Fat As Butter @ NewcastleForeshore Park (22/10/11)

Tue 25th Oct, 2011 in Gig Reviews

The singlets and tans (both real and fake) were out in full force as Newcastle’s Fat as Butter festival finally arrived in the coastal city. The festival has grown exponentially into one the city’s largest music events, bringing some of the biggest and best names from home and abroad. In its fourth successive year, the festival drew in some impressive acts as well as some always enjoyable unknowns.

Situated at Camp Shortland, on the corner of two of Newcastle’s most popular beaches, the sea breeze was a true feature of the show, providing a cool release from the near scorching day as well as the refreshing scent of the coast, making a rather unique atmosphere right from the start.

If only the start were as sweet for the bands, initially opening the day was Melbourne indie-pop queen Owl Eyes, who’s performance unfortunately never came to be, due to issues at the airport. Her original 30 minute set, was taken up by people waiting around for some indication of a performance until one of her bandmates confirmed the bad news.

It wasn’t all negative however, as those who missed out on Owl Eyes headed off to the main stage to view Triple J Unearthed High finalists The Guppies’ set. The local trio may have only played to a few people, but there was the potential for so much more, pulling off an electric set of surfy grunge for their reasonably small timeslot.

There were some true gems during the early afternoon, that weren’t fully appreciated by the audiences, who mostly came towards the evening. Pigeon from Brisbane, blew the minds of the 10 or so people who watched, as they powered through almost every genre known to man, mashing Latin with trance and rock with reggae. Their energy and stage presence should’ve been enough to excite even the most timid of punter, but the audience’s size was rather inevitable at a 12:00 start.

As the day progressed through, the acts were gaining a great support, with acts like Calling All Cars and Redcoats providing some well deserved rock for the day. British India added to the rockfest despite lead singer Declan Malia’s broken wrist, and inadvertently static stage movement. The temporarily five-piece powered through an all hits setlist, with I Said I’m Sorry, God Is Dead, Meet The Kids and Tie Up My Hands proving to be crowd favourites.

Hip-Hop was extremely well represented this year, with some killer sets from local favourites Illy, Funkoars, The Herd, Evil Eddie (from Butterfingers) and Katalyst, proving just how strong the local hip-hop scene is becoming. Headlining the Butter stage, Illy pulled an immense crowd and certainly did not disappoint. But without doubt, the presence of hip-hop classics Naughty By Nature blew everyone out of the water. Celebrating their 20th anniversary, the trio certainly taught the younger generation how to put on an incredible show. As they powered through their incredible hits O.P.P, Holiday and Hip Hop Hooray their crowd interaction was truly masterful, sampling anything from Men At Work to Cypress Hill to get the crowd into it. Naughty By Nature’s set was one of the true highlights of the day and showed that you can never be too old to perform at such a high level.

Half of the crowd at Naughty By Nature were rather aggravated however, due to the extremely disappointing (or amusing) news that international rapper and autotune-killer Flo Rida wasn’t performing at the festival. A single spokeswoman for the festival braved the anxious crowd to deliver the news in the most positive tone possible, but was still booed off the stage with a chant of “BULLLLLSHHIIIITTTT” from the rather infuriated punters. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was that they could’ve easily invested in a far better and more reliable artist than Mr Tramar Dillard.

Sparkadia more than made up for the disappointment, with a truly incredible performance on the Butter stage, playing to perhaps one of the largest crowds of the festival. Making the most of their 40 minute set, virtually everyone of their hit singles was played, including Morning Light, Talking Like I’m Falling Down Stairs, China and an almost mesmerising performance of Mary, which saw Alex Burnett give his all and work the crowd as if he were the leader of some sort of cult. Sparkadia were definitely one of the highlights, if not the best of the day.

Following on from that incredible performance were Australian Music Prize winners Cloud Control, who had the unfortunate time clash with The Living End on the main stage. Despite that, there was still a rather enthusiastic crowd who were more than enthusiastic about dancing freely along to their indie goodness. Tracks There’s Nothing In The Water We Can’t Fight and Gold Canary were instant successes and were performed to perfection by the considerably young quartet.

Speaking of near perfection. The Living End have truly become icons of the Australian live music scene and have earned their position amongst the greatest of our generation. Their live performance at Fat As Butter further accentuated that as they ripped through a killer set of both old and new singles. Opening with _Second Solution- and with such skill progressed through their considerably small allocation of time.

But to conclude the evening was Australia’s own answer to Lady Gaga, of course being Empire of the Sun, with Mr Egotastical Luke Steele himself putting on one high class performance of incredible synchronisation with LED screens and backup dancers to boot. For those who had never seen an Empire of the Sun performance before, they were certainly in for a treat, with all the hits from their debut album being played all with extreme grandeur and over the top stage progressions.

The set included at least 10 costume changes for the dancers, incredible props and instrument smashing. However for those who had already experienced this show, there really wasn’t much, if any, variation, so it may have been a little bit of déjà vu occasionally. Steele’s ego might not exist amongst normality, but his musical ability is undeniably strong and he certainly knows how to put on a show.

Despite the disappointments from Owl Eyes and Flo Rida, this years Fat as Butter was a truly incredible experience, with a perfect location, great variety of acts and some of the best organisation around. With growth occurring each year, we can only expect wonders from Newcastle’s greatest festival in the next coming years.