Initially scheduled to take place at Published Arthouse, Knots festival – the mini electronic affair put on by Adelaide’s Fourwords collective last Sunday – made a late move to the Freemason’s Hall on North Terrace.
Built in 1922, it was an unusual location for an achingly hip electronic festival. As a replacement venue it didn’t seem to cause any troubles, but the mighty building certainly gave off a strange vibe upon entry.
When Sydney/Adelaide duo Collarbones appeared on stage, singer Marcus Whale said what was on everyone’s lips: “I didn’t go to my year 10 high school formal, but I imagine this is what it was like.”
The joke didn’t fall on deaf ears, either. There was a sizable crowd brewing despite the early timeslot.
With daylight still seeping through the hall’s windows, Whale and partner Travis Cook kept the mood jubilant as they played a selection of songs from their two studio albums.
Finishing off with “Hypothermia” off of 2012’s Die Young, the pair entered the crowd and showed off some of the best dance moves of the day.
Sydney’s Cosmo’s Midnight followed this and unfortunately couldn’t keep the momentum going. They had the worst bass of the event – it was boomy to the point you couldn’t hear anything else.
They started off with some fine-if-not-amazing remixes of Flume’s “Sleepless” and Flying Lotus’s “See Thru To U”, but unfortunately never really looked like they were in the zone.
With the sun going down, hometown hero Oisima aka Anth Wendt really took things up a notch, with a signature set of disparate, luxurious electronica.
Especially after the previous act, Oisima’s bass was noticeably crisp and tidy. The producer looked like he was having the time of his life, and his energy was infectious.
The only complaint was that it might have made more sense to have him on later in the day, as he had one of the biggest crowds of the festival.
While the Knots lineup was definitely male-dominated, Sydney duo Fishing’s set was the only time that it was particularly noticeable.
While the looped visuals made up of R&B videos and B-movies may have intended to be a titillating and interesting pastiche, they just came off as lazy and awkward.
The music itself was fine, but nothing special – confirmed when the duo dropped another Flume remix on the crowd and took to the microphones to rap.
Sydney’s Polographia followed with a laidback set of jazz and chillwave-inspired sounds produced by Moktar Youngblood, capped off with some very handy live drumming by Daniel Finn.
Theirs was a very polished set, proving to be a great buffer between the harder dance acts.
Fellow Sydney-sider Oliver Tank followed and unsurprisingly had the largest crowd of the day.
Pulling out his guitar, his finale was “Beautiful”, which he proceeded to mash up with “Drop It Like Its Hot”. It was all a bit gratuitous, but he had the young crowd eating out of the palm of his hand.
Ryan Hemsworth put the festival firmly back into dance mode. The Canada native played a filthy dance set, with tracks by A$AP Ferg, Ciara, R Kelly and Kanye all getting sampled, and even segueing up Outkast’s “Ghettomusick” with his own hit “Perfectly”.
While it was fun, you couldn’t help but feel he was channeling a lot of the spirit of Girl Talk. However, smartly edited and produced dance music will always make punters happy, and his set was no exception.
Finally it was headliners Seekae.
In one of their first Australian shows for 2013, to their credit the Sydney threesome never looked at all rushed or pressured. In fact, they seemed a little bit unpolished (in a charming and nice way) – member Alex Cameron switching between drumming and vocal duties for most of the set.
Starting with new song “Another”, their downtempo electronica was a great way for those not sticking around for the late night set from Canada’s Kaytranada to wind down. Despite closing with older singer “3”, the group had the crowd eagerly anticipating their imminent third album.
While a bit more variety in the line-up might have been nice, it was extremely heartening to have a one-day music festival in the Adelaide CBD outside of the city’s traditional festival season in February and March.
Even if the Sailor Jerry promos were a little intrusive at times, a well-behaved crowd, great weather and a nice selection of food carts and cheap drinks will always be an excellent way to round out a weekend.
