Harvest Festival @ BrisbaneRiverstage & Botanic Gardens(19/11/2011)

Mon 21st Nov, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Wandering into the Botanic Gardens just after midday, the ever-present festival bogans appear conspicuous in their absence, presumably still undertaking time-honoured festival preparation tactics (Jägerbomb?) but certainly soon to descend on Harvest. It seems unthinkable that the day will play out any other way – this is of course, a summer festival in Brisbane.

Chicago eight piece Hypnotic Brass Ensemble feature seven horn players (all of whom are sons of Sun Ra collaborator Phil Cochran) and a drummer. Their three trumpets, two trombones, euphonium and sousaphone are all over Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach album, but hearing them live is something else. Their primarily instrumental tunes are sublime, with little MC rap interjections from a few of the horn players. The ensemble showcase a bunch of new material from latest EP Bulletproof Brass! including World Champions and the cinematic Kryptonite. Other highlights happen early in the set, by way of Planet Of The Apes, First Class and old favourite War.

This Town Needs Guns also brave the midday heat with aplomb. Playing to a building crowd, the British quartet combine their summer vibe and precise tunes to win over quite the swag of new fans. Their upbeat math-rock is a great way to kick into proper party mode.
 
It’s been quite some time since the criminally under appreciated indie-rockers The Walkmen graced our shores but they do so today in style. They initially defy the intense heat and enter the stage wearing suits but as the set goes on jackets are cast aside. How they look is soon irrelevant as frontman Hamilton Leithauser captivates the crowd with his unique, powerful voice. Their set draws heavily from last year’s Lisbon but old favourite The Rat gets the strongest reception. All Hands And The Cook finishes a set that is oft raved about by punters throughout the day.

By 3pm, festival goers of the douchbag variety still haven’t turned up. Has Harvest lived up to its tagline and managed to attract only civilised people to their gathering?

In their first Australian tour since the passing of bassist Gerard Smith, Brooklyn rockers TV On The Radio own the stage for their hour long set that comes complete with wind chimes swinging from guitar necks. Tunde Adebimpe’s voice is as impressive live as on record, exuding a level of passion that is rare in such a large live setting. Halfway Home is somewhat of a crowd sing-a-long, as is Will Do but the finale of Repetition and indie-rock anthem Wolf Like Me really gets crowd in a frenzy.

Sideshow little top Le Boudoir offers sweet respite from the sun where The Wau Wau Sisters perform an hour of hilariously crass sideshow antics including sweet country songs about incest and changing costumes (from one pair of fishnets to another) in the crowd whilst pouring liquor down punters’ throats. They close with a fittingly over the top trapeze routine set to Welcome To The Jungle, up to their eyeballs in fake bags of cocaine and 80s glam rock wigs. Absolutely brilliant entertainment.

Bright Eyes farewell their Australian fans for potentially the last time, with talk of band members going their separate ways. Frontman Conor Oberst has the front of the crowd swooning as he draws from the band’s extensive back catalogue, including set highlight Road To Joy. For those unfamiliar to Bright Eyes the set comes across as somewhat tedious at times, but it’s everything the Oberst die-hards at the front of stage this set ever wanted. The energetic frontman leaps into the band’s devoted fans’ arms as their set draws to a close.
 
The National grace the Riverstage with their emotional indie-rock right on sunset. Appearing at the venue for the second time this year, the sharp dressed group reflect on their performance at January’s Sunset Sounds and the floods that followed. They are genuinely happy to be back in town says Matt Beringer, who orchestrates the performance as they draw from their lengthy discography. A relatively simple visual backdrop of live video coated in a moving sea of colours enhances the set. Each song is a highlight but a powerful rendition of Terrible Love is the perfect way for the band to sign off. Beringer’s voice is entirely unique and blended with their sweeping guitars and crisp percussion provides a beautiful sound that is impossible to match.
 
You have to burrow deep in the crowd at Mogwai or Seekae to avoid getting caught in a weird live mash-up of the two predominantly instrumental acts, but the proximity of the stages also affords the lazy punter a glimpse at both bands. Mogwai’s set is a little subdued, heavy with newer, less explosive material than one would’ve hoped, and a giant screen of television static dwarfing the band during their shoe-shuffling performance. Seekae by contrast look like mad professors hunched over their kitted out synths , facing each other less than 2m apart on their teeny tiny stage. The sound they create, though, is large, upbeat and prompts a disjointed moonwalk or two from the hyped up crowd.

The Flaming Lips don’t just put on a live show – they throw a party every time they walk on stage. Sure, it’s the same party, but who’s complaining when there’s confetti filled balloons and Wizard of Oz dancers? Frontman Wayne Coyne enters the stage through a video of a vagina (no pun intended), pilots a giant inflatable zorb and waves gigantic laser-shooting hands, all the while delivering musical golden nuggets She Don’t Use Jelly, Yeah Yeah Yeah Song and of course Do You Realize?? Coyne comes across as one of the nicest, most creative people in music, speaking to the crowd as friends and collectively inviting us to the 4ZZZ after party where their album is to be performed live with the help of a 160-strong iPhone orchestra.

Ed’s note: The Zaireeka iPhone orchestra experiment was quite the glorious shamozzle post-Harvest, with booze and battery-drained iPhones wreaking havoc on what was already a logistically-fraught proposition. Coyne inadvertently copped a black eye whilst making his exit, with punters partying on in the radio station’s carpark til the wee hours.
 
Back on the Riverstage, headliners trip-hop legends Portishead deliver a performance worthy of the fourteen year gap between visits to our shores. The beauty that is Beth Gibbons’ voice fills the amphitheatre and has the full venue watching in admiration. Their visuals are stunning throughout, with seminal track Glory Box appearing midway through the set. This prompts a mass exodus from the crowd, most of whom leave the festival entirely having seen the pivotal song that they came for, exhausted after a day of extreme heat and amazing music. 

Emilie Autumn is a fitting choice to close the opulence of Le Boudoir, and we catch her as she’s midway through a rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. She exudes the same art-performance ethos as Amanda Palmer, but even her costuming of corsets, porcelain doll makeup and feathered headpieces are outdone by the sheer brilliance of solo violin before closing with her uncomfortable tortured pop. Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but all we can fault her is the distinct lack of Metalocalypse’s Dethklok riffage.

What made Harvest better than most? Everything from the lineup to production to sideshows to site dressing to half-decent drinks (a vodka ‘cocktail’ is poured with cranberry, grapefruit juice and a slice of real grapefruit, albeit for $12 it’s a nice alternative to the liquid nightmare of consuming energy drinks for hours on end. Why is it though that we’re still only allowed mid-strength beer but can have full strength spirits?).

It’s obvious that Harvest is one of the best curated Australian festivals of 2011, immaculate in its execution and in turn having drawn the kind of punter you don’t want to smack in the mouth. Harvest is a festival’s festival, and we hope it’s next iteration is just as special.

Written by Patrick Ryan & Crystle Fleper. Compiled by Crystle Fleper