Dearest Paper-Deer readers, you may have noticed that this blog went eerily quiet from July 28 to August 3, which is the fault of a little festival by the name of
Splendour in the Grass.
DAY ONE:
Paper-Deer and entourage rolled up to Splendour's new crib at
Woodford, where we were met with mud and thirty-thousand new best mates to get muddy with. The "security" check on a car consisted of an awesomely laid back guy who seemed disappointed when we told him we honestly didn't have any drugs on us, and told us to let him know if we scored any... presumably because he was in desperate need of dope.
Day one proved blistering hot for our delicate Melbourne skin, and Paper-Deer's skinny-leg-wearing travelling companion was heard complaining, "I almost put a pair of shorts in my suitcase when I was packing, but then I told myself to not be so stupid." After nearly passing out from erecting a tent in the scorching Queensland sun, we managed to drag ourselves to the festival grounds but not before getting seriously lost in an endless sea of navy, khaki and silver temporary homes.
Violent Soho was the first aural feast of the festival, and they did not disappoint with their grunge-revival tunes. Hailing from Queensland but now based in the US, they opened
Jesus Stole My Girlfriend by explaining that this song got them in trouble with our conservative Yankee cousins. That tends to happen when you call the son of God a "cunt".
British India seemed to please the indie segment of the crowd, and the
Little Red crowd were more then content with the syrupy, retro-inspired tunes by the band. Although we should add that there were a few very angry young men dressed in black skinny legs, Doc Martens and
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club shirts checking their watches very anxiously during
Little Red's performance. A couple of stray girls from Little Red's set decided to stay on and hung tight to the barrier, but the sight of a completely badass leather-clad Peter Hayes doing sound check with a rebellious cigarette dangling from his pouting lips absolutely frightened them. "Um, excuse but are Black Rebel Motorcycle Club heavy? Will we get trampled?" one of them nervously asked another punter. The four girls managed to survive because of a tamer-than-normal mosh pit, most probably because the crowd were absolutely blown away by the phenomenal three piece's grimey, blues-drenched garage rock.
Back at the GW McLennan tent,
Lisa Mitchell (aka Audrey Hepburn lookalike) frolicked around a stage decked out with coloured flags and her devoted backing band. But despite all the hype about this gorgeous nymph going from an Australian Idol contestant to Australia's next idol, her performance totally panned out. Weak, Angie Hart-esque vocals sound dainty in the studio, but guess what? Dainty just sounds weak in a live setting. One punter was overheard saying, "Wow, it's like over-processed open mic night" before shaking his head and running out of the tent screaming, thus lowering the male to female ratio in the tent even more.
LCD Soundsystem was a loud relief to the ears after that all that soft, whingey folk, and they turned their stage into one big muddy arena of people dancing like drugged up music lovers. Which they probably were.
Perhaps the most memorable part of the day was not watching amazing bands while sun baking on a gorgeously green Queensland hill, but frustratingly trying to find our way back to our tent. Poorly marked out roads, lack of lighting and the fact that the marshals were completely uninterested in even directing us to a map didn't help us in the slightest, but we somehow managed to get to our tent but only after a considerable period of time and picking up a few other lost souls on the way.
DAY TWO:
Despite our greatest efforts to laze about naked in our sleeping bags until at least noon, it turned out that a plastic tent in the northern heat makes quite a good oven. Instead of roasting away, Paper-Deer and co trudged along and watched the very talented
Jonathan Boulet and his backing crew hammer out their delicious, percussion-driven indie pop tunes at the main amphitheatre, followed by the also excellent
Band of Skulls doing their thing.
Paper-Deer just missed out on Melburnian gems
Oh Mercy (damn queues for mini Dutch pancakes!) but got to dance up a storm at the incredibly amazing
John Steel Singers, who were accompanied by dancers wearing horse masks. The boogie-trend continued with
Philadelphia Grand Jury with their jump-worthy tracks like
I'm Going To Kill You and
I Don't Want to Party [Party]. The three men ran about stage in their usual haphazard fashion, smashing equipment while pre-recorded banter blared out over the amphitheatre, and previewed a new song for the Splendour crowd.
Next up on the main stage was
Operator Please, who have proved that they are most certainly not a one-hit wonder. While they did play
Just a Song About Ping Pong, they got the crowd moving with a reworked version to keep it fresh, as well as showcasing their seriously shiny and amazing fashion sense.
We headed down to the GW McLennan Tent (which a friend dubbed "the boring acoustic tent") to watch
Laura Marling and to see what Jack White is going on about. She was undoutably charming, and it was quite hilarious and lovely to see completely "blokey" going all mushy and singing their hearts out while clutching to their beers.
