Yes it’s late, but I write these things for me so here it is.
tl;dr The 1975, Peter Bjorn and John, Leon Bridges, The Avalanches, The Strokes, (the music of) Szymon, Boo Seeka, The Meeting Tree, Kim Churchill, Michael Kiwanuka, Sticky Fingers, Ball Park Music, James Vincent McMorrow, The Cure, Matt Corby, Santigold, Urthboy, Twinsy, The Internet, Remi, The Jungle Giants, Boy & Bear, Just A Gent, The Preatures, James Blake, Flume
Spent the Thursday driving up with FBi mates sleeping in the car, chatting about music and philosophy and life, and yelling our way through tunnels. Got up to where I was crashing with a different assortment of FBi crew, and it’s all beers and pizza taking hours to arrive, and the hat game, and the sound of waves from the beach on the other side of the trees.
Friday
Solid brekkie fry-up and beers on the beach followed by festival-level disaster. I haven’t caught the Splendour shuttle before and made the mistake of having far too much faith in it working. Biggest regret of the weekend was missing Jack Garrett’s set and only turning up as the sun was setting (seriously, who gets to a festival that late?).
Finally arrived in time to catch The 1975 and sat myself up on the hill and just as it was hitting 6:15 I got a call from an unknown number and in the spirit of #yesyear, decided to answer. It was from a department I’d interviewed with on Monday, making me a job offer for their 2017 grad program even though they hadn’t even finished interviewing everyone for the roles on offer yet. It was loud and I could barely hear what was being said except to ask for email confirmation and then I hung up and sobbed. I had no idea until that moment how much low-key stress had been following me around during months and months of applications and testing and assessment centres and flipping between thinking I’m fabulous and background worrying about not receiving an offer at all and if more than one offer, which one would I accept. A huge weight came off in that call and it was just so damn obvious that this department who called me at a music festival are the ones I’m meant to work with. Honestly, this was probably a decent set, but it was a complete write-off for me because I spent the rest of it calling my family and texting the people important to me to share the news.
Finally stopped involuntarily crying long enough to put myself together for Peter Bjorn and John and it was fine. Good for a bit of a boogie and some mild singalongs, but better for being the backing of sharing the job news with Mum.
Leon Bridges is someone who has just never crossed my path. On the drive up, Dan was playing a fair bit of him and I am SO SO GLAD that happened because when Lachie said he though Leon Bridges was exactly my type of music, he was 100% correct. I love soul, I love gospel, I love it when there are some horns up there on stage. This set was fantastic and to say that Bridges’ vocals and performance was sex is too crude an expression for what happened but feels damn appropriate.
Met up with Lachie and found ourselves camped out with Dan & Crew under the trees for The Avalanches. To be honest, I’m still confused about what happened with this set. It was not what I expected, not what I wanted, yet I still really enjoyed myself for about 76% of it. Highlights would be opening the set with ‘Reckless’ which is just so Sydney, then ‘Frankie Sinatra’ absolutely went off even though the singer was reading the lyrics off his phone and we’re all chiming in ‘Frankie me boy you don’t know, you have the perfect voice to sing Calypso WHAT DID THEY SAY’. The coolest mashup of the festival was when ‘Crazy’ was sung over ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’, though there’s a lot of love for the original and our area of the amphitheater was solid on singing ‘that boy needs therapy’ as a running undercurrent.
I’m hardly the world’s biggest fan of The Strokes but we had a good spot and a solid crew so stuck around for this set and it was a bit of a disappointment. Definitely had the vibe that Julian Casablancas and Co didn’t really care. I was struggling to stay awake at points but getting up to boogie was a good call. We somehow adopted a girl on her own into the fold and stopped some gross dudes from harassing her which reminded me yet again how awful sexual harassmenty stuff can be at festivals if you find yourself alone. ‘Last Night’ was easily the most fun song of the set and almost made the 3 hours it took to get to bed afterwards worth it. But not quite.
Saturday
Morning beach walks and eating cold bacon on the deck as everyone slowly wakes up and brushes off hangovers.
Managed to get there much earlier to witness In Loving Memory of Szymon, the playing of the ‘Tigersapp’ album by a bunch of his family and friends as a beautiful tribute to the talent musician who took his own life. This was just a really beautiful thing that I’m glad I was able to support and good to see how the music community got together to make it happen with feature vocals from Dave Le'aupepe from Gang of Youths, Emma Louise, Little May and Sam Cromack from Ball Park Music all doing their thing. Seems like a lot of my friends were on the same wavelength as me for this because I ran into a whole lot of them (shout outs to Lockie though).
Boo Seeka was just what I wanted them to be, with Fool and Deception Bay having sat in the back of my mind on and off for the last year, given their presence on Triple J’s high rotation list.
The Meeting Tree are just straight-up dirt rave pit times even though their entire concept and agenda seems to be ‘it’s good because we’re great’.
Kim Churchill gave a good, solid set, but relatively forgettable in the context of everything that went on this weekend.
Seeing Michael Kiwanuka was part of my #sitg2016 philosophy to check out more bands that aren’t the hugely popular ones. I didn’t regret this, but only stuck around for half a set.
Sticky Fingers had a freaking HUGE crowd. It was a ridiculous spread of people as far as the eye could see and they delivered a set worthy of the amphitheatre stage. SI FI is a thing I didn’t realise was a thing until seeing them play. Perpetually going to believe I’ll never not dance to ‘Gold Snafu’.
