Harvest Festival @ WerribeeMansion, Melbourne (12/11/11)

Mon 14th Nov, 2011 in Gig Reviews

On the epic train journey from Southern Cross to Werribee, there was plenty of time for both anticipation and trepidation. The line-up was exciting, but much of the talk ahead of Melbourne’s inaugural Harvest Festival was centred on the rumoured logistical problems that laid in wait. If some of the worst-case scenarios were to be believed, the festival’s self-billing as a ‘Civilised Gathering’ threatened to fall apart in a late night lord of the flies-type scenario in the wilds of Werribee, as thousands of punters missed the last train back to Melbourne. So, how did the day play out? ‘Boutique’ indie daydream, or anarcho-primitivist nightmare?

The first phase of the day progressed well. The Werribee Mansion site was beautiful and bathed in sunshine. Gen X-ers wore band t-shirts, young babes dressed like young babes. Everyone seemed happy with this. In fact, one got the sense that people were minding their manners more than usual in the glorious surrounds. Site entry was straightforward, and the security presence displayed impeccable manners. The Holidays were a tad dull, as always, and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble did as their name suggested. Dappled Cities played a fine set of mild mannered indie pop, and The Family Stone were comically cheerful, providing a liberal dollop of cheesy fun in the sun.

The Walkmen remain bizarrely under-appreciated, and demonstrated an early festival tendency; bands with great singers are better able to deal with the many pitfalls – dodgy sound, lack of atmosphere, winning over an indifferent crowd – of a festival performance. Squinting into the sunlight on the Windmill Stage, rechristened the ‘boggy paddock’ stage by punters, Hamilton Leithauser commanded attention, and his commanding performance of The Rat was a sound for sore ears.

Meanwhile, PVT gamely ignored the fact that the line for the bar snaked all the way through their audience, and played a magnificent set. While undoubtedly a cerebral band, PVT still managed to have fun with the crowd and each other. Festival lesson number two; have fun! People like fun.

Next was TV on the Radio, hitting the main stage at the strangely early time of 4:30pm. A band with a back catalogue like theirs can’t truly miss the mark, but they were a little flat, lacking the confidence to let their dense, tangled compositions stand for themselves in the expansive surrounds. Kyp Malone and Dave Sitek were most culpable, choking some wonderful songs in layers of muddy guitar. However, nothing can dull the likes of Wolf Like Me, which went down a storm with the faithful.

Compared to this, Mercury Rev’s efforts at the boggy paddock stage left plenty to be desired. When booking more venerable bands, it’s important to check their recent output, as well as the classics. Mercury Rev’s career-defining Deserter’s Songs is thirteen years old, and while they snuck in the likes of Endlessly, Holes and other favourites, there was still a lot of unremarkable guitar jams by a band that was once capable of a lot more.

By contrast, Claps Your Hands Say Yeah were completely aware of their role, drawing heavily from their eponymous debut, much to the delight of the increasingly lathered-up crowd. Alec Ounsworth and co. have played enough festivals to know that by dusk, crowds don’t want to be challenged, they want The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth. Thanks guys.

Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst was in a similarly crowd-pleasing mood, whipping out some stage moves that made a mockery of his reputation for narrow-eyed intensity. Oberst and band gave it the works, the singer hammily miming along to his own tangled lyrics, offering rejoinders, and dedicating I Believe In Symmetry to the handful of scientists in the audience. Favourites from throughout his prolific career were tackled with gusto, from Shell Games to Four Winds to Lua to Lover I Don’t Have To Love. Closing with a deranged version of Road To Joy, Oberst provided another festival lesson; if you’re not much of a singer, you’d best be damned charismatic.

However, the mood was perceptibly changing. The farcical lines that snaked out of the festival’s three licenced bars remained as long as ever, but festival-goers were emerging with cranky expressions and ever-stranger drink selections; vodka and lemonade, whiskey and dry, and other less than palatable premixes. Yes, the beer had run out, with the sun still high overhead. The toilet queue was similarly brutal, to the point that renegade elements from both sexes began resorting to the ample cover of the trees in the adjacent car-parking area. The food situation completed a triple-crown of shoddy on-site logistics. It can really dampen one’s mood to spend a half-hour lining up for a cajun wrap, only to have the stall run out of food and close up shop.

Of course, none of this was The National’s fault. The New Yorkers did, however, suffer from the same malaise as TV on the Radio. The brilliance of songs like Fake Empire and Sorrow is that it can feel like the world’s most eloquent drunk is mumbling in your ear. Unfortunately, Matt Berninger was reduced to barking at an expansive field of people that were hungry, thirsty, and dying for a piss. Still, the band was seriously tight, though maybe lacking restraint, and sounded pretty good from this reviewer’s vantage point, in the line for cajun wraps.

Back at the Windmill Stage, Mogwai were laying out a typically assured post-rock set. I’m not sure how it would’ve sounded whilst sipping an alcopop, but it sounded pretty good whilst waiting in line for pizza. Hunted By A Freak was amazing.

Portishead were, put simply, stunning. Their signature song, Glory Box, sounded incredible . They blended old and new material seamlessly, shifting from cinematic to deranged at the flick of a switch. The crucial difference was that the band had sufficient faith in their songs to just play them, and let the sublime Beth Gibbons weave her spell over the audience. The woman can sing, but her performance was the revelation. In the set-closing Threads, her passion was terrifying. As a festival highlight, it was going to be difficult to top.

For those that ventured back up to the Windmill stage, despite the risks, The Flaming Lips did all that was promised, but no more. With their starting time already pushed back by Portishead’s nsistence that no other band share their airwaves (Phosphorescent cheekily did just this over at the Big Red Tractor Stage), the Lips started still later thanks to the logistical practical joke that is their stage show. After a symbolic birthing (the band emerging from the glowing crotch of a projected woman), Wayne Coyne hopped in his bubble and toured the audience, while the band struck up Black Sabbath’s Sweet Leaf, of all things. There was Do You Realise??, there was the Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, and there was She Don’t Use Jelly. And not much else, unfortunately. The Lips tried to cram in a crowd-pleasing set in the time available, but it was more a sampler than anything else.

And so to the main event, getting home. It was an epic wait, made worse by the mixed messages from the promoters in the days leading up to the event (‘Catch the train! Actually, drive! Actually, just leave during The Flaming Lips! Actually, just get a charter bus!’). For all the talk of getting left behind, the shuttle bus system moved relatively smoothly, with buses that missed the last train in Werribee simply heading all the way to Southern Cross. Those that were spooked into driving, however, had to endure massive, buzz-killing bottlenecks. However, no one was left behind. Some may have gotten home at 3am, but they did get home.

There’s so much more to a festival than it’s line-up. Harvest definitely seem to understand this, and there was a sense of goodwill that transcended some of the day’s shittier aspects. Even the bands that failed to really catch fire still put in serviceable sets; this was a definite upside to ignoring buzz-bands and going for pedigree. All in all there was so much to like about Harvest that by this time next year, it’s many teething problems are bound to be forgiven.