MASS Music Festival, NippersOval, Margaret River(20/03/10)

Tue 23rd Mar, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Caminiss’ Gallery

The Margaret River faithful dressed up in their best flannos and midriffs (it was freezing) and descended on Nippers Oval for the MASS Music Festival last Saturday night, mainly to drink and fight and have an overall good time: and with a rather small line up, heres how it went.

The Yacht Club DJs, King George and Philadelphia Grand Jury had a rather small gathering on their feet up front, but most people had made the licensed area their vantage point, where more man-love, mate-wrestling and fence-jumper Vs security guard action was taking the attention away from the stage.

Once Tame Impala arrived onstage, the crowd in the front section had gathered to a more respectable size and it was there that the the circle jerks commenced their ho-downs. Tame Impala were excellent, as always, Hippies rejoiced throughout their set, that psychedelic rock is popular once again. (Was it ever unpopular? Surely not in Margaret River.)

The prince of Aussie hip-hop, Urthboy, bounded out onto the stage flanked by the lovely Jane Tyrell and DJ Gusto, bursting into Ready To Go, before following it up with Nothing I’d Rather Do and Shruggin, allowing Tyrell to show off the awesome vocals some may remember from her other Urthboy colab, The Herd.

With the crowd in his palm, Urthboy had the crowd bouncing to The Signal, waving their hands side to side to Hell Song, then a mild tease of The Herd’s The King is Dead before busting out We Get Around, which brought the crowd to their feet, even the drunkards in the cage were dancing, definitely the highlight of MASS.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring took things back from the hip-hop masses and produced a sterling punk-rockabilly tinged set, that once again had the circle dancers bouncing off each other, some over enthusiastically. Many a young lady was bowled over during the night due to wayward circle jerk or over-zealous security guard, not a family event by any stretch.

The band most had came to see was Cog, and why wouldn’t they? These guys are a fantastic live band, kinda like a Pendulum gig without the DNB, the energy and lights flashing, quite awesome indeed. Their cover of Leftfields Open Up had the crowd bouncing and My Enemy was one of the finest performed songs of the night.

By the time Gyroscope made it on stage, half the crowd was gone (Probably most were evicted for bashing each other), but they sifted through a high energy set, focussing more on their heavier, earlier work.

All in all, the music was fantastic, the venue and set up were great, but shame on the crowd. The security guards seemed to be on a revolving door at the stage-front evicting fighting punters. Hopefully next year’s will bring in a more peaceful fun filled crowd.

Caminiss’ Gallery