With memories of Saturday’s late night revelry still ringing in ears and rattling in memory banks, the coffee lines were snaking just as long (if not longer) than the queues; it was time to “start making good decisions” in the wise mantric words of one particular veteran.
Few better then, than to sit in the shade of The ‘Sup’s aged bluegums and listen dutifully and listen to one of Aunty Meredith’s gatekeepers, farm owner Jack Nolan.
Recounting the festival’s storied two-decade history, from its humble beginnings to recounting the ongoing struggles but also triumphs of his son Chris (who suffered a severe Acquired Brain Injury as a result of a multi-organ collapse in 1996).
With the Nolan’s as the festival’s guardians, it’s no wonder that Golden Plains and Meredith maintain such a beautiful sense of authentic majesty year-in, year-out; and the magical headline act that got away? The Man In Black himself: Mr. Johnny Cash.
Following the towering harmonies and slow-spun tales of Bushwalking, the second act to kick off day two of the festvial are Melbourne Northside favourites Dick Diver, entrusted with getting the crowd going.
Before the sun had truly reared its ugly, sweaty head, the easygoing group started their set with favourites ‘Alice’ and ‘Canberra’, jokingly proclaiming “I think this one’s gunna get the shoe you guys!” (at 11.15am in the morning, oh what humour!)
Devoted punters close to the stage got a look up close at the foursome (augmented by a keys player), while most were happy to sit on the hill and enjoy the lazy, hazy tunes. With less than a week until their album Calendar Days is due to drop, the band were doing a great job with promo, promising this record would be their best material yet.
They even found time for a rather faithful, glistening rendition of Dragon’s ‘Are You Old Enough?”, which proved to be a huge success with those looking for a restrained boogie, before piling on the irony for ‘Head Back’, with Al Montfort dropping slacker phrasing before donning big ol’ shades for a deliberately out of tune sax. Unlike some of their dolewave contemporaries, show the positive side of an early morning helping of Australiana.
The crowned king of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke spearheaded a finely polished turn for the midday throng… at least he would be if he could be heard.
Due to some nasty technical hiccup, his vibraphone playing and vocals are all but muted; he seems blissfully unaware though, grinning as if having the time of his life and the Black Jesus Experience more than provide reason why.
The local collective’s mix of Afrobeat and enthusiasm is more than a little infectious, providing a hip-hop tilt to their delivery (especially in the Roots Manuva alike hyping of Mr Monk), playing sauntering jams that are as vivid as the brightly coloured threads they’re donning.
Later some chunky funky guitar marks a turning point, provoking an ecstasy of dancing that winds up the feet and hips of the hillside. Horns trill and wail against their slinky jazz contours, the Nas and Damien Marley sampled (as the band point out) ‘Yegelle Tzeta’ closes their effortless set in a frenzied stomp.
Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk play rustic, dusty blues rock the way the Black Keys used to do it, and in turn, have inspired ‘best kept secret’ plaudits in their native Melbourne.
The two-man powerhouse give the blues purists (bloopists?) what they’ve been unknowingly craving all festival, Russell’s honky growl and guitar jostling with Dean Muller’s savagely sufficient drumming like a locomotive to rusty train tracks; thrillingly one direction.
There’s not much room for variation, but there doesn’t need to be.
The afternoon sun shows mercy to the pair and retreats behind the clouds for a spell, making it all the clearer to see the slow building, but unanimous booting the pair receive as footwear is removed during ‘Bad Motherfucker’.
Its chanting and crowing sees Russell lamenting bluntly, “I think I fucked my voice,” before moving immediately into an a capella that shows his voice is categorically unfucked.
Their buckshot bluster has a dirty, cocky strut to its step that more than the purists can enjoy in the electric, redemptive power of two men hammering their instruments.
After another round of housekeeping, Californian power-rockers Redd Kross took to the stage in what proved to be an unlikely turn of events. During the hottest part of the day, it would be difficult to blame punters for wanting to take it easy and bask for a few hours, but this was made nearly impossible by the four-piece; starting – as all no-nonsense rock should – with a bit of feedback and a hi-hat count-in.
With thrashing guitars, crazy drum fills, and a thirst for all things rock ‘n’ roll, the band – who recently made their comeback after a 15 year lapse in music making with 2012’s Researching The Blues – proved to a young crowd that just because their biggest hits occurred prior to their own conception, doesn’t mean you can’t thrash along to some pop-infused rock jams in the midday sun.
