Good Vibrations Festival @Gold Coast Parklands(19/02/2011)

Sun 20th Feb, 2011 in Gig Reviews

It’s a sign of the times when, in February, the second festival of the year offers two-for-one entry on full priced tickets. Has Australia finally reached its festival threshold, or was it the slew of natural disasters and festive over-spending that did us over? We’ve got plenty of time to ponder this on the road from Brisbane to Good Vibrations at Gold Coast Parklands, but this has more to do with ill-timed roadworks than festival traffic.

Good Vibrations do their best to support local acts but in addition to traffic the ridiculous heat keeps us away from futuristic groove machine Dubmarine and the somewhat out-of-place indie set, Hungry Kids of Hungary.

Aloe Blacc is the closest we’ll get to Cee Lo Green after he and Janelle Monae cancel their Good Vibrations sets, no doubt contributing to the festival’s reduced ticket price offers for Brisbane.

He’s not yet enjoyed Green’s success over here, but he’s just as smooth a performer. Blacc tells the crowd, “Reggae music is just another form of soul music,” and plays an impeccable blend of both throughout his set. Blacc and his band are sharp dressers and even sharper players, with I Need A Dollar a catchy highpoint. Pocket dynamite Maya Jupiter guest raps for a dubstep passage, then Blacc parts the crowd and invites a green shirted punter to dance down the gap toward the stage, and plenty more follow suit. He finishes with Loving You Is Killing Me, and we seek solace from the fierce sun immediately.

The unimpressive VIP tent offers limited respite from shade, it’s only notable benefit a cash bar instead of ticketing system. No longer a place where access is only for festival workers or musicians, punters can now pay to visit for an increased ticket price. As a result, security perform a confusing bag-checking and no-liquids-allowed routine at both entry and exit to the bar.

Perth electro-popsters Tim & Jean pump out one merry, synth-stabbing tune after another at the Good Vibrations stage. Impossibly youthful – the live drummer could have easily been the duo’s father – they nevertheless work their fine vocal and instrumental chops with sheer enthusiasm, momentarily taking listeners back to 1987 with a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere and encouraging a collective singalong on signature number and set closer Come Around.
 
Despite the still-blazing sun and cooking-friendly temperatures, UK’s new electro sensations Fenech-Soler nevertheless pull a solid gathering. Perfectly suited to the occasion, the four-piece’s Day-Glo dance-pop and frontman Ben Duffy’s voice are a much better proposition live than on record, with Battlefields, Golden Sun and single Lies sounding way more invigorating than the radio-flogged studio version.
 
I missed them at Splendour 2009 – where they reportedly set the afternoon on (friendly) fire – so today I make a point of catching UK’s premier dance-punk combo Friendly Fires. Dancing in the front row feels like being boiled in a cauldron, but at the same time you somehow just can’t stop moving your feet to the frenetic rhythms blasting from the PA. These dudes certainly don’t need more cowbell; the intensity of the collective’s tribal percussive assaults and rubbery bass lines simultaneously recalls and outstrips Local Natives at Laneway, while their mad energy hits the level of Foals and Yeasayer combined. Staples Skeleton Boy, Jump In The Pool (which would have been absolutely lovely at this stage), Kiss Of Life and Paris drop like tracing, multi-legged shells.

Erykah Badu gets off to a slow start with soulful jazzy numbers better suited to a cabaret club. It’s all uphill fifteen minutes in when she introduces herself and says she should “go through the whole catalogue” on her first visit to Australia. America’s soul mistress has brought along a five piece band, including a turntablist, plus three backup vocalist, and the musicianship is superb.

Badu cuts a formiddable frontwoman for one of such diminutive stature, adorned in a mountain of jewellery, hair and wing cuffs on her arms. She leads the band through Apple Tree, Love Of My Life and Back In The Day (Puff) with orchestrated dance moves, which her vocalists join in on. The antagonistic Tyrone is a highlight, and on Bag Lady Badu gets down to crowd level, her minders helping her do a little surfing.
 
All bright colours and peroxided hair, Manchester, UK’s finest bubblegum pop purveyors The Ting Tings look and sound the part. I witness the start – The Great DJ and Fruit Machine – and catch the annoyingly catchy singalong That’s Not My Name on the way to the Chinese Laundry tent, where a clearly excited Rusko fist-pumps the air, headbangs, yells and drops thwacking dubstep and D&B at earth-shattering volume.
 
