V Festival, V competent
V Festival: Centennial Park Sydney
By Andrew P Street
First up, it should be made clear that the organisers eveidently listened to the criticisms of last year’s event. Everything seemed to flow much more swiftly for Sydney’s second V Festival: the impossible queues for food, bar and toilets were gone (for the most part) thanks to more amenities and better layout of the site, and the attitude of the punters was far more congenial as a result. Of course, the fact that it was a lovely day for a festival helped: even the smattering of rain that drifted in as evening fell was more refreshing than unpleasant; and even then, it was amazing how quickly thousands of Virgin-branded rain ponchos appeared as soon as the first drops fell.
Musically too, the event was thoroughly pleasant. That’s both praise and a criticism: while there was nothing egregiously awful on stage, neither were there any transcendent dear-god-you-had-to-be-there moments. Then again, that might have been the result of my rushing from place to place in a vain attempt to see everything: it was hard to, for example, get into the slow-building majesty of Air when I was aware that both Queens Of The Stone Age and Cansai De Ser Sexy were pulling at my shirt.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Garage to V winners Little Red opened proceedings to a crowd that was surprisingly large for the earliness of the day – a testament, perhaps, to the more streamlined entry process that was much better able to deal with huge numbers of punters. Still, the early bands were always going to suffer with the highest profile acts taking the early attendees – while Little Red’s proximity to the gates on the This Stage meant that they waylaid crowds before they could get to Plug In City on the Other Stage the last-minute addition of blonde pop pixie Robyn to the line-up meant that Donnie Sloan played to but a handful of fans.
Canada’s Hot Hot Heat continued on This Stage, riling up the crowd early with a set that took in most of their catalogue – although the early appearance of triple j favourite ‘Bandages’ was an obvious highlight. Cut Copy, meanwhile, drew a surprisingly large crowd to That Stage and despite a few synching problems early in the set pulled a crowd pleasing set (for my part, I was shocked at how powerful songs like ‘Time Stands Still’ sounded live when compared with the more chilled approach on record. There was certainly no way the US visitors Glass Candy could compete, their vocalist-plus-sequencer grooves getting lost on the Other Stage (and technical issues reportedly cut their set to a scant 15 minutes).
Then it was back to This Stage for one of the bands I was most looking forward to: Modest Mouse. An indifferent live mix didn’t help their cause, but a demented-looking Isaac Brock led his sextet through a set drawn almost exclusively through the last two albums, with the crowd going especially nuts for ‘Dashboard’ and ‘Float On’. Brock kept to himself between songs, leaving the “banter” to former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr who took the mike for a few barely-intelligible comments (unless he truly was “having frun” up there, but in my opinion theirs was the set of the day.
Off to the other side of the field to see former Moloko frontwoman Roisin Murphy was bringing some stylish sass to That Stage, as well as teasing the crowd with flashes of her barely-covered-by-a-translucent-white-top breasts, while The Rakes contributed some of the first flashes of real rock’n’roll on the Other stage. But I was soon bolting back to This Stage to see some indie royalty in the form of the recently-reunited Scottish noiseniks, the Jesus & Mary Chain.
To say they appeared indifferent is hardly a surprise – even in their youthful heyday they were notorious for giving the very barest of shits on stage. The big surprises were a) that Jim Reid still looks so much like his younger self, and b) that William Reid is now apparently 70 years old and three times the size of his brother. In any case, it was wonderful to hear all the old favourites – ‘Head On’, ‘Some Candy Talking’, ‘Happy When It Rains’ and so on – especially when, if I’m not mistaken, the band were being powered by former Ride drummer Laurence “Loz” Cobert.
And so it was back to splitting my time between That Stage and The Other Stage in one of the most irritating clashes of the day (and the reason why I barely saw Queens Of The Stone Age; although they were rockin’ the crowd for the one song I caught, with Josh Homme surrounded by guitarists in suits so rock’n’roll sharp they could have been Rocks-era Primal Scream, were it not for the more-tattoo-than-man drummer – and there was something endearingly odd about Homme’s “Sydney: how the fuck are you doin’, man?”). Air made their long, long, long awaited debut on That Stage at around the same moment that CSS appeared on the Other Stage, which was appropriately festooned with balloons and armed with a confetti cannon. French atmosphere or Brazilian party vibes? How was I to choose?
Air made the choice easy: much as I love their records, they have to be the worst festival band imaginable. Their gentle, jazzy grooves were at odd with standing in a crowd in the middle of a field of an afternoon, even though the clouds and eventual drizzle did bring the climate more in tune with their music. CSS, meanwhile, were all energy – and singer Lovefoxx (whose costume, for which I will now coin the term “faceatard”, was the best piece of on-stage wear of the day) was more than a match for Nicolas Godin’s strangely haggard countenance: I swear, the man was a dead ringer for early ‘80s post-heroin Eric Clapton. There was a definite moment of where-do-I-go panic, however, when Air swept into ‘Sexy Boy’ just as CSS ramped up their set-closing ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’.
Apologies, Tough Alliance: for all I know you were the best band to ever grace the V stage, but there was no way that I was going to miss the start of Duran Duran’s set. After some extremely well-handled technical snafus, the band burst into (Reach Up For The) Sunrise before Simon le Bon asked “Is anybody… hungry?” and the crowd roared into Hungry Like The Wolf. Le Bon was in fine voice through the set (perhaps a little too fine – I suspect some real-time pitch-tuning was being used during some of the more demanding sections) and he and bassist John Taylor strutted the stage in the way that rock stars just don’t seem to do anymore. I’d be lying if I said that the new material was as well received as classics like ‘Planet Earth’, ‘The Wild Boys’ or ‘Girls On Film’ (during which the video screens focussed of several puntresses getting their tops off in the crowd), and their cover of Grandmaster Flash’s ‘White Lines’ was just plain awful, but by the time they returned for the encore of ‘Rio’ there wasn’t a punter without a massive grin on their face.
The Presets were keeping the pop dream alive on the Other Stage (with a nod to last year’s stage headliners Pet Shop Boys as they used the intro to ‘It’s A Sin’ to lead into ‘Are You The One?’), but I wandered over to see whether Smashing Pumpkins were focussing on the classic (good) material or the new (awful, awful) stuff. The answer was both: sure, ‘Today’, ‘1979’ and ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ got an airing, but I’d missed those by the time I got there – so instead I got to hear a massive feedback-wank freakout about revolution, or something. Apparently I’d missed some extended beat poetry about the media, though, so thank heavens for Duran Duran. Even without the set clash, I’m not sure how long I could have gazed at Billy Corgan rockin’ that Hellraiser-style leather skirt thing that looked no less stupid on him a decade ago.
And then, just when I’d dismissed the Pumpkins as a post-grunge joke, they returned for a two song encore that made me remember why I’d once loved them: first, a reverent cover of The Church’s ‘Reptile’, before closing the night with a massive romp through ‘Cherub Rock’ that meant I was still grinning all the way to the (again, remarkably well organised) free bus back to Central.
Time Out photographer Daniel Boud was at V Festival. Can you find yourself in these shots?