“This one’s a straight up party pop tune,” booms frontman Jeff McDonald before ‘Switchblade Sister’, but he could just as easily be describing any one of their numbers that are played with crunching conviction.
Full credit to the masterful interstitial DJs to keep things moving, their smart mood-reading always appreciated throughout Golden Plain’s 48 hours, helping bridge the gap between guitar rock and the stylistic shift to electronica to come with a dubby remix of Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’. Brilliant.
While Psarandonis may have proved to be one of the biggest get-off-your-feet-and-dance surprises of day one, it’s safe to say Toro Y Moi took those top honors at the latter half of the festival.
Sandwiched between two hardcore acts, The disco-acoustica-revival act may not be terribly well known in Australia (yet) but what his set proved was his undoubted ability to get bodies moving. Performing in the highly coveted mid-afternoon slot, Chaz Bundwick brought exactly what was needed: dance music that could be embraced or ignored.
Those still nursing the effects of the previous night’s festivities were able to lay in the warm afternoon sun and lament, while punters in search of somewhere to move their feet found a home at the front of the stage.
Mainly performing cuts from his latest record, this year’s Anything In Return, including crowd favorites ‘Touch’ and ‘So Many Details’, Mr. Moi proved to be everyone’s new favorite musician thanks to a corker of a set.
After what seemed like the briefest intermission between sets yet, Adelaide’s Mark Of Cain hit the stage and were ready to pick up where Redd Kross left off, in a poignant return to The ‘Sup for the first time since 1995.
The three-piece lineup, (which usually includes former Helmet/current Battles drummer John Stanier, though he was unable to perform on this tour) reminded everyone just how great Aussie hardcore can be; they should know, they’re one of its forefathers.
Performing cuts off their highly anticipated Songs Of The Third And The Fifth, their first album in 11 years, it was clear that while The Mark of Cain may have originally been booked to appease older festival-goers, there was nothing dated about their unique brand of rock, with everyone joining in for the hard edged ride.
After the afternoon revelry shown to Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk, its difficult to imagine anyone giving the blues its dues better than they. But the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (or JSBX to their dedicated) worry less about the genre part, and more about the dynamite bit.
As far as powder kegs go, they’re densely packed for their late afternoon slot, and the amount of dust rising is almost as suffocating as the lack of spaces they leave in their rock n roll assault.
A welcome spitting of rain comes shortly after a burly take on the Beastie Boys’ ‘She’s On It’, but it could just as easily be beads of sweat, such is the terrifying energy coming from Spencer, bassist Judah Bauer, and especially limb-defying drummer Russell Simins.
They hurtle around their rough corners with devil may care attitudes, but their focused energies as a live unit mean they’re an outfit that treat every gig as if it’s their first and last.
Another brief turn of announcements and its time for the 26-strong, 52-lunged power of an old skool brass ensemble to push the crowd towards the final stages of what is shaping to be a fine evening.
Led by the charismatic Nicky Bomba, the Melbourne Ska Orchestra sound as much as they look the part in their dapper, matching suits. They deliver a mix of ska and reggae standards, with original material that impressively doesn’t sag alongside classics from the Specials and Madness.
They’re a no-brainer to get the crowd unseated and exercising their right to grind, and as they rattle through showmanship aplomb and big band arrangements they eventually get Golden Plains’ coveted golden boot in numbers large enough to be deemed official.
A shame then that Keb Darge’s soul and rock infused DJ set doesn’t quite have the legs to keep the crowd going.
He certainly starts well though, giving the kind of self-plug only the best jockeys can after years of vilified experience, and he starts his halcyon days hogging tunes with ‘Johnny B. Goode’.
But his set becomes stretched, over it’s hour-and-a-half to nearly two as George Clinton’s merry band of funkified fools are delayed.
Though his decade hoping voyage works in some obvious crowd-pleasers (Beatles, Elvis, Northern Soul), he begin to slinks into a taskmaster’s version of an aural history lesson. Not helped by the fact that he’s been prefaced by a whole day’s worth of distinguished between-set DJs.
More of the Golden Plainees begin to descend into preparatory hedonism, making it harder to decipher Darge’s thick Scottish interjections from the booth, (“yer aboot ta’ expeeriense Jorge Clintan yee looky fookers’).
Finally, the legendary Parliament/Funkadelic arrive with a terrifically frothy bass tone that is just the first of many unsettlingly enjoyable (and enjoyably unsettling) moments for the next two, very freaky hours.
A whole hillside of disciples looking to Clinton and his inconceivably ragtag entourage to free their minds and let their asses follow, and the besuited ringleader was not about to let those same frazzled minds go gently into that good night.