The majority of Bag Raiders set is missed due to daunting logistics of hopping between four stages (despite their almost too-close proximity), but we still have a jolly boogie as the Sydney duo finish on a high with a sweet (hit) double of Way Back Home and Shooting Stars. Top-notch Australian festival electro.

Despite years of hoping for a live drummer to step their already entertaining live show up a notch, Fat Freddy’s Drop are the same groove monster as always – pumping horn section, percussion, guitars, crooning frontman Dallas Tamaira and Fat Freddy himself – aka DJ Fitchie on programmed beats. Trombonist Joe Lindsay is endlessly amusing as he gyrates around the stage like a summery version of Elvis circa his white-jumpsuit era. They sometimes venture into generic dance beats, but Wandering Eye reminds us why we love them so.
 
Attacking their keyboards both in unison and in syncopated fashion, Swedes Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (formerly known as hit-makers Bloodshy & Avant) of Miike Snow resemble a more animated Kraftwerk while bearded vocalist Andrew Wyatt sings his heart out. Cult Logic makes for a funky start, followed by the first crowd singalong Burial and a massively raved-up Black & Blue. The trio’s spirited take on Vampire Weekend’s The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance is a nice touch and a fine addition to a flawless set – later bolstered by an inclusion of LP highlight A Horse Is Not A Home. Everything else we hear is a dream: the soaring, extended Silvia, Plastic Jungle, the ever-beautiful Sans Soleil and the anthemic closer Animal.

Unbeknownst to this reviewer, in the years since hating someone so much right now, Kelis has reinvented herself as a dance princess, and as much as I expected every fibre of my being to recoil in horror, I just can’t look away. It’s the visuals – Kelis is quite the sight, dancing as much as possible in a full length lace bodysuit with skyhigh sparkly stillettos; never mind her faceless backing band. Her voice is uniquely husky for an electro-pop princess, and the crowd seem to be right into it, but Millionaire and Milkshake still get the biggest reactions.

Nas & Damian Marley, by stark contrast, present a visceral live band show. Granted, Marley’s rapping is pretty bad and the reggae could arguably be more inspired, but there’s no denying the drawcard of his lineage. It would’ve been a treat to see Nas deliver his own quirky hiphop tracks, but together they draw a crowd willing and able to shake their thangs. We don’t think too much, just dance.
 
As Good Vibrations 2011 winds to a close, the Triple J-loved French indie-pop masters Phoenix hit the Mr J stage. They pull out a “golden oldie” Too Young, and keep their crowd enthralled for the duration of their set. Despite Fences not being all it should be, this is a band that can match their recorded efforts live. They bow out with an enormously-outstretched 1901 – but as great as they are, they simply cannot compete with UK festival juggernaut Faithless in terms of sheer audiovisual grandeur.
 
Kicking off the giant, strobe light-adorned 100 minute party with an effervescent Happy, the seminal electronic group quite simply reign supreme. Aided by water-tight additional musos, iconic frontman/MC Maxi Jazz works the crowd into a frenzy while Sister Bliss taps out a non-ending slew of synth hooks. The beats and the throbbing sequencer drone soon intensify to the point of combustion; this is real house music. Hearing and witnessing such classics as God Is A DJ, the still-trancestastic Insomnia, Mass Destruction and the imperial Salva Mea live is an experience bar none. Still preaching a message of peace and hope, the Britons bid the Gold Coast a fond farewell with the towering, all-including We Come 1. Is it really a surprise that I – and many others – can’t get no sleep afterwards?

Ludacris, for all his excellent work, delivers a pretty standard set of rap. Perhaps it’s because a rapper and DJ can’t quite compare to the live beast that is Faithless, but we’re not tempted to hang around. No doubt die-hards found plenty to like about the set.

All in all, Good Vibrations delivered all it could, being that the sun’s fierce behaviour was out of the organisers’ control. Hopefully they can make good on this year’s cancellations – with an even more impressive lineup in 2012.

Reviewed by Denis Semchenko and Crystle Fleper. Compiled by Crystle Fleper.