With fondue parties, chair lifts, table tennis, trivia and a film programme featuring the likes of Love Story alongside Ghosts of the Civil Dead All Tomorrows Parties is clearly more than just another festival, but for music fans this was without question the most exciting line up of the summer. Ranging from a reformed Krautrock supergroup to jazz punk heroes, to contemporary noise terrorists and psych rockers, the bill assembled by curators Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds attracted a crowd of genuine music lovers who were treated to an amazing weekend in one of the most incredible locations imaginable for a festival – the top of Mt Buller.
Holy Sea were given the task of opening the festival as everyone settled into the grass on the Buller slopes to take in the spectacular views and hear the band’s tales of love, booze and love of booze. Hoss smudged their way through the festival’s wake up call, complaining bitterly of ‘too much sugar not enough meat’ – a criticism that certainly couldn’t be applied to the band, or festival. If Hoss didn’t wake the crowd then Dead Meadow certainly did. Playing the main stage, half-way the up the Bourke St slope – a walk that caused some grief for the punters – the three piece hit the stage with an opening looped churn of distortion before launching into a chugging haze of pysch-blues.
Though Cave had supposedly tried to stick to a ‘no friends’ policy in programming the festival the Bad Seeds piano player, Conway Savage, was the next performer to grace the Amphitheatre stage. His low-key piano ballads set the pace for the Amphitheatre stage, which often acted as a gentle breather after many of the main stage acts. Following an awkward soul shuffle from his most recent album it was time to once again scale the mountain to catch Bill Callahan. With the Tren Brothers, Jim White and Mick Turner, joining him on stage, Callahan, clad in double denim and scuffed sneakers, jogged slowly on the spot as he played his strangely spooky tunes. Highlights included Our Anniversary, Sycamore, Diamond Dancer, though unsurprisingly it was his sped up version of Cold Blooded Old Times that won the biggest response.
Back at the Amphitheatre Beaches blurred their four guitar approach into a likeable, though ultimately unmemorable set that did little to support their claims to current Melbourne indie ‘it girls’. Maybe it’s just the novelty offered by a band of gals playing music so associated with scrawny boys in over-sized flannel shirts and black Dunlops.
Indie heroes of yesteryear, Primitive Calculators in their own words ‘sounded shit twenty nine years ago and still sound shit’. They joked that they were old and should know better than to play but with the snarled delivery of their hilarious leadman they easily won the crowd over. Despite the pauses caused by their apparently primitive computer the set included songs started in 1977 finished last week; a track called Dead dedicated to the man they felt sums up the ATP experience – Mick Jagger; the brilliantly nihilistic complaint Nothing; and a deranged cover of Shout. James Blood Ulmer was the near perfect opposite to the Calculators, with his quavering voice rolling over his soulful blues guitar. It was a beautiful relaxing afternoon set, but the curiosity provoked by the Mystery Act got the better of most of the punters who returned to the main stage.
The rumours had swirled about the Mystery Act – Cave’s favourite pop star Kylie was in town; but did Spritluaized’s place on the bill suggest a secret Spaceman 3 reunion; or did the Birthday Party t-shirts at the merch desk offer a clue? Surely it couldn’t be Bob Log… Instead it was Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, Jim Schavnus and, making the first of his three main stage appearances, Nick Cave who hit the stage as Grinderman. They immediately launched into their striped back rock with an opening assault of Depth Charge Ethel, Get it On and Electric Alice. With Warren playing mandocaster and a brace of effects pedals, Cave relied on his laminated lyric sheets and squinted into the afternoon sun. A punter trying to help out hurled his sun glasses on stage only to have Cave try them on and dismiss them as ‘kinda gay’; a bra was also thrown on stage during the storming No Pussy Blues, though Cave didn’t try it on to offer an opinion. The band struggled at times to rememeber their parts, making the call ‘how’s this one go?’ all too common, but judging from the reaction as Grinderman played Love Bomb to finish it was hard to imagine anyone was disappointed with the mystery act. Apparently Kylie couldn’t make trip up the mountain due to a fear of altitude sickness anyway
The Necks brought things back to a contemplative lull as the light began to fade and the mountain ranges moved from green to blue. Their improvised set of looping riffs moved in tiny changes from unseen cues as the three performers worked perfectly in tune with each other. Fuck Buttons face off with more obvious onstage interaction across a table arrayed with electronic machines, but their stage set-up is about as thrilling as watching competitive air hockey. Thankfully their music is a far more exciting prospect than their set-up. Opening with Sweet Love For Planet Earth the pair blasted glorious noise for their forty minute set, with the spaced out vocals sung through a Fisher Price style children’s microphone. Ribs Out featured live drumming with Benjamin Power attacking the drum from all angles as his partner in crime Andrew Hung flung himself about the stage chirping into his mic. Less aggressively noisy than they are on record, they surged forward with Bright Tomorrow pushing the beats high in the mix and getting the crowd dancing.
Silver Apples recorded their pair of late 60s albums as a duo, and though there was a drum kit set up behind him, the name is now carried in live shows by Simeon Coxe alone. While his lyrics are very much influenced by 60s sentiments, especially on You And I or A Pox On You from 1969s_Contact_, the music is supplied by a collection of ancient and primitive synthesizers making a otherworldly noise that still sounds bizarrely wonderful nearly forty years later.
The festival may have been billed with Nick Cave as the headliner, but Warren Ellis did his best to steal the limelight – even as Cave joined the Dirty Three onstage to play the piano parts of the Ocean Songs record. But while Cave tinkered in the margins of the tunes, Ellis kept his back on the audience as he played his violin like a man possessed. He struggled to remember the running order of the ten year old album, but Cave called out the titles for him to introduce each tune in his rambling, descriptive style. The stunningly forlorn Sea Above, Sky Below was introduced by Ellis as the soundtrack to ‘when the crack lady at the end of the hall hates you; when you spend so long in a hole that you start to decorate’ and lived up to his description. Jim White’s shuffling drums and Mick Turner’s restrained glimmers of guitar hold their tunes together, but it’s the tortured emotion of Ellis’ violin that takes centre stage. Time forced them to cut the record short by leaping over Black Tide and omitting Ends of the Earth to close with an inspiring Deep Water.
Bolstered by a three piece horn section – especially important for Know Your Product – The Saints delivered a set that delivered on the ridiculously high expectations for the show. They hit the stage with Swing for the Crime before moving into Perfect Day. Chris Bailey gallivanted about the stage, smoking with exaggerated flourishes as Ed Kuepper tore into his guitar in front of his double Marshall stacks and though they barely shared so much as a glance is didn’t seem to matter – it was the Saints and they sounded great. Returning to stage to close with their blazing cover of River Deep Mountain High – a perfect and apt finish to the night.
minkette
said ages ago