First on our list to see were the Jezebels. I know a few of their tracks but was relatively new to most of their music. I tried listening to the album a week before the gig but I found it a little too melancholic for my liking, but in the exciting open air, sunny day surrounds of Groovin the Moo I really enjoyed them. Lead singer Hayley Mary looked nothing like I expected and I walked away with a bit of a lady crush on this petite pixie with a huge set of lungs. She reminds me of a cross between Kate Bush and Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their huge hit Mace Spray went down very well with all members of their surprisingly large crowd for their early time slot.
Holy shit balls, what can I say about Darwin Deez? I knew they'd be good, I just knew it, but I totally underestimated their performing brilliance, shame on me! Possibly one of the most bizarre looking dudes ever, frontman Darwin Smith is about as talented as he is unattractive. They played all my favourites, DNA, Constellations, Bad Day and their big hit Radar Detector but what was totally unexpected and quickly propelled them to the top of my best of list was the impromptu choreographed interpretive dance that frequented the gaps between songs every now and then. The entire band would down instruments, line up
at the front of the stage and BANG perform an awesome group dance! It totally made my day! Check this out:The audio is pretty bad on this next clip but I would have never guessed you can merge Enya's Sail Away and Rage's Testify in the one dance number! Genius!
I just love these guys, not only their amazing and hilarious dorky dancing but also their talented live performance of all their great music. It made these guys my faves of the day and as we walked away discussing how great they were and my friends were all shocked, I was quietly (or maybe not so quietly) smug because I knew they'd be good, but they were fantastic, such good value.
Next we spent a bit of time watching Datarock who were decked out in their trademark matching Red jumpsuits. These guys weren't on my list to see but they sounded pretty good pumping out their dancey electro rock tunes as we headed past so we stopped to check them out for a bit. The funniest thing of that set was the girl next to me who said to her gentleman friend "I think these guys are Norwegian, yeah they're from Norwegia...that doesn't sound right!" He responded with "They're Norwegian and are from Norway...idiot" haha. On that note... we left.
Next on the main stage was Washington, I've always quite enjoyed her work but have never felt the urge to buy gig tickets but I definitely wanted to check her out finally at Groovin The Moo. I'm so glad I did, she's phenomenal. In 2008 she was unearthed with her band by Triple J and given a spot on the following years Melbourne Big Day Out line up and has since gained a huge following and had loads of great hits. She was energetic and bubbly onstage and had everyone dancing up a storm for her latest track Sunday Best. It was starting to get colder at this stage of the day and with a team of helpers I decided to do a strategic wardrobe change where we used a large scarf (huge like a blanket) as a dressing room and I removed a pair of borrowed shorts and replaced them with my warm jeans. It would have gone off with out a hitch until a comic genius female friend of mine...we'll call her Kieren for now... decided it would be funny if mid change she pretended to drop her end of the scarf, the problem was in all the hilarious pretending she actually dropped the scarf, lucky for me my pants were up and no longer around my ankles....but It was a close one!
Veteran performers House of Pain followed and really, everyone just wanted them to play Jump Around. When they did the show ground erupted, it was an amazing sight to behold from our elevated vantage point of the small hill in the over 18's section. They also played a few tracks by band member Everlast including his hit What It's Like. They were really the only 2 songs I recognized from them.
We next wandered over to the big tent to watch Architecture in Helsinki. I've turned down the opportunity to see these guys years ago and regretted it, so I was sure to check them out this time. I listened to their new album a few times the week before the gig and whilst some of the tracks were really catchy like Contact High, some of them were just a bit too abstract for me. None the less, over I moseyed and was entertained. Much to my delight they played That Beep quite early in their set and they also made an attempt at choreography a-la Darwin Deez but it was a bit of a lame attempt. Some moron of a girl decided to risk her life and make the band stop playing which gave me the shits when she climbed one of the huge posts holding up the tent. When she got to the top about 15-20 meters up she waved and made a show of it before heading down. On the way down she stopped, put her legs in the ladder like post and proceeded to hang upside down waving her arms around. The old lady in me was annoyed and disgusted and outraged she's do something so dumb. When the band stopped playing she decided she'd had enough and finally got down. I hoped she'd been caught and thrown out by security but I saw her run past about 2 minutes later freaking out with her friends. I gave her a dirty look. Don't think she noticed but it made me feel better! We left just after they played a cover of "I've Been Thinking About You" by Londonbeat.
We then watched a little Gyroscope, they are always pretty good, I'm not a huge fan. We all bopped away to their big hits and they finished with Snakeskin to a happy crowd. The Drums played whilst we sat and ate a very average steak sandwich, by this stage it was starting to get very cold. I heard a few tracks I knew but unfortunately we were already on our way to see Art V's Science when they played Let's Go Surfing but I whistled in tune as we headed away from the stage.
Art V's Science had punters packed into the huge tent and surrounds. The over 18's section meant the closest we could get was a few meters from the side of the tent, we couldn't hear much at all, so we downed our drinks and headed out of the over 18's section and into the tent for a dance. I do like these guys but I'm not a huge fan, I'm always left thinking 'I don't get it' when I see them live. There is a lot of noise and feedback between songs and with songs like Higher the crazy electro noises confuse me, none the less they are always entertaining and great to dance to.
Walking out of the warm tent and over to Birds of Tokyo I couldn't get over how cold it was. There were so many girls shivering and wearing hardly anything and I felt so sorry for their stupidity in not bringing a jacket or something. We caught the end of Birds of Tokyo and I really enjoyed them. I definitely preferred their first 2 albums more than their latest offering but these guys are the sort of band that I don't follow religiously but whenever I see them I'm always so impressed by their talent and professionalism.
I was torn between seeing The Wombats whose new album is phenomenal but who I've seen before and seeing UNKLE who I've never seen before but find them very interesting. I decided to check out most of The Wombats set and then head over to see the last few tracks of UNKLE. The Wombats were amazing as always, they played loads of hits off their first album, Kill The Director, Laura, Lets Dance to Joy Division, and some of the fantastic tracks from their latest offering like Tokyo, Our Perfect Disease and my fave of their set, Jump into the Fog which sounded so amazing and had all the perfect synth highlights from the album recording. When they finished their last song Joy Division we headed over quickly to see what was left of UNKLE.
I love their sound, it's so sexy. So much sound and such rich layers of music come out of these guys. I find it really hard to describe UNKLE or even compare them to anyone else. Some sites describe them as Electronica and Trip-hop (whatever that is) but I also find them a little Pop Rocky at times. I was bummed not to hear any of the 6 or 7 tracks I know from these guys, but what I heard I really loved.
This post has taken me ages I know. I've been working on it bit by bit for about 3 weeks and am just a bit over it right now. Maybe I need to focus on short album reviews or quick posts on more current favourite songs. Maybe for the gigs and festivals I go to I need to keep those reviews shorter, all I know is this one felt like homework, and I'm guessing it shows and is probably a bit of painful read. I think I'm a point where I need to step it up a notch and put some real time and effort in and try to get a bigger group of readers or I take a break till it becomes something I really want to do again. OR I just pack it in and write it off as a fun short experiment. We'll see what happens I guess.
