Check out our photo gallery from the first day of Sunset Sounds!

You know that you’re well and truly in Summer festival mode when it takes over an hour to get through the gates, while people drop like flies from heat exhaustion in the queue. Day one of the inaugural Sunset Sounds festival found Brisbane hot, thirsty and ready to rock out to some very fine local and imported acts.

Once finally in the gate, it was then time to line up at the drinks tent to replenish the lost fluids and listen to the simmering sultry Soko sing of tales of love and betrayal at the Garden stage. She had this inviting yet repelling quality about her that was fascinating. It was like watching Cleopatra singing pop tunes, you knew that here was a lady with attitude and confidence to spare.

Yves Klein Blue made it their mission to warm up the River Stage, bouncing from side to side like overcharged electrons. Having only recently graduated from Brisbane’s indie-dance-rock scene, they managed to hold their own and seemed completely at home on the festival circuit. Although we are still yet to hear some new music after last year’s EP, the crowd’s obvious delight with Polka showed that they are doing something right.

Violent Soho do their usual fine job of tearing it up on the smaller Hibiscus stage, ripping through their favourites Bombs Over Broadway, Jesus Stole My Girlfriend and radio hit Love Is A Dirty Word. Frontman Luke Boerdam brings the grunge with his flanney and screamy-shouty vocals, and there’s lots of hair flying around as all four members thrash out their power rock numbers. The crowd laps it up, and they manage to squeeze 8 songs into their twenty minute set, going out on a high with Scrape It.

Canadians Tegan and Sara were next to grace the River Stage with their infectious acoustic guitar-driven pop. Looking like an Othello game, with Tegan dressed in all white and Sara in all black, they alternated duties as lead singer/acoustic guitar while the other backed up with harmonies and electric guitar, supported ably by their three-piece band. Five albums into their career, there was certainly no shortage of material to call upon for today’s set, although they seemed to cut tracks mostly from The Con and So Jealous.

Back at the Garden Stage, English maestros Gomez proved that it’s okay to have three lead vocalists in one band, with guitarists Ben Ottewell, Ian Ball and keyboardist Tom Gray all taking it in turns to share their vibrating vocal folds. Opening number Get Miles was a favourite with the swaying, sweaty crowd, as was 78 Stone Wobble (which segued into a cover of Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away ) from their 1998 debut album, Bring It On, and We Haven’t Turned Around from 1999’s Liquid Skin. An excellent band, although the only problem is that they almost sound too much like their records, and have limited onstage energy, making the experience feel like sitting in someone’s very hot loungeroom listening to records, albeit with a couple of thousand other people.

For a band that’s been around in one form or another since 1996, Faker haven’t changed much at all since their first shows. Pulling tunes almost entirely from their big 2007 record, Be The Twilight, Faker played a solid, but extremely safe set, including This Heart Attack, Are You Magnetic and Sleepwalking. The only problem is that it’s the exact same set we’ve been hearing from them for the last couple of years. Boys, it’s time to write some new material, get into the studio, record and release it.

The Rocketsmiths have a steadily swelling reputation, but the slightly shabby sound setup at the Hibiscus Stage, which helped Violent Soho, takes some of the sheen off the ‘smiths poppy western numbers. They play all of the tracks from their spectacular new EP Parts, Pieces. The highlight track is The River – anyone who isnt dancing at this stage must have no soul. Frontman Dominic Miller wails and flails like a demonic circus ringmaster, and they go out on a high with The Boy Who Cried Misery and Man With A Gun. Brisbane bands are providing some not-unexpected highlights today.

Brighton post-punk indie-posters, The Kooks, named themselves after David Bowie’s song on Hunky Dory, thereby creating quite a quality measure to match, which they managed to do today. Sticking mostly to cuts from studio records, Inside In/Inside Out and Konk, with a couple of new ones to tease us, The Kooks played an energetic and sometimes-frenzied set of raw indie-post-punk-dance that had even the most world-weary and gig-worn punter nodding and tapping along. Crowd pleasers were Always Where I Need To Be, Sway and Shine On. Despite the well-publicised rumours that Swedish imitators, The Swedish Kooks are going to stage-invade The Kooks at some point, we weren’t in luck tonight, having only the real thing instead.

Performing to a relatively small, loyal crowd at the Hibiscus Stage, one would think The Gin Club would be more comfortable playing in a confined venue with spacious natural reverb like the Old Museum (where they’ve so far played four annual Christmas shows), yet the local stalwarts launch into their brief set with indomitable enthusiasm. Trimmed down to a six-piece, Captain Ben Salter and crew charge through the now-ubiquitous Ten Paces Away and crowd favourite Drug Flowers, both with the right mix of crystalline chime and crunch. A joker in the pack, golden-tonsilled Scott Regan delivers a wistful rendition of Days, underscored by Salter’s melodic lead guitar breaks. Also aired is slower, more melancholic material from recent double opus Junk; in all, the Club members’ dress rehearsal of their forthcoming Big Day Out slot proves to be just as solid and impressive as any of their headlining shows.

Speaking of imitators and stage-invaders, The Hives provided tonight’s headline set at the Riverstage. As Swedish as Ikea, and as modest as Mohammed Ali, Howling Pelle Almqvist entertained with his trademark immodesty and irreverence, while leading the band through an impressive collection of songs from their four studio records, including Hate To Say I Told You So, Supply And Demand, Two Timing Touch And Broken Bones, Walk Idiot Walk and finale, Tick Tick Boom. Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that The Hives are entertaining, and despite having the stage power cut for a couple of minutes, the energy given in their set was relentless and unforgiving. As Pelle repeatedly claimed once power was restored, “You do not cut the power on The Hives!”, making up for the insult by playing an extra fifteen minutes past the official timetabled finish.

Walking out of the first day of Sunset Sounds, people looked both tired from the day’s music, drinking and general festivities, yet anticipating the coming day’s events. What would be in store for us all at the second day of the inaugural Sunset Sounds? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s instalment to find out all!

By Stew Riddle aka stewr, Liam McGinniss aka gumbuoy and Denis Semchenko aka denistheman81