CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM AIR’S MELBOURNE SIDESHOW HERE.
The V Festival posters may have had a big ‘08’ displayed on them to assure punters that they weren’t going to be entering a worm hole transporting them back a decade or more. The Pumpkins broke up in 2000, right? Jesus and Mary Chain folded in 99. That same year that The Queens of the Stone Age broke through with their Feel Good Hit of the Summer and Róisín Murphy had her biggest hit with a remix of Moloko’s Sing it Back. And it looks as though Duran Duran are attempting to become some sort of New Wave version of Kiss – a band that simply will not die.
Completing the soundtrack of millennial throwbacks were Air, who finally guided their wispy frames and melodies towards our shores some ten years since they took control of the speakers in our cafes with their irresistible and eventually inescapable Moon Safari record.
Of course it’s unfair to accuse all these acts of trading on nostalgia, as most of them are still producing stellar records. After making fans wait for a decade, though, Air had best have a set full of that old stuff. So it’s a relief that the time-warp is in full evidence on arrival at the Palais with the animated gorilla from the Sexy Boy video clip grinning a welcome from the T-shirts behind the merch desk. Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin have taken their time to get here but they’re worth the wait.
Scared off by the hefty ticket price, many fans seem to have chosen to get their fill of Air at the Showgrounds on the weekend, and so despite a strong turn out of well dressed punters there were many empty seats scatted through out the theatre. A sparse crowd greeted the opening set from local gal Sally Seltmann, aka New Buffalo, while the later arrivals braved the aftermath of the day’s record breaking winds that left a maze of fallen trees and power-outs to navigate.
Despite her recent success as the author of Feist’s huge hit 1234 and with two deservedly acclaimed albums to her credit, Seltmann is still has an oddly apologetic stage presence. She seems so unsure of her songs and performance that it constantly undermines the quality of her tunes. It becomes nearly impossible to appreciate the material when the band plays with all the conviction of a paper flower.
It may have taken ten years, but Air clearly haven’t shirked their Australian touring duties from a lack of confidence. The French duo, looking as French as possible without succumbing to a striped skivvy and beret ensemble, took to centre stage in pristine white suits. In contrast, the unacknowledged members of their touring band blended into the dark in anonymous black. Though the attention was obviously on the pallid pair at the front of stage, their backing musos were no slouches. A little digging reveals that Air have enlisted the services of Earl Harvin behind the kit for the tour; a drummer with Trevor Horn, Pet Shop Boys and Art of Noise sessions to his credit. Obscured behind Dunckel’s array of keyboards and samplers, it was easy to forget that there was actually a live drummer on stage. His beats were so crisp it was easy to assume they were coming from one of the many machines at Dunckel’s fingertips.
Opening with their mission statement Electronic Performers, the hour-and-a-half set coasted through their breezy back catalogue. The crowd reserved its biggest reactions for the first album hits – such as Remember and Kelly Watch the Stars, though All I Need was absent from the set-list. While the crowd was made up of the sort of eager punter willing to fork over a festival price for a sideshow ticket, they were happy to remain seated throughout the evening, matching the politeness of much of the soundtrack. With Air’s calming influence, it was easy to drift toward a very reclined seating arrangement, especially with acoustic guitar of Cherry Blossom Girl. But Air did their best to shrug off the mellow, chill-out tag with fierier bursts from Godin’s guitar including a jostling take on 10 000 Hz Legend’s People in the City.
With their encore they finally rose to match the force of those record breaking and tree uprooting winds that battered our humble city. With an instrumental version of High School Lover, from the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, the pulsating Sexy Boy and an epic take of La Femme d’Argent, the Air boys finally managed to blow the audience away – and raise them from their seats for a well deserved standing ovation. Let’s just hope we get another chance to see them play before 2018, when they’ll presumably reform to play the V Fest alongside headline sets from the class of ’08.