What can I say about Ball Park Music that I haven’t before? Probably not much because this must be no 7 or 8 times that I’ve seen them. I’m more of a fan of their old stuff which blasted its way into my life when I needed it, whereas the new record just doesn’t grab me in the same way but I had a lot of fun at this set and had a good boogie which is just what I wanted from them. Not as crazy as their Friday arvo set in the Amphitheatre back in 2014 and no Bohemian Rhapsody this time around but it worked. An acoustic version of ‘It’s Nice to be Alive’ was the standout moment, swelled by thousands of supporting voices.
James Vincent McMorrow is a guy I have wanted to see for a long time. It was exactly what I wanted and his vocal ability in person is absolutely outstanding. I was flabbergasted by some of the notes he managed to hold. ‘Higher Love’ was an obvious favourite and what I was there for, but overall exposure to his work was refreshing and solidified my place as a fan.
The Cure FUCK YEAH BUCKET LIST BAND. Back with Lachie, Dan & Crew for this, with prime hill spots and part of my disappointment that there weren’t more people there watching THE CURE was balanced by Lachie face-down in the grass, and the rest of the crew settling in much the way you would get down into the couch for a long night in front of the tv. I’m confused as to why The Cure was booked to play Splendour because they don’t align with the Triple J crowd the way you would want a band to if you’re booking them for a 3 hour set on the biggest night of the festival, and putting them up against local legend Matt Corby, and danceability star Santigold. But hey, I’m not a promoter. Absolute highlight was ‘Friday (I’m in love)’. For a song that has been bringing me down because I used its script to tell Will how I felt about him, this was a moment of redemption and freedom to party. Even Lachie managed to get out of the grass for this one.
Matt Corby. He needed a bigger stage, no question about it. Great performer if you could get your way into the tent but I’m guessing half his fans didn’t get that privilege. An organic donut run just before this was a good move.
Have I mentioned yet how much I friend/gig love Lachie? He gives me energy, and there’s no-one else who would be able to hold my hand and make me run through throngs of people when energy levels are dying.
Santigold was overwhelming in a good way. Having gone from the Dad-rock vibes of The Cure, to hanging way back at Corby’s appearance on the G.W. McLennan, turning up at the Mix Up Tent was an assault on the senses with a highly-produced predominantly fluro set of animations accompanying bizarre outfits on energised backup dancers. The attitude of Santigold was palpable and kicked these tiring bones into high gear for some solid dancing.
Sunday
This was a day I decided I needed to dance it out. If it’s going to be my last Splendour, I may as well make it a doozy.
I really love the concept of Urthboy’s new(ish) album and how he has gone back in Aussie history to write songs about these stories that have happened. ‘Long Loud Hours’ is an incredible track and the way the lyrics lay over the beats and tells this story that hit our news stations for a solid week back in the day is as good as Aussie hip hop gets.
Twinsy just casually dropped banger after banger and it could’ve been all too #mainstream for Splendour but hey, the kids dug it and so did I.
The Internet gave what was probably my favourite set of Splendour. This may have had something to do with being close to the stage (a history of gigs seems to have shown my enjoyment of a gig is directly proportional to how close I am to the stage) but also just the absolute TUNES they come out with and the ultimate swag.
Remi was fine but forgettable.
The Jungle Giants are a band I keep holding onto as liking when I think that I just don’t anymore. Their early days of ‘Mr Polite’ and ‘She’s a Riot’ connected with something in me back in 2011/12, but they’re becoming gradually more frustrating and I honestly get incredibly pissed off at some of the implications in ‘Kooky Eyes’ that mocks what it is to be ‘crazy’.
Boy & Bear delivered their usual good stuff but was really just someone to see while eating dinner.
Just A Gent is a great producer and easily the set I danced most at for the whole festival. I was wearing a fitbit and we’re talking a solid 3000 steps in the hour he was playing. I didn’t stop moving for a second and that was exactly what I wanted. Cheesy highlight was probably when he dropped a remix of John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’, specially produced for Splendour. As much as we may bag out Farnzy, he unites everyone in the moment. Just A Gent also comes off as just a really cool, sweet dude. The type of guy you’d happily take home to the parents.
I am SO READY for new stuff from The Preatures and they brought it!
James Blake was a set I looked forward to all weekend with my music brain wanting nothing more than to relive the moment that was Splendour 2013 when Alex, Brit and I danced to him next to the fire while drinking vodka and fanta out of cans and ‘beacon don’t fly too high’ sounded over the festival tents. I adore his sound and production and would happily see him play again and again. I feel as though I completely missed this set though because a girl only a few metres away from me was ODing and as much as I wanted to move, it was hard to get out and there was this entrapment of curiosity as to whether she would be ok. I hope so, I really do.
Flume pulled such a ridiculously huge crowd and the love 18-25yr olds in Australia have for him is obvious. He did a good set and it was technically perfect but I just wasn’t really feeling it. But it was good to dance. Good to dance indeed.
It’s done. I am now done with Splendour and this was a good year to go out on.
Thanks @virginaustralia thanks @splendourinthegrass #suizhen signing out from the lounge #sitg2016 #splendourinthegrass (at Virgin Australia Lounge Gold Coast Airport)
Not sure if it's an alien portal, or just a spot put up for all the kids on acid to hang out at 🤔 #splendourinthegrass #sitg2016 #letsdoacid&hangoutatthealienportal
