Future Music Festival 2010@Ascot, Perth (28/02/10)

Tue 2nd Mar, 2010 in Gig Reviews

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The weather was fine, the lines were ridiculous and the set up was atrocious, yet the Perth festival faithful poured into Ascot Racecourse for Mellen Events’ Future Music 2010. With the word spreading of nine overdoses by lunchtime, their seemed to be a fair portion of the crowd heading along for all the wrong reasons, those who did were filled with a smorgasboard of fantastic local and international acts.

Sketchism And Jackness had a tasty little crowd bouncing along to Shapeshifter’s Lola’s Theme and Deadmau5’s Ghosts, on a day owned by internationals it was really the locals who shone the brightest, rolling out the crowd-pleasers and keeping things lively. The same must be said for Perth Dance music maestro Jason Creek who built the crowd with progressive house and trance, setting the mood for the Above and Beyond Stage.

Keeping the hip-hop faithful bopping along were the awesome Bentman And Sipn, while Micah had the local breaks crew rolling along and Kenny L was blasting out a high energy set. Operator Please had a small, yet faithful, mostly female crowd chanting away to their cheesy punk pop anthems. Way Out West were a major highlight on The Likes of you stage.

Dubfire, Stafford Brothers and Spank Rock had huge crowd participation; showing that it’s only a matter of time before one of these acts could be on the top of a Future Music line up. Space filler Travis was a major surprise packet; with only a small set to work with, they brought some rolling dark trance grabbing the attention of passers by before ending strong with more feel good lyrical tunes, even mixing in Chemical Brothers Star Guitar, a right treat whoever is spinning it.

With an “Alright Perth?” Franz Ferdinand brought the main stage crowd to life busting into Come on Home, before Do You Wanna and All You Girls had the sun soaked crowd lapping it up. Franz were obviously enjoying the day, praising the Perth sunshine and good looking crowd. Songs of the day Dark Of The Matinee and Michael were the perfect warm ups for the all out stomper Take Me Out.

Most of the dance floor faithful went to see top 40 it man David Guetta roll out a bunch of cheese, while local boy done good Luke Steele kept an intimate crowd vibing with his quirky Empire Of The Sun stage show. With an ice princess type Indian head-dress and swordfish faced dancers, Steele rolled through fan favourites Standing on the Shore, We are the People and Without You, which had all the E’d up lovers sharing a cuddle to one of Empires more romantic songs, before monster hit Walking On A Dream rounded out a superb set and an awesome live show.

Sounds of dub step bounced from the main stage as the anticipation for the main draw card drew more intense, The Prodigy bounded onstage to Worlds On Fire. Taking a quick breath, MC Maxim Reality growled “How the fuck are ya Perth?”, looking near-on demonic with his tribal war paint and snarl, Maxim roamed the stage whilst a fairly subdued Keith Flint seemed to take a back seat for most of the show.

Invaders Must Die, Breathe, Omen and Poison sent the crowd in to a frenzy, before Thunder brought the tempo down for the dub heads to get their wobble step on. Flint launched into life as the recognizable riffs of Firestarter sounded out, with fire works shooting off the side of the stage adding to the spectacle, the hits kept coming with Voodoo People sending Perth back into the 90’s dance peak, before we descended way back for an Out Of Space encore.

Despite the large distance between stages, the heat, the lines and the munged out shirtless men trying to chew off their own faces or punch someone else’s, the day really was a success, there were no disappointing acts and everybody seemed to be having a good time, bring on next year.

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