What Went Down – Marion Bay Falls Festival 2015/16

Falls Festival is done and dusted for another year and what a cracker it was. It was my 9th and it was easily one of the best. The weather was perfect, the crowd embraced it and the music was just damn good from start to finish.

I don’t think a Falls has ever gripped me as quickly as this one did. Gang of Youths started the day with a blistering 30 minute set which I imagine had the crowd frothing…I wouldn’t know because I was still trying to hammer tent pegs into rock hard ground with a shoe. I would’ve rushed down there but everyone knows that if you don’t put your tent up properly straight away, it’s either not going up at all or its going to fall down on you.

The first band we did manage to catch was Meg Mac, and the early afternoon crowd was huge! As with most triple J darlings she pulled a pretty young crowd and had them running down the hill from everywhere when she launched into ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves’ and then finished with her new single ‘Never Be’.

Rightfully so too, as she totally owned these songs and her voice was incredible. My only criticism would be that it was almost too polished and it would be great to see her really deviate off the album version and add something extra to her live show.

After the dispersing crowd rushed past me on the hill, it had me thinking that perhaps I hadn’t spent enough time taking steroids, waxing and selecting my falls outfit(s) over the last few months. But to be honest, it’s the coming together of all the different tribes – hippies, punks, gym junkies, hipsters, bogans, etc., etc. – that makes Falls such a great festival, and the people watching is second to none.

It was time to dash off to the Field Stage to catch the end of BÓRNS set. I can’t say I knew a lot about the guy beforehand (I thought he was a girl) and the start of the set seemed just like another bit of Euro disco with some high pitched vocals. But his last two tracks were great live party songs and ‘Electric Love’ set the mood for the rest of the day.

If you managed to catch my earlier article listing the top 10 artists to catch at Falls you would’ve seen I had Kurt Vile & the Violators at number two. Kurt rolled in all hair, skinny jeans and short sleeved t-shirt. While he was a marvel on the guitar, his total rock geekiness didn’t quite capture the crowd. “Pretty Pimpin” got people interested early, but there was a lot of chatting and mild appreciation going on towards the end of the set. Sigh.

The Maccabees played a great little poppy live set which got the crowd back into the swing of things with ‘Marks To Prove It’ the highlight for me.

I think it was about this point that I decided that I was just going to stick to the Main Stage for the rest of the day and chat to people that I hadn’t seen for years who I didn’t even realise were in the country let alone down at Falls. These moments are what makes Tassie Falls so great if you’re a local.

Do you know what’s not great?? The Birds of Tokyo. What a shitpile of a band. Time to go chuck some jeans on and refuel for the evening session….and what a session it was!

Kicking off at dusk were the Wombats. This trio of pudgy, pale, chips and cod eating Brits have pretty much stuck to the same song writing formula for the last decade, and my word they do it well! Their energetic live show literally had the crowd in a frenzy. Each song seemed to be a hit with ‘Moving to New York’ being my favourite. But the crowd went absolutely nuts for ‘Lets Dance to Joy Division’.

With darkness set in it was time for Hilltop Hoods. I feel like a lot of people hate on the Hoods these days, but I think they deserve some respect. They are now one of the stalwarts of the Australian music industry and you can go to one of their shows and know all the songs…a bit like Powderfinger (ha!). They certainly know how to work a crowd and they had the Falls party in full swing. The slightly inappropriate ‘Cosby Sweater’ (turns out it just happens to be a song about a paedophile’s jumper) and oldie ‘Nosebleed Section’ were my favourites.

I mentioned in my previous article that the Foals were rumoured to be one of the best live bands in the world right now and they were THE band to see. They did not disappoint one bit. They were on from the first song and sounded incredible. They flawlessly melded tracks into one another and the light show added perfectly to the energy of the band. The crowd went nuts for the whole thing. Highlights were ‘My Number’ and ‘Mountain at My Gates’, but the best song of the whole festival was ‘What Went Down’.

Django Django struggled to follow on from such an epic set and really struggled to deliver for the allocated hour, but finished strongly with a few danceable tracks which was just enough to keep a few sticking around for the Avener.

The Avener was probably the surprise of the night for me. The French deep house producer played a great set of tasteful guitar licks, jazz, folk and blues all driven home by the deepest bass I’ve ever experienced. My whole body was shaking with it. ‘Panama’ kicked off the set in style. It was sweet times.

Day 2

I woke on the 31st December with the realisation that if I didn’t move soon I was going to cook in my own tent. It was going to be a stinker. Droves of people were already in a huge line snaking its way to the beach. Not me! I had some serious sitting around feeling sorry for myself to do.

