29th December 2015 – 1st January 2016 @ Lardner Park
With Beyond the Valley’s inaugural year proving a massive success in 2014, the festival was always set to be bigger and better the second time around, with organisers promising an experience unlike anything in our current festival landscape.
A new home in the rolling hills of Gippsland’s Lardner Park, an enviable lineup and three days of sunshine set the stage for a party to rival the long-standing Falls Festival just a few hours down the road.
Punters had the option of a 3, 2 or 1-day ticket, with the most hardcore EDM fans arriving Tuesday to make the most of the DJs on offer. By Tuesday afternoon the party was well and truly started – with music starting at 1pm the bangers continued into the night with Spacey Space, Anyway DJs and Feki leading the way. Later on in the evening Melbourne local Running Touch took to the stage to show off his instrumental talents in an impressive but slightly mellower set that at times seemed a little lost on the party crowd.
Day 2 opened far more chilled than the previous day’s desert rave, with E^ST on the main stage as the temperature started to climb. Jamie XX made the most of an early appearance at 3pm (due to a scheduling conflict elsewhere) with a set that drew on In Colour’s retro soul influences with smatterings of funk, calypso and R&B which had a steadily sunburning audience grooving into the afternoon. Hits ‘Gosh’, ‘All Under One Roof Raving’ and ‘Loud Places’ made an appearance, but the absence of the track we’d all been waiting for, ‘Good Times’, drew some disappointed groans as Jamie left the stage.
Client Liaison, as always, had a rapt audience eating out of their hand as they tore through another ridiculously feel-good set. 2015 was a massive year for the band with their Splendour In the Grass appearance almost universally deemed one of the festival’s highlights, and they just keep getting better. This time around they had more treats in store as rumours of a Darryl Braithwaite cameo turned out to be true, with the music legend appearing to lead several thousand hollering punters in a rendition of ‘The Horses’.
[include_post id=”467235″]Miami Horror, a band who seem to be everywhere – following Beyond The Valley they were headed to Sydney for a New Year’s Eve show, then to Byron Bay Falls Festival for New Year’s Day. In their primetime sunset slot they carried on the party vibe with an epic sing-along set, where the frenetic energy set the mood for the evening as vocalists Josh Moriarty and Aaron Shanahan scaled scaffolding and threw themselves into the crowd again and again.
In comparison The Kite String Tangle initially seemed subdued for their time slot, but gained ground with a guest spot from Dustin Tebutt on ‘Illuminate’, as well as an explosive rendition of ‘Arcadia’ complete with confetti cannons.
Aussie Hayden James turned things up in the dance pavilion with a flawless set including hits ‘Permission to Love’ and ‘Something About You’. It’s exciting to watch him play and hard to believe his debut EP only launched in August – we expect to hear much more of him in 2016.
Back at the Main Stage, RL Grime was terrifying in the best possible way. 24-year old producer Henry Steinway’s hardcore trap has an effect on an audience that has to be seen to be believed – limbs and hair and items of clothing were flying in all directions in what was the Day 1 highlight for many.
Wrapping up the day’s festivities was Anna Lunoe, another (now L.A-based) local who has seen huge success internationally over the past 2 years. As anticipation built, Lunoe took the stage to announce that she’d left her USBs in Melbourne, and had to cobble together a set from music other performers had lent her. It was a little disappointing, but Lunoe delivered a fun and energetic set all the same, bouncing around the stage and whipping her ponytail around as the dance tent stomped its way into a bona fide dust storm.
Day 3 dawned already sweltering and many campers opted to grab a $10 bag of ice and hide out in the campsite till the sun went down. Nonetheless UK rapper Skepta enticed a small but dedicated group of fans out of their gazebos for his early afternoon slot, which didn’t disappoint (even witnessed from a small triangle of shade at the top of the amphitheatre). Later in the afternoon Touch Sensitive impressed a sweaty, dusty crowd with a DJ set that dropped hit after hit from ‘Pizza Guy’ to a remix of RÜFÜS’ ‘Sarah’ to his Anna Lunoe collaboration, ‘Real Talk’.
The Rubens drew the biggest crowd of the festival yet, with the sunset finally offering some reprieve for heat stroked punters. Their performance was a little lacklustre though and couldn’t seem to channel the energy that other headliners delivered the night before.
George Maple’s set outshone expectations – she’s fun, sexy and a super talented performer who is introducing R&B into the Aussie music landscape in a way we’ve never really seen. A bonus guest appearance from the inimitable Tkay Maidza was a teaser for her Main Stage set later on which blew the place apart.
20-year old rapper and singer Maidza performs with incredible energy, lighting up the stage. She even dropped snippets from ‘Hot Line Bling’ and RL Grime’s ‘Scylla’ in to break up the set which was littered with her hit singles, perfectly timed audience interaction and a reciprocal appearance from George Maple during ‘Ghost’.
After the reportedly ill-timed New Year’s Eve countdown last year it was clear Beyond The Valley wanted to leave plenty of time before midnight to get things organised, but after the Tkay feel-good frenzy, the half hour of dad rock-based interstitial soundtrack seemed a little jarring. Nevertheless, after the New Year’s streamers and confetti cannons were fired, we were treated to another on-point set from festival regulars Flight Facilities which kept the good vibes coming till 1am.
Joined by Owl Eyes as guest vocalist, they tore through most of Down To Earth, finishing with the spellbinding ‘Claire de Lune’ before Dom Dolla took the stage to keep toes tapping into the wee hours.
Beyond the Valley looks set to become a New Year’s Eve staple, and with such a killer sophomore year under their belt they’ve only shown that bigger is not necessarily better. The kinds of acts they’ve managed to pull already bodes well for BTV to be continuing on for another sweaty, dusty and fun year in the hills and valleys of West Gippsland.
Check out the photos from the festival here.
Photographer: Don Sin (website: raworiginal.co)