The ridiculous sized crew onstage made it difficult to decipher what the 20-30 odd members on stage are doing and what.
Clinton – for better or worse – doesn’t even seem to be the masthead for the chaos, self-relegating himself to being a kind of wheezing ringmaster, huffing some obscene guff between or across jams; letting his variety show of guest entertainers take whatever reins were to be grappled of this baffling spectacle.
There’s rollerblading hookers, a white featured male pimp-come-stripper, Clinton’s feisty granddaughter bellowing a furious chant of “smell some skunk/and I want some,” while the fedora-topped head of Clinton harangued the front row for said bud.
There was a lung-ripping rendition of Gnarls Barkly’s ‘Crazy’, which was too fitting for words, and just when it seemed it couldn’t get stranger, out came the beatboxing didgeridoo playing grandson.
Amongst the bedlam was session tight takes on ‘Flashlight’ and ‘We Want The Funk’ (sparking replaced cries of “We want the didg/gotta have the didg” amongst one witty group nearby).
Best of all was an epic recreation of ‘Maggot Brain’, an epically winded tribute to Eddie Hazel’s scintillating guitar solo original that spat and scraped over what felt like an eternity, and an unashamed Golden Boot moment.
Ridiculous, excessive, and all kinds of indescribable; the mothership connection was the kind of moment that – once they actually figure out what they witnessed – people won’t soon forget.
Having wowed at last year’s festival, these Golden Plains returnees had one of the most anticipated late night slots of the weekend.
Melbourne natives Luke Neher and Sam Gill have spent the last few years honing their mash-up, visual DJ style to so much acclaim that this was bound to be a great show.
Mixing visuals from every corner of the pop-cultural globe (think everything from Louie, to Twin Peaks, to Hunger Games, to vintage anime), Naysayer & Gilsun capitalised on the minds blown by Clinton and his barmy army with an audio-visual feast of terrifically calculated means.
Known for being purveyors of the freshest hip-hop beats, it seems the young duo have taken a turn toward electronica, and while some older fans were critical of this, it remained near impossible to remain stationary during their one hour set.
Perhaps the most intriguing and in fact enjoyable aspect of their performances is the way in which the pair manage to compliment their audio mash ups to the visual accompaniments, never being crass but always remaining cheekily irreverent. David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and a few shots of Network’s infamous ‘mad as hell’ diatribe: the late night tripper’s holy trinity.
By juxtaposition, Bristol’s Julio Bashmore’s set proved enjoyable, but didn’t have the same sense of scope or mind-frying cultural connections that Naysayer & Gilsun had.
Best known in the Australian house scene for his single ‘Au Seve’, Bashmore’s hour-long set may have kept punters dancing, dropping bass like so many heavy if predictable punctuations, but did little else to impress.
Something freaky was headed Golden Plains’ way though that most certainly would, bizarre in the most beautiful way.
Fresh off a slot at this year’s Big Day Out, Zanzibar Chanel’s short (we’re talking less than half-an-hour) but ever so sweet set invigorated those feeling the effects that the soon-to-finish weekend had brought on.
Chiefly thanks to the shirtless, heavy-set visage of the effeminate enigma that is ‘Zac’, dancing with hypnotic allure as the pair’s name is emblazoned in house-high, garish lettering in the background.
In between yelling hilarious obscenities at the crowd (“now take that pill you just paid thirty fucking dollars for and put it to work!”) and dropping some seriously dated but beloved hip-hop beats and 90s dancehall, the Melbourne duo managed to do what few DJs ever could; perk up the exhausted audience waiting for Moodymann.
Pushing punters through to the coveted Silent Wedge, the Detroit DJ showed with effortless proficiency just why he’s such an influential figure as both a stylistic forerunner as well as music historian.
His set was a quiet revelation for those with the stamina to witness it as he dropped light techno, subby beats, and house basslines as heavy as the eyelids that were wrapped in ecstasy at his early AM soundtrack.
The next morning however, awaking in the sweaty tomb of a polyfibre tent scorched with morning sun, it all seems like a dream that was too good to be true, especially when the harsh realities of returning to proper civilisation lope into view.
But even after the coffin nails of the banal are hammered home – like packing an 8-person tent with a hellish hangover, grinding past bland fields in the mother of all traffic jams – its no sooner than you’ve left Meredith’s magical bosom than you yearn for it again.
A musical and cultural haven that exists only twice a year, and is precisely all the more special for it.
Check out the review of Day One of Golden Plains HERE