For me the day kicked off sitting by myself on the hill listening to a band I’d never heard before called Soak. And what a beautiful way to start the day. I couldn’t quite believe the haunting vocals coming out of the slightly rotund 5 foot nothing skater punk girl standing on stage in front of me. The set grew and grew and at times reminded me of a stripped back Sigur Ros. ‘B a noBody’ and ‘Sea Creatures’ are tracks I have listened to daily since I’ve been home. Today was going to be a great day!

Alpine were up next, and the two scantily clad “party” ladies led from the front and danced like maniacs. They were kinda entertaining, but the music wasn’t much chop so we headed to the Field Stage to catch some comedy.

We got there and Tien Tran was telling some pretty funny gags about being a Chinese Australian. Here’s food for thought; “the only way you can offend an Australian is to call them a racist.” Nick Cody chimed in with some funny gags about the difficulties of pooping in Thailand with his hairy bum (“It’s like throwing heated up Nutella through a bush”), but Randy stole the show. If you don’t know Randy, he’s a purple puppet and even has his own TV show. There’s something odd about being yelled at by a puppet, and he had the crowd in stitches. It was probably in the top five things I saw fort he whole festival.

A lot of people that are really into their music rave about Mac DeMarco. I never got it until this day. The band are a weird bunch of units and look like the kind of people that might be cast to be the killers in a horror movie where a bunch of teenagers break down in a backwards American town. At first I thought it was a bit lame, but their banter became more and more engaging and it was pretty obvious that these guys are seriously talented musicians. When their vertically challenged new keyboard player who looked like a trailer trash version of Tyrion from Game of Thrones was sent out to crowd surf for a whole song, I became a fan for life. ‘Salad Days’ was the song of the set.

Courtney Barnett was pretty solid, but her songs are all so familiar now that you kinda knew what you were going to get. It was still good stuff, but I just couldn’t get into it.

We left Courtney early to go see one of the bands I was most eager to see – Young Fathers. And Wow! The three vocalists and drummer (and a little electronic whirry box – that’s an industry term) put on an incredibly intense, passionate and fun show. The low-fi beats and gospel like vocals had the crowd stomping up a dust cloud in the afternoon sun at the Field Stage. Easily one of the highlights of Falls and songs ‘Shame’ and ‘WAR’ were the standouts for me.

The stage swapping continued as we headed over to see Gary Clark Jnr. The man looks like he was born with a guitar in his hands. But we concluded that he can seriously play a guitar, but isn’t great at writing songs. It all kinda sounded the same after a few songs.

We caught the first few songs from Paul Kelly who brought out a heap of guests until he took centre stage to belt out ‘How to Make Gravy’. But the whispers in the crowd were that something special was about to happen on the Field Stage…

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard punched out the tightest set of psychedelic rock I have ever seen. The seven of them, including two drummers, seemed to be in perfect sync with each other despite playing tracks going beyond the ten minute mark. It was made all the more exciting when Mac Demarco and Courtney Barnett made a surprise crowd surfing appearance through the middle of the set. I was stoked to hear them thrash out nearly all 16 minutes of ‘Head On/Pill’. This was up there with the Foals for best set of the festival.

The above afternoon/evening session was quite simply one of the best sessions of live music I’ve ever experienced.

“Did they actually turn the music down for Bloc Party?” Is what everyone was asking after the New Year’s set. Softly spoken lead singer Kelly didn’t quite bring the energy. Don’t get me wrong, they played a good set, and it was great to hear a bunch of their classics, but it lacked something…their new drummer certainly is a cut below their old one. In saying that, I really enjoyed their new track ‘The Love Within’. Maybe the electronic sound is where they need to head with the new line-up.

Disclosure were meant to bring the party to the New Year and similarly to Bloc Party, they just lacked the energy. I went in thinking they are probably the most overhyped band/DJs in the world at the moment. I was their ready to party and for them to prove me wrong, but they were boring and had me heading for bed until I bumped into a bunch of merry friends who inspired a second wind.

We made it to the end of Bag Raiders who were pretty fun and they topped off a great festival with ‘Shooting Stars’.

Everyone I’ve spoken to that were there said they had the best time and it was one of the funnest Falls yet. Everyone I’ve spoken to that wasn’t there sounded like their New Years was pretty lame. Falls is still by far the best thing you can do on New Years. Shit the booze was expensive though! I’m calling for price freeze on festival booze or everyone’s just going to be smacked out on straight spirits they’ve smuggled in or any drug they can get their hands on which will realistically cost them the same as three beers. And they wonder why kids keep dying of overdoses at music festivals!