Harvest Festival: week onewrap-up

Thu 17th Nov, 2011 in Local News

It has been a huge week of Harvest Festival action all around Australia, from the inaugural events in Melbourne and Sydney to the dozens of sideshows in Adelaide and Perth. With headliners like Portishead and The Flaming Lips, all this Harvesting has been going so well that the festival’s promoter AJ Maddah has already promised that the event will return and “…next year’s line-up is killer!”

In case you have missed any of musical goodness here is a wrap-up of what all FL’s amazing reviewers and photographers have captured so far.

There’s so much more to a festival than it’s line-up. Harvest definitely seem to understand this… Even the bands that failed to really catch fire still put in serviceable sets; this was a definite upside to ignoring buzz-bands and going for pedigree. All in all there was so much to like about Harvest that by this time next year, it’s many teething problems are bound to be forgiven.

Perhaps Sydney’s Harvest festival was blessed with a slightly smaller crowd or maybe the organizers had quickly learnt the lessons from the events the day before in Melbourne, but Sydney’s Harvest Festival was (almost) entirely hassle free and lived up to the advertising boast that this was not so much a festival as a “civilized gathering”. Yes, even in Parramatta – so far away from Surry Hills – it’s possible to be civilized.

From math rock to acoustic heart wrenchers, the This Town Needs Guns sideshow presented a mixed bag of sounds.

Over the years, [Conor] has become a true showman, yet with a sense of grace and irony matched by few. That he remains one of the most fervently ideological presences in indie-folk completes the package. Tonight, we got it all in one hectic couple of hours.

If TV On The Radio were on the back foot tonight, it’d be forgivable – the sad passing of bassist Gerard Smith, and resulting lineup shuffle, happened only half a year ago. So when they come out swinging with Young Liars it’s a particularly triumphant moment. Far from the quiet confidence of the recorded version, it’s a wall of guitar noise, one that would feel like an onslaught if it wasn’t so welcome.

The National offer something so unique it is almost hard to pin down. It is the simplicity and honesty in their songwriting and sheer musicianship which sets them apart from the rest. While new bands may aspire to sound like The National, there will only ever be one band like them.

Adelaide had just been well and truly funked.