A splendid weekend part 1

You're probably sick to death of people rubbing your noses in it by now and at the risk of flogging a dead horse, Splendour In The Grass 2010 was surely one of the greatest festivals ever to hit Australia. With a line-up more star-studded than the night sky and a brilliant new location, the wondrous winter festival did not disappoint, as our very own Scott Mclennan reports.

    It was The Joy Formidable’s first Australian festival appearance, possibly LCD Soundsystem’s last and definitely Richard Ashcroft’s shortest, with the 10th Splendour In The Grass offering a variety of sounds to appease the 32,000 music fans who descended on the bush setting of Queensland’s sleepy Woodford.

    There’s a tipping point that is reached at every camping festival. It’s when the girls with fake tans suddenly become indistinguishable from the reddish dust obfuscating tired and sweaty bodies. It’s when the gut-churning smell of the public toilets shifts from the scent of piss to the odour of vom. It’s when the guys ‘hilariously’ dressed as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers suddenly pale in comparison to the appearance of a gent proudly walking about entirely naked save for gold paint covering his entire body (Passion Pit are fans – they even label their Splendour show the best of the career after giving Naked Guy a shout-out mid-set).

Laura Marling:

    There’s also the tipping point of seeing acts finally break through to a wider audience, with Megan Washington, Dan Sultan and Cloud Control defying the headline pull of the Amphitheatre and playing to massive audiences at the GW McLennan Stage. Washington in particular couldn’t contain her thrill at the reception on the very day her debut album was released, with the self-proclaimed nerd (and precocious little devil) grinning her way through the massive crowd sing-along on Clementine.

    Nestled on a natural slope and surrounded by gum groves, the main stage is a picturesque performance setting for the cream of international acts, matching Red Rocks or Slane Castle for venues gifted with natural amphitheatre beauty. Brooklyn’s Yeasayer are one of the first global bands to hit this most scenic of stages, yet their spellbinding afternoon set remains one of the weekend’s highlights. Like MGMT proficiently cribbing the best bits of the New Romantic era, their calypso percussion separate them from the current Afrobeat trend and proves thoroughly enticing.

    As darkness closes in on the warm Friday night, the Mix Up Stage offers a thoroughly enticing succession of hot danceable sets from Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem and Scissor Sisters. Hot Chip are down a man tonight, with keyboard player and vocalist Joe Goddard surprisingly forgoing the tour to stay home with his pregnant wife. Letting your band tour without you must ring alarm bells as to how important you are in the scheme of things, but Goddard’s gain is our loss – the set feels a little lame compared to the meek electropop fun of previous Aussie shows. Goddard’s mournful fat head pops up on video projections for songs where his input is required via DAT, but fellow vocalist Alexis Taylor seems a little lost, listlessness creeps in and it all results in this sadly being a serving of minimum Chips.

    LCD Soundsystem’s proceeding slot yields one of Mix Up’s biggest audiences of the weekend, made even more enticing by the fact head honcho James Murphy soon intends to annul his New York posse. Pow Pow’s rambling, nonchalant New York prose is a cool summary of James Murphy’s anti-star charm, All My Friends summarises Splendour’s communal feeling (‘If it’s crowded all the better, because we know we’re gonna be up late’) and Daft Punk Is Playing At My House takes the dancing throng back LCD’s beginnings despite this being their curtain call.

    With more camping than the entire Splendour site, Scissor Sisters’ cabaret performance and glitzy zeal comes off like a loveable B52’s born in Studio 54 rather than Athens, Georgia. The charming yet intimidating Ana Matronic plays the OTT MC to co-vocalist Jake Shears’ muscular whippet, with the brawny chap inevitably ending up naked by the end of their sweaty set. From future hit Running Out all the way back to Take Your Mama, Scissor Sisters offer the most deliriously fun set of the festival.

Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears:

Scissor Sisters' Ana Matronic:

Check out part 2 of Scottie's review here.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NEWSLETTER!