What do a convicted crook, a precocious young lady, a ship builder and a festival goer have in common? No, they’re not all member of the reformed, reunited, Village People 2005; they are the people who have occupied Sydney’s Cockatoo Island from one time to another.

Cockatoo Island is in the centre of Sydney Harbour, north of the Bridge. Access to this is exclusively by boat, and as you cruise through the heads, you pass some of Sydney’s most prestige property; its like lifestyles of the rich and famous. The island has the most exquisite view of Sydney at night. It was previously used as a prison, a girl’s reformatory, and a naval dockyard, so the buildings on the island reflect each of these uses. They range from old sandstone prison buildings to massive industrial sheds.

Hosting a music festival on a site like this was a novel idea. The site was handed back to the government by the defence force in the early 1990’s and sat derelict for many years until it underwent remediation in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Last year the government asked for ideas about how the island could be used. A proposal was put forward for a family friendly weekend music festival over the Easter weekend, and with due consideration it was approved and the Cockatoo Island Festival was born.

Spanning three days of Easter Long Weekend, this really was a festival with a difference. There was plenty of music to be seen, including headliners Gomez and The Wailers, but at no point were you crushed in the crowd. By the time the first acts on the main stage, The Waifs, kicked off, the no stage diving, crowd surfing and moshing signs, had been pulled down by the organisers.

Throughout the festival you would see punters and their young kids walking around. During The Hilltop Hoods, one father had his young son on his shoulders bouncing around to the tunes. It really was a festival with a vibe unlike any other I have been to.

One of the other highlights of Cockatoo Island was the range and diversity of food available. Newtown’s The Vanguard had shut up shop for the weekend and shipped a micro version of their kitchens out to the island. There were more bars than you could poke a stick at, some in tunnels, some in old buildings; there was even a giant inflatable bar.

Over the course of the weekend ninety percent of the acts I saw were awesome. So let’s do a day by day run down of what I saw.

Friday
First cab off the rank were Canadian’s Pilate, as in the guy who crucified Jesus; an interesting choice for first up on Good Friday. For those of you who haven’t heard of Pilate, they are an art rock band, who reminded me of The Bends era Radiohead. They have been doing really well in their native Canada and its not hard to see why. Prior to seeing them live I had heard bits and pieces about them around the place, but their live show was something else. Vocalist Todd Clark has this great almost falsetto, which when put over strung out guitars and soft base, creates quite a unique musical landscape. If you get the opportunity check them out.

Next on the timetable was a trip over to the mainstage, the massive industrial complex, The Turbine Hall for The Waifs. The Waifs are one of those bands whose radio singles I’ve quite enjoyed, but I’ve never actually gotten around to seeing them live. Seeing them live it is obvious why their rabid fans go to all of their shows, as they put on a damn fine live performance. It is commendable that in these days the all powerful single a band has garnered success the old fashioned way, playing shitloads of live shows.

Their set on Friday was a mix of Australian folk music and blues. It included all of their radio singles; London Still, Lighthouse, etc, as well as some new material. The Waifs had the crowd dancing along and really enjoying their time over the hour and ten minutes.
Following The Waifs were the one and only Wailers. The Wailers played the set you would expect them to play, covering all of the greatest hits, I Shot the Sheriff, No Woman No Cry, Turn Your Light’s Down Low, Stir It Up and others. In the process getting the crowd thoroughly involved.

Whilst The Wailers were playing their set there was the distinct sweet, thick odour of pot, as you would expect during a set by any Jamaican band of that ilk. I found myself a tad more mellowed out during that set. The band themselves were tight and seemed to really be enjoying their time up on stage in front of the three thousand or so punters watching.

The final band on in the Turbine Hall were my favourite Australian Hip-Hop outfit, The Hilltop Hoods. It was again a perfect set. They had the crowd bouncing off the walls, well not exactly the walls, but the floor certainly. Playing most of The Calling, including an extended version of their massive hit Nosebleed Section, I think I can speak for most of us there when I say we had a bloody good time. They have firmly cemented with me why they are Australia’s premiere Hip-Hop crew.

Rounding out day one was Monkey Boy’s set. Their set was distinctly different, as it was a bit of balls to the wall rock. Whilst not taking themselves particularly seriously the two piece but on a good show for the fifty of us sitting around in the cold of the Jailyard. One of the highlights was the guy dressed up in monkey costume who divided his time between dancing on stage and wandering around the crowd ruffling their hair and creating atmosphere.

Saturday
First off the musical boat on Saturday were those psycho-sexual boys and girls of Machine Gun Fellatio. As you would expect, Machine Gun Fellatio played a rollicking set, with their trademark larrikin humour. About four songs in, they introduced Cockatoo Island to Das Boot, the boot covering guitarist, Love Shark’s, penis. He played in a trench coat and boot for the rest of the set. It was a little incongruous to have a man clad only in a boot, playing a show with kids as young as five looking on; I suppose it’s the same as my parents letting me watch The Goodies in my formative years – hey that might explain some things.

