As last year’s Future, Good Vibrations 2009 and Global Gathering 2008 proved for many, horse racing venues, continuous rain and hordes of people don’t mix very well. It’s practically a repeat scenario this time, Future Music 2011 welcoming the underdressed punters with dismal weather and gravy-thick mud. Upon entrance, I give myself a mental high-five for choosing to don gumboots; thongs people, you’ve got it wrong.
Up until now, I haven’t managed to see a full Gypsy & The Cat set, but today my unlucky streak finally comes to and end. That the Melbournians have to cut their Flamingo Stage appearance short after being 15 minutes late (the delay caused by the rain affecting the band’s electronic gear) is a tad disappointing, but the music is most certainly not.
Opening with a hit double of Time To Wander and The Piper’s Song, the honey-voiced duo take us on a smooth, ’80s-influenced pop cruise – Sight Of A Tear’s intro even faintly recalling Cyndi Lauper’s perennial Time After Time. Following an energetic Running Romeo, Xavier and Lionel soar on Gilgamesh highlight Parallel Universe and career-establishing first single Jona Vark before bidding us a hearty “stay dry!”
The grey skies mercifully fail to open up and I sink my wellies into the slurping sludge as I cross over to the Future Music Stage, where Ministry Of Sound “name” Hook N Sling spins some pretty bangin’ house tunes. Essentially an extended prelude to Ke$ha, the assembled crowd laps up the remix of Angus & Julia Stone’s mega-annoying Hottest 100 winner Big Jet Plane and Kanye West’s All Of The Lights (which remains unmodified throughout) with delight.
As soon as the US trash-pop diva emerges – igniting a huge stampede to the main stage and highly illegal collective stand-climbing – I opt for the much safer option of Tame Impala, duly pacing back to Flamingo in time.
An act I’ve conspicuously avoided since I first saw them a couple years ago, they’re a pleasant, if belated, surprise. With the endless festival trekking having polished the youthful Perth quartet’s chops, their “LSD screens”-accompanied psych-rock ditties – Solitude Is Bliss, Desire Be Desire Go, Skeleton Tiger, Triple J favourite/Cream tribute Half Full Glass Of Wine et al – serve as a decent, nod-friendly listen (from a visual perspective, one particular reveller brandishing a giant inflatable phallus helps redefine the term “nod-friendly”).
Back at Future, festival electro boffins Art Vs Science emerge well after their designated time (Gold Coast’s Stafford Brothers still doofing away as I get there), yet effortlessly turn punters into crazed munters (or do they?) with a typically big, fist-pumping Friend In The Field. The strong start also proves to be the set’s apex as a series of considerably-underwhelming The Experiment tracks follow. Ever the entertainer, Dan Mac makes a point of running across the stage and machine-gunning the crowd with a guitar onslaught during their Hottest 100 almost-topper Parlez Vous Français?, however I choose not to stick around as the trio air the infinitely silly Magic Fountain.
Deciding not to bother seeing the original neo-bogan favourites The Presets, I dodge the mud-wrestlers and get ankle-deep again as I head back to Flamingo – where the big draw Mark Ronson (aided by his band The Business International) drops both recent and older hits like bombs. It’s both a pop-tastic show and a big, well-staged production; I have a gander, sit down, rest my legs for a bit and embark on another reluctant trudge through the mud to see ’90 dance veterans Leftfield.
The Likes Of You Stage may be barely half-full, but the experience of hearing era-defining progressive house tracks like Afro-Left and Release The Pressure live is undeniably powerful – if additionally helped by unexpectedly scoring some complimentary alcohol off attending acquaintances (cheers champs!). Re-energised, I dance until it’s MGMT/dinner time.
Doubtless aware of their previously patchy live rep, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden serve up an even mix of “old” and “new” songs, with the former – namely Time To Pretend, Weekend Wars, Electric Feel and Kids – still outweighing the Congratulations material by a wide quality margin. Here’s hoping the New Yorkers’ album number three brings more hooks like these.
Presiding over a baying crowd, crossover sensation Dizzee Rascal neither gets clocked with a projectile deodorant roll or starts a biffo with the offending crowd member this time. The still-cloudy sky now dark, I catch the hip hop part of the set and absorb the throbbing dubstep grooves of the Brit’s Chase & Status collaboration Heavy, later concluding that I don’t really have to be around to predict the munters losing their shit to the obligatory Dance Wiv Me and Bonkers.
A lucky meeting with free drink tickets-carrying fellow music writer means we soon hit the Green Tent for a vodka-laced energy drink injection (again, kudos dude – you know who you are). The subsequent drum & bass/electro-rock heavyweights Pendulum are unsurprisingly wicked, Propane Nightmares going off like a gas explosion – however by this time I’ve got more serious dance music on my mind, gulping down my remaining Bacardi & coke and faring the treacherous mud lake to the other side of the racetrack in no time.
Over at The Likes Of You, Detroit/minimal techno doyen Richie Hawtin (also billed as his alter ego Plastikman) cooks up insistent beats and chest-rattling bass from inside the light cage for a good hour. Highly impressed, I regret the veteran artist is such an unfortunate clash with the festival headliner, who I – fuelled by countless myth-like tales – simply have to see.
Just like I had expected, UK electronic music mainstays The Chemical Brothers close Future 2011 with an imperial, lasers-and-smoke show. The opening Galvanize, no matter how overplayed, takes on a new meaning live – as does Do It Again (stripped of the grating “oh my God, what have I done” vocals). Propelled by a brain-worming synth hook, latest single Swoon rightly earns its “Chems’ prettiest song” crown, with the lilting Star Guitar not far behind. From then, it’s a late ’90s-standard rave party all the way: Hey Boy, Hey Girl, Out Of Control, Setting Sun, Believe etc. Mega-horse power chemical beats? You bet.
Time rolls as I unleash one rusty move after another with every classic banger (in the relative safety of the Future Music Stage’s VIP stand). Following the eerie “chanting clowns” visuals – which may or may not be a little bit too unnerving for those unable to handle their assorted MDMA/lysergics well – the epochal, 23 Skidoo-sampling Block Rockin’ Beats erupts from the gigantic PA, fittingly rounding off a singularly fantastic 90-minute set. Bravo, Messrs Rowlands and Simons.
Thus ends this year’s instalment of Future Music. Joining the exiting throng, I carry approximately a kilo of muck on each boot and the festival’s most vivid images and memories in my mind: a jumbo-sized inflatable penis (which along with horrendous mud and bad smell could neatly sum up the experience as a reviewer) and plenty of great music to keep my inner audiophile/electronica fan happy. See you later, Doomben.