Back at the main stage,
Wolfmother turned the main amphitheatre into bogan central with their excessively safe and wanky tunes. It must be said that the Led Zeppelin/Black Sabbath cover band did seem to impress most of the fist-pumping crowd, but there were quite a few of us hanging out the back rolling our eyes.
By the time that
Florence & the Machine came onto the stage, the summery skies closed up with thick, purple clouds ominously rolling around above us. There was almost an electric quality to the air as Lady Florence started belting her heart out in a floor length lace dress and a white cape with her fiery red hair peeping out of the hood. If Lisa Mitchell disappointed us with her lack of stage presence, Florence was the complete opposite. Tearing across the stage, bouncing along barefoot, the red-haired Briton unleashed her vocal abilities with songs like
Kiss With A Fist, sometimes bashing away at a floor tom by the microphone. With her almost mystical persona and waving a drum stick about like a magician's wand, the crowd watched her every move in awe like they were witnessing a goddess.
The Strokes headlined night numero duo, and lead singer
Julian Casablancas seemed totally overwhelmed by the crowd every time he addressed the audience in between songs. "Look at this cauldron of humanity!" he proclaimed, in what has probably become the most quoted line from the three-day festival. The New Yorkers planned out an excellent set for their fans, full of crowd favourites like
Last Night.
'Flo of the 'Mo
DAY THREE:
Despite the lack of proper showers and incredible amounts of dirt, this reviewer was incredibly jealous of all the beautiful girls strutting around in perfectly clean clothes and immaculate make-up, and was half tempted to sneak back to their tents to see if there was a make-up team on hand. But back to the music...
The day opened with
Cloud Control soothing tired festival-goers with their mountain music, followed up by
Surfer Blood back at the main amphitheatre.
We Are Scientists' banter was definitely the best at the festival, with
Keith Murray's incredibly bizarre but hilarious sense of humour. At one stage, he put out a safety announcement, warning the crowd to be careful of the steep slope in case they slid down at landed on the giant spikes at the bottom of the hill. Some of the slower (or perhaps inebriated) punters looked confused, but the rest of us has a quiet chuckle to ourselves. The greying band was followed by
Ash, who impressed Paper-Deer until we realised that they had a backing track. Tsk tsk.
Unlike their hilarious
David Letterman performance,
The Vines' set was rock solid, and packed to the brim with their seriously fucking excellent garage rock. Lead singer Craig Nicholls seems to have put on a few pounds but his signature sexy crazy-man hair and devil may care attitude was more than intact. The Sydney band had the crowd under their thumb as they played songs like
TV Pro,
Winning Days and
Get Free.
Kate Nash was hilariously crude and ladylike at the same time, with a banner in front of her keyboard reading "A CUNT IS A USEFUL THING" (point noted). She did have a several good whinges to the light guy, doing a little girl singsong tantrum routine about the lights "attacking" her, but we weren't sure if she was just playing or was just a legitimate princess.
At the Mix Up Stage,
Alison Goldfrapp of
Goldfrapp came onstage in a fierce flurry of black streamers, and wowed audiences with her electropop-ness but Paper-Deer had to leave before Goldfrapp had a chance to play any favourites like
Strict Machine or
Black Cherry to get a good spot for Pixies at the main amphitheatre.
Paper-Deer are not really into
Mumford and Sons, but there is no denying how truly amazing they are. Armed with their beautifully crafted acoustic songs and humble onstage personas (repeated thanking Australia for being so good to them), the crowd loved them every bit back. The amphitheatre was completely packed, with not even a patch of dirt to spare. Everyone was jumping around, waving their arms, taking photos, singing along wholeheartedly, and there was even an inflatable zebra in on the action. It was clear: Mumford and Sons should definitely start a cult in Australia.
A large portion of the Mumford crowd stayed to watch grunge gods
Pixies, but most did not stay. This writer should probably add that she is a massive fan of the quartet, but was seriously disappointed.
Black Francis' dour attitude at their recent sellout show in Melbourne seemed to have gotten worse, and the only bit of banter in the entire set was a delightful little exchange between Francis and
Kim Deal at the start of their famous
Where Is My Mind. But it was admittedly hilarious when many non-fans (eager to hear at least some sort of interaction) actually replied to Black Francis when he yelled out "HEY! Been trying to meet you!" at the start of
Hey. Perhaps they were a bit offended when he didn't reply, or just plain bored, but the human pit that Mumford and Sons commanded turned into a wide open space after a mass exodus about three songs into their set. On the plus side, devoted fans were treated to many non-
Doolittle tracks like
Bone Machine,
Gigantic,
Cactus,
Caribou,
Cecilia Ann and
Velouria. It kind of proved that being able to sell out show in a couple of minutes doesn't always mean they should. (Paper-Deer is also readying itself for an onslaught of angry Pixies fans commenting on this post.)
