New year’s eve morning came and many hung over festival goers trudged back into the grounds for another full day. Massive credit has to be paid to the organisers of the event, who came prepared for the wet weather and ensured the prevention of mud on the festival grounds with plenty of pegged down hessian (perhaps learning a valuable lesson from the recent Meredith Music Festival experience).

Triple J Unearthered winner Seagull opened the proceedings for the day with his calm folk, before Cut Off Your Hands took over to deliver their pop frenzy. Oh Girl, Expectations and a mean cover of The Sonics The Witch filled out COYH’s set in fine style as more punters filed out of their tents and onto the hill. The tent up the hill filled up very nicely for Californians, The Dodos, and rightly so, as the proved to be somewhat of a dark horse amongst the festival lineup. The trio provided a unique, acoustic led variety of folk pop, along with occasional heavy percussion and xylophone. Playing material lifted heavily from The Visitor, the Dodos would definitely have made a few fans with their solid set.

Limping out on stage with the help of crutches was Mystery Jets frontman, Blaine Harrison, who sat centre stage to deliver vocals, keys and guitar for the band. Many bands have cancelled tours for much less, so the Mystery Jets were being hailed for making the effort despite injury. Twenty One was the album on show and everyone knew the songs and was more than happy to sing along. Diamonds in the Dark from 2007’s Zootime was a rare addition of an older number that seemed to excite the band’s fans, but it was Young Love that won the entire crowd, despite not featuring a guest female filling in for Laura Marling – despite the rumours of a fill in that some had been circulating.

Following in the same pop fueled path of Mystery Jets were Aussies, Architecture In Helsinki who managed to have the crowd packed tight during their slot. Amongst their own tracks, an Ace Of Base cover, Break My Stride, seemed to pleasure the excitable crowd, as did the band’s latest single That Beep. Alternatively, the “slow dance” version of Debbie was introduced so that the band didn’t go too hard too soon. Finishing with Heart It Races was very much an example of that “going hard” with both the band and crowd jumping about in the true party spirit.

Eli – œPaperboy’ Reed and the True Loves followed AIH, and just like the crowd had dwindled for the Drones the day before, the front of stage thinned out twofold. Perhaps everyone went for lunch, perhaps they went to their tents to prepare for the big night ahead – regardless, Reed and the True Loves deserved more than they had and even though it took a little while, they did manage to draw back a decent dance crowd down the front. Like Jones and the Dap Kings, Reed and the True Loves delivered a vintage soul sound that you couldn’t help but move you feet to. Reed, with his mix of James Brown squawk and smooth vocals, and backed by his tight ensemble, wasn’t deterred by the smaller crowd and impressed with the cheeky Get You Back and funky The Satisfier.

The clouds had completely cleared and a perfect blue sky was finally gracing the Falls Festival by Wednesday afternoon – setting the perfect mood for the rootsy Blue King Brown. Made up with a blue stripe across her face, Natalie Pa’apa’a came out dancing and didn’t relent in providing an energy fuelled hour of her politically conscious songs. Amongst the bevy of new material, Come And Check Your Head still stood out as the band’s most powerful song – with many a fist punching the sky and dancing along. The band members’ solos came soon after as per usual to round out the set in a jamming frenzy.

A very packed crowd proved that Santogold’s appearance was most certainly going to be a highlight for many in the crowd. Having a DJ for 15 minutes of an already shortened set didn’t exactly go down beautifully though, and many were itching for the Brooklyn star to come on stage. Preceded by a pair of gold-clad dancers (who proved to be quite scary with their almost robotic stage presence), Santogold did finally appear to massive applause and looked genuinely happy to be performing. An early addition of Les Artistes proved to be a highlight for the entire festival, with everyone in the crowd contributing vocals and dancing as though Santogold were the one counting down to midnight. Inviting a whole bunch of front row fans onto stage for the final number, Creator, proved to be a hit too, as the now busy stage danced away to a darkening sky.

The Grates were next up and Patience was clearly ready for a bit of warming up with all her insane dancing about the stage. Lacking any obscure costume (the likes of her Splendour outfit), the Grates frontwoman was still as crazy as ever as she howled her way in and out of songs – Science Is Golden, Trampoline, 19 20 20 and the newer Burn Bridges. The Grates were most definitely a bouncy way to venture into the darkness.

Running a little late for some people’s liking, it seemed Gomez might disrupt the tight schedule to have the headliners on by quarter to midnight. Eventually the UK five piece appeared and the Gomez fans could most certainly be heard – clearly their love of Australia is equally returned. Get Miles was blasted as a mighty opener and many of Gomez’s great rock numbers followed. Here Comes The Breeze was terrific and Fill My Cup was equally great, not to mention a little appropriate considering its references to alcohol and all. Poor Ian Ball had lost his voice, which was disappointing – Tom Gray quickly explained that Ball, “quite liked sounding like Dylan.” Ben Ottewell was in charge of singing most of the songs though (although everyone took their turns) and his unique voice was the perfect lead up to midnight. The epic How We Operate rounded out Gomez’s overtime and the anticipation for midnight was all of a sudden rife.

“It’s two fucking minutes to midnight,” one punter yelled in a half drunk, half genuinely agitated way. Seemed fair enough to be agitated too – many were really looking forward to a countdown with the favourite Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand. Instead, midnight was brought in by a bunch of performers and organisers on stage, who provided a rather “all of a sudden” countdown.

The Scots ran out soon after though, and in his sexy Glaswegian accent, Alex Kapranos offered the question, “Are you having a good year so far?” It seemed pretty fair to say that everyone was. Do You Wanna then kicked off 2009 and a sea of ecstatic festival goers began to bound away into the new year.

Having been off the radar for a while, there was the threat that Franz might self indulge with a set list of new material, but the lads were very well behaved and gave Falls Festival exactly what they wanted. The Dark of the Matinee, Michael and The Fallen were delivered with true rock star performances and at times the black and white clad foursome looked like part of a rock film roll amidst the white flashing spotlights. Take Me Out appeared mid-set and sparked the manic response it was obviously going to receive, before the new single, Ulysses, demonstrated the band are still creating killer new material.

An abrupt end came to the main set as Franz disappeared following an unnamed new song, but the quick return delivered Jacqueline, Outsiders (which ended with all four members taking their place to beat the drum kit) and This Fire. An outstanding return for Franz Ferdinand and a brilliant party to bring in the new year was all anyone in Lorne could have hoped for.

Happy New Year!

Photos courtesy of Anthony Smith