I attended the Harvest festival in the Brisbane botanical gardens in 2011 and seeing Portishead there will always remain one of the best gig experiences I've had. The entire festival was a great day that somehow managed to attract the 'right' kind of music loving crowd.
So this year I took up the opportunity to become a Harvest festival foundation member. The thing was that I had a wedding to attend in Melbourne the weekend that Harvest was on in Brisbane. But thanks to Campbell Newman it turned out I was to be on 'extended leave' (ie. took a voluntary redundancy) around this time so I extended my travel plans so I could attend the Melbourne Harvest festival on the weekend before the wedding. After hearing about what went down in Brisbane, I think it was fate guiding me toward the perfect day that was to be had at Werribee Mansion (festival site) in Melbourne.
The sun was out and the sky clear and blue, with a cool breeze blowing. After reading about the public transport issues affecting trains to Werribee, and not being much familiar with Melbourne I decided to take the paid option to guarantee me a seat on a bus to and from the event. I'm glad I did as this worked well and was a hassle-free trip.
Entering the festival grounds as the gates opened gave me ample time to check out the surroundings and get my bearings on stage locations. One thing that had annoyed me at last years festival in Brisbane was the epic distance between the two stages that were hosting the majority of the bands I planned on seeing; I spent half of the time weaving through crowds to get from one end of the grounds to the other. No such issue this year in Melbourne as all stages were comfortably traversable distances apart from each other.
The grounds were large and lush with paths leading between trees and a large lake in the middle. The organisers had done well in making us feel welcome and the quirky little art installations just added to the atmosphere.
I started the day watching River City Extension on one of the larger side stages. Their Americana-infused upbeat tunes seem perfectly suited for this beautiful weather and rural location. At the end of their set I returned to the main stage to watch Los Campesinos! (the '!' is part of the name). Someone/something had alerted me to this band about 18 months previous because I found that I'd previously 'acquired' their 2008 album Hold On Now, Youngster... and the fact that it remained on my PC suggested I'd enjoyed their stuff. Seeing them live confirmed this and their brash danceable pop rock drew a decent crowd for the time of day, some choosing to watch from a distance in the shade of one of the large trees, with others happily bopping away on their feet in the sun.
Having listened to a song or two of Dark, Dark, Dark, Nona Marie Invie's voice was enough to make me want to check them out. Whilst the voice was just as great live, the sweet pop songs were a bit too quiet for this environment and acted as a bit of a buzz kill after the high of Los Campesinos!.. so I returned to the main stage to watch the remainder of their set and just in time to catch the lead singer climb off stage into the crowd to sing "Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks".
Next up was Dark Horses. I'd read an interview with this band that had one of the members mentioning something along the lines of "'We wear black because Rock’n’Roll is dead" and "the clothes we wear are an integral part of the band" (I'm probably misquoting terribly). The second statement had me concerned and the suggested self-importance was obvious in their on stage presence. A couple of their dark and moody rock n roll tunes (to me reminiscent of Jonneine Zapata) showed promise but for me they became a bit boring as their set went on, so back to the main stage I went for The Dandy Warhols.
Although I was a fan of these guys back in their hey-day, that day has long since gone and I think it's time for Courtney Taylor-Taylor (is there an echo in here?) to accept that and move on. The familiarity of the songs may still have some appeal but here they just seemed to drone from one to the next.
I was aware of a bit buzz around the next band, Silversun Pickups. I'd seen them once before at Valley Fiesta in 2007 and was looking forward to hearing their sonic fuzz live again. They had a fill-in bass player (the original one was off having babies) who just seemed to be having so much fun grinning and dancing on stage with this being her first time in Australia. The energy these guys had was great for the afternoon slot with the drummer head-banging away with every beat. Incidentally he seemed to be attempting to rival Jon Stanier in the 'who can have the most ludicrously high positioned cymbal' competition.
This post is getting epic and I don't have time right now to finish it right now (maybe later) so here are the rest! Beck and Santigold were my favorite for the day with an honorable mention to Cake.
Liars
Cake
Ben Folds Five
Beck
Sigur Ros
Santigold
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