Machine Gun’s set was tight; they played all of your favourites, including an abbreviated version of Unsent Letter; Pussy Town, Motherfucker on a Motorcycle, all the stuff you want from a Machine Gun set. At the end of the set Chit Chat came out with his patented Winnie the Pooh cod piece, to protect those innocent eyes; and KK Juggy had her brilliant Groucho Marx nipple covers on.
It was not until I saw them on stage that I realised Gomez utilise not one vocalist, but three, as well as two percussionists, and a bunch of guitarists. I had a view of their rig side of stage, and I have never seen such a large rack of guitars. One of the great things about The Cockatoo Island Festival is the length of the sets, with Gomez playing for an hour and a half; the same sort of length you’d expect from a headline show. This gave them the opportunity to play favourites like Get Myself Arrested, Bring It On, Shot Shot and Silence. They closed their set with the brilliant Tijuana Lady. It was one of my all time great moments in live music, and I only wish that I will get the opportunity to see them live again sooner rather than later.

Over the course of the three days, I think I only saw two acts that didn’t impress me and they were both on the Saturday night. First on the list was Machine Translations. I really love their stuff when I hear it on the radio, but live they just didn’t do it for me. It wasn’t that they weren’t competent musicians, or didn’t know their songs, they were just a little samey, and they choice of venue for their set could have been better. They were on one of the larger stages, The Factory Floor, which was under another building, but they would have been better suited to the Village Green, a large outdoor stage, so that there was an opportunity for those watching to stretch out and enjoy their atmospherics.

Following on from that I checked out the last portion of Inga Liljestrom’s set, and just at that point the rain decided to re-emerge just strong enough to be annoying. Her set was interesting, and reminded me a lot of a jazzier version of Portishead, but did not inspire. So it was then off to check out Youth Group’s show.
Youth Group really impressed me, their brand of indie rock steered them more down the rock road, rather than the general emo you get when people talk about indie bands. Playing songs off their most recent release, Skeleton Jar, their renditions of Skelleton Jar and Shadowland were the particular standouts from their set. Their hour had the whole crowd jumping and grooving, putting them on the list of bands I’m keen to see again.

The other band that didn’t fire me up over the weekend was Monsieur Camembert. Their music just seemed like noise, the combination of strings, horns and vocals; rather than melding together it seemed to created a song, that to me was much like finger nails down a blackboard. Within five minutes, the skates were on and I was out of there.

Sunday
Eskimo Joe were one of the most anticipated acts for the day, and they were playing first on the festival’s largest stage, The Turbine Hall. Playing a set from their newer material, they got an uproarious reception from the assembled masses. The band proved their worth, playing a super tight set, and really enjoying it to boot. One of the things I noticed over the three days, was the enjoyment that all the acts who played brought to the stage with them. Everyone seemed to have such a great time. It was yet another great set for the weekend.

Roots music is usually off limits for this site, so I decided to break the mold and check out Ash Grunwald’s set. Now whilst not being great, it was an enjoyable set to drink a beer to and he could certainly get some cool sounds out of his guitars. From Grunwald, I felt that it was my civic duty to at least catch some of Pete Murray’s performance on the mainstage. Well I came, I saw and I got bored. I’m sure fans of his had a great time; it just didn’t do anything for me. Every song seemed to blend into each other, nothing seemed to stand out very much so it quickly became apparent that this was not the set for me, so I stuck around for twenty minutes.

So, I decided that it was time to support a band from my hometown, Canberra, so 78 Saab it was. The Saab played another great set, mixing up their older material, with some newer stuff I hadn’t heard before. The highlight of their set was a rollicking cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World, which had the entire audience singing along at the top of their lungs.

I was keen to go on a tour of Cockatoo Island, but by the time I rolled up on Sunday afternoon, hoping to jump on one, they were all filled up, even the additional one. So instead of doing that, I went roaming. Of particular interest were the arts exhibitions, which included art works by Love Police and Ben Brown and photographs by renowned music photographer Tony Mott. It was really good to see a festival which not only focussed on the music, but also the other cultural aspects that surround the music.

Playing on the Village green were Tim Rogers and the Temperance Union. Throughout the set Rogers kept making references to Paul Hester, and it wasn’t until the next morning, when I heard the news, that those references clicked. There were times during the set that you could see that Roger’s had been moved by the death of a great Australian muso.

The first half of the Temperance Union’s set was a fairly laidback country affair, but by the middle it had become great dirty, rollicking rock and roll. It was great to see a whole bunch of people in front of the stage having a dance, and a couple of parents with their toddlers dancing on the stage. That’s one of the things that really made Cockatoo Island for me over the weekend; the really chilled atmosphere that meant parents could bring their kids to the festival and everyone could have a good time.

To finish off the weekend I decided to venture to The Factory Floor one more time to see Little Birdy. Little Birdy had been overseas for the last couple of months, and had recently played shows in the US as part of the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, as well as playing shows in New York and round the place. Watching the band perform they were enjoying being back in front of a large local crowd; and having flown in only the day before they were showing no ill effects from the travel. Little Birdy played one of the sets of the festival in my mind, blowing away the packed in crowd. Katie Steele’s use of a distortion effect on her vocals added something to the live show that you don’t get on their recorded material.

Steele is the consummate front woman, prowling around on stage much like PJ Harvey or Chrissie Hind from The Pretenders. When the band finished their set Steele was covered in sweat, but obviously on a high from the adulation of the crowd. Little Birdy’s set was a great way to conclude three days of awesome music at a great location.

I enjoyed the inaugural Cockatoo Island Festival more than I enjoyed the Big Day Out this year. The diverse blend of acts and atmosphere made it a more enjoyable weekend. Seeing Gomez and Little Birdy shine were the highlights of a successful three days.

There is definitely scope for another festival of this kind on the island at some point, so roll on Cockatoo Island 2006.