words to every song, including ‘Old Skool’, the ‘You’ve Got the Love’ remix he did with Florence and the Machine, ‘Dance Wiv Me’, ‘Dirtee Disco’ and then with an explosion of confetti he was gone. What, that’s it?! Nope, encore time! He came back, finished the set with ‘Holiday’, and ‘Bonkers’ and then he was gone. Perfect festival fodder.
Over on the Dim Mak stage was label founder and king of the LA club scene himself, Steve Aoki. Flanked onstage by a posse of hangers on, including LA hipster photographer (and festival compere) Mark the Cobrasnake, his set was heavy on electro house favourites by not only himself (‘I’m in the House’ being the most recognisable) but his remix of Kid Cudi and a host of others. There was a lot of champagne bottles being sprayed, Aoki yelling at the crowd and bouncing up and down a lot, crowd surfing with large inflatable objects, Cobradouche leering at young girls and taking their photos, a dancing security guard who was having the TIME.OF.HIS.LIFE and general crowd insanity. I don’t think I’m supposed to like Steve Aoki but I do.
As night well and truly set in and the true munters started to lose their shit, on came on headliners The Chemical Brothers. With a super slick audio/visual set up, they started off with ‘Galvanize’ and played plenty of stuff from their last album Further, plus snippets of classics like ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’. The sound was fairly low for a time of night when they really should be kicking out the jams, so it was unfortunately not as enjoyable as their epic side show during the week. Despite this (and possible due to mass drug intake) everyone seemed to be having fun.
For the lovers of minimal techno (and I’m going to admit I don’t know a great deal about this genre except for going clubbing in Berlin), Richie Hawtin presenting his Plastikman show, was the drawcard of the day. Playing inside his famous giant sphere, crazy light patterns were projected onto it along with the music. Many punters in awe compared it to the spectacle of Daft Punk’s Pyramid. Seriously. I didn’t see the Daft Punk show (I went to Justin Timberlake instead) but it was pretty incredible.
Then it was off to the Bat Country stage for a quick dance where Post Percy was ripping out some Neneh Cherry with the addition of two mystery guest singers. We then embarked on the shitfight that we call “trying to leave a festival”. All in all an amazing day despite the fact it pissed down rain, I didn’t have any drugs and I’m about 10 years older than most punters there. 8/10.
– Rose Callaghan
