All the Photos from the festival are here

Waking with the light, Southbound’s Happy Campers arose bronzed, burnt and bruised. Roughing it took its toll, the voice of one FL reviewer lost to the dirt and dehydration. Post breakfast, brunch, morning nap and yoga the campers were keen for the day to begin forming a line at the festival entrance.

Sonicbirds’ opening slot on Saturday was filled by The Shiny Brights from Adelaide. Playing under The Other Stage’s Big Top the young band were a lively and vigorous inclusion who managed to win over the audience. Next up the endearing lass behind revenge attack radio hit I’ll Kill Her, Soko, sung with a modesty and honesty contrasting the plethora of rock star posers on and off stage.

Saturday at Southbound welcomed many more ticket holders and offered a new area to explore. Heading over to This Stage Ash Grumwald and co provided a blues and roots set with some vigorous foot stomping along to an inventive form of percussion, a hammer struck against a car door. Grumwald’s gravel rashed yowls stirred the well acquainted crowd giving Australian roots music another earthy influence with some blues grit to cling to.

Surrounding markets, food stalls, the coconut club and a long-awaited sprinkler structure lifted the party mood. After an extended DJ set that left the crowd wondering if the next act had cancelled, Santogold finally entered with plenty of luster. In a tailored, double breasted blue and gold jumpsuit, Santogold was flanked by dancers in gold lame (lah-may) ballooning jackets who busted out punchy choreographed dance moves to the beat. Describing her fascination with kangaroos, Santogold marvelled at how only 5 mins from the festival site she had a close encounter. Despite a short set Santogold’s delivery was pithy and fun-filled hip-hop with a pop. Rounding out her set by calling up audience members on stage the energy and dancing was infectious.

With This Stage offering consecutive exciting and challenging acts there was little that could draw the crowd away. Gomez were thankfully included on the bill and showed off their difficult to categorize blend of alt-blues-rock. Amongst many fan favourites Rhythm and Blues Alibi, Get Myself Arrested and We Haven’t Turned Around were played issuing in 2009 and upcoming commemorative shows to celebrate the 10th year since the quintet released their debut album.

Ducking over to That Stage for the last three tracks by Cut Off Your Hands it was evident following Still Fond that some silly buggers in the crowd were spoiling the amorous vibe between band and audience. Menacingly holding a drum above his head singer Nick Johnston targeted the offenders before breaking into You and I and finishing off with Expectations that seemed dashed.

Defiantly avoiding Pete Murray’s second performance of the festival a look at Eli – œPaperboy’ Reed and The True Loves was a glimpse at an entertainer with no signs of hesitation and plenty of panache. Expectantly greeting the Southbound soul train, Reed arrived at the station to untamed dancing and wild shaking and exited with nothing less than a gratuitous display of cheesy trickery.

Tegan & Sara, now with added distinguishing tattoos since their last visit, have graduated to larger WA stages from previous occasions at the Becks Music Veranda and Metropolis Fremantle. With a greater crowd in attendance, it was hard to rekindle too many associations with the aforementioned gigs as with the loss of intimacy the performance and sisterly jibes were lost in translation and across the distance of the audience.

The second set of the Southbound soul train docked at The Other Stage where The Dap-Kings honoured the traditions of a good wind up and boogie. Entering the stage with a fierce strut to ward off any challengers, Sharon Jones, the super bad soulstress with an attitude bigger than her 5 foot several inches stature captivated the bodies before her. Not opposed to sharing the stage, Jones called upon those side stage. Four groovettes entered to shake their stuff including Soko (a name Jones couldn’t get her head around) and backing vocalists from Blue King Brown. The boys got a taste of the action too with one unnamed muso from back stage having two jaunts including one where he and Jones got nasty on the floor. Singing all the while and backed by the superb horns, funky strings and jazzy keys this performance shook the dirt out of the audience’s hair and brought booty shaking to the festival.

While most bands were calling for their crowds to get up The Kooks got them to sit down. The indi rock chick’s version of a boy band, with songs about sofa’s and gorgeous girls, had a laid back approach to proceedings. Relatively underwhelming after the previous performance The Kooks are an indication of where Brit pop rock is heading, and unfortunately, live, that’s a pretty dull phase.

Just in time for a slither of Blue King Brown we were on the way to see another soul sample in The Other Stage with Jamie Lidell. Awaiting the German based American was barely a smattering of a crowd. With a combination of jazz, funk, soul and electronic live sampling it was hard to follow the man behind the recently shaved off beard. Unfortunate then too that the people present went without a live rendition of his track with the biggest airplay, Multiply from 2005, that really could have lifted the recognition of the slick showman.

Welcoming an Australian festival favourite to This Stage, The Cat Empire could have very nearly stolen the show. With the dark of night descending the cooler temperatures issued in a party atmosphere. Full of influences and yet unpinnable to one genre The Cat Empire delivered rhymes, rhythms and political messages with the lung capacity and vivacity of a herd of elephants at a watering hole. With a greatest hits album (can you believe it?!) and national tour to plug, The Cat Empire showed through their onstage presence why so many of their tracks are sung with gusto like national hymns.

Whether or not it is a challenge to look good in leather, it is inevitable that one will become hot while dressed in it. Especially, as Franz Ferdinand front man Alex Kapranos found out, while onstage at an Australian summer festival. With a slimmed down audience post the Cat Empire’s set the increased space per person was hardly taken advantage of with those left instead cramming in closer for a mosh pit experience. Getting into the action, Kapranos dove onto the crowd, minus leather jacket, and surfed around on the hands of revellers.

With only 10 minutes of playing time left in the night a dash to That Stage was well worth the excursion. The long awaited return of Ian Kenny’s darker side brought Karnivool to life, and unlike the inclusion of two bland sets by Pete Murray in the festival line up, this one was an epic adventure of bass, squealing guitars and melodic vocals.

After toiling through a marathon festival line up in conditions extremely arid for the South West those with a mind on the next day’s drive were bedding down for the night while those caught up in the action still had a few drunken and disorderly hours ahead.

All the Photos from the festival are here