Splendour Day Three: The BestBits

Mon 1st Aug, 2011 in Local News

BEST BITS OF DAY ONE
BEST BITS OF DAY TWO

The final day of Splendour witnessed the final Middle East show and the mainstage dominated by some incredibly charming Brits.

IT WAS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED – THE MIDDLE EAST

Nestled in between sets from The Vines and Elbow over in the amphitheatre and up against Perth rapper Drapht in the Mix Up tent, Townsville band The Middle East filled the GW McLennan Tent for their twilight set, offering fans an especially unforgettable show.

A few songs in they dropped the bomb shell that it was to be their last ever show; “We’ve decided this is our last show ever, thanks for being here – it makes it special for us.” Despite sarcastically following up the announcement with “We’re Coldplay”, leading many to question if they were just having a gag, it seems as though the news was true

Aware that they were now witnessing a potentially historical music moment for the short-lived but much loved band, the crowd threw themselves into the hoedown with the early hit Blood making for one of the most memorable moments of perhaps the entire festival.

HILLBILLES – CLOUD CONTROL

Cloud Control’s set featured plenty of on stage highlights, including a cover of The La’s classic There She Goes and a break down mid-way through Gold Canary which saw the band dashing off stage to return with giant balloons as the opening cries of The Lion King’s Circle of Life rang out over the Ampitheatre.

However the set will be remembered for the antics of the flash mob style dance party that broke out in the crowd. Started by a small group of fans dancing in a clear space on the hill, more and more punters flocked to join the group and spent the set running up and down the Amphitheatre slope. From the stage it looked like a bizarre human waterfall, impressing the band enough for them to dedicate their set closer Buffalo Country to “the guys up the top – that’s awesome”.

CHARM OFFENSIVE – ELBOW

“Take your hands out of your slankets… let’s do festivaly things. Spirit fingers!” commanded Elbow frontman Guy Garvey in the politest way possible. The group, who described themselves to FL earlier in the year as “five normal lads from Manc and we make sort of ‘air wobble’ for a living” are so overwhelmingly nice that only a punter stubbornly determined to resist their charm could fail to be won over by the band’s stirring late afternoon set.

Opening their set with The Birds the lead track of their new record Build a Rocket Boys!, Elbow kick of the festival’s final night Best of British run home (Elbow-Kaiser Chiefs-Pulp-Coldplay) in fine style. They were playing to the biggest Australian crowd of their career but Garvey and his gang are used to leading huge crowds back home and they conduct the crowd response with ease.

Garvey lead the punters in a series of rousing vocal exercises to introduce Grounds for Divorce – “Woah oooooo o o o o…” – and although the crowd on the hill didn’t seem too keen on joining in the sing-along Elbow left the stage having charmed a few thousand more fans into submission.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT JARVIS – PULP

The long build up to the Pulp set features a series of questions projected across the stage (self-referential “Do you remember the first time?”; crowd pleasing “Do you want a drink?”; just plain odd “Do you want to see a dolphin?”) and by the time the curtain drops the size of the crowd assembled in the ampitheatre proves that the band should have been given headline honours.

Their reunion may be shortlived – Jarvis told the huge crowd that “This could be the last time we ever play in Australia” – but there’s no sense that the band is simply churning through a back catalogue of old hits (like Pixies set last year). The set is almost another episode of that much loved series ‘The Jarvis Show’ with the crowd relishing his sparkling banter and wolf whistling at his hip thrusting dance moves.

Highlights include… well just about everything in the set with Mis-Shapes, Underwear, I Spy, Babies and This Is Hardcore all getting an airing. Sorted for E’s and Whiz is every bit the festival anthem you’d always imagined it to be, but the biggest response predictably came for Disco 2000 and the set closer Common People, which featured an inaudible guest cameo from Bridezilla’s Daisy Tully on violin.

READ ON FOR THE COLDPLAY SET REPORT