Dear AJ and the Harvest Team,
You nailed it!
Congratulations on a successful festival.
Hugs and kisses, Larry and the AU review team.
Open letters to management are usually negative affairs, where people complain about this and that, but you know what – credit should be given where credit is due, and in the case of the Sydney leg of the much anticipated Harvest tour, credit should indeed be given. It comes as a stark contrast to the sort of negative press Harvest and its management have dealt with in recent times. From the media inflamed Portishead “controversy” to the queues in Melbourne… indeed, there’s nothing people love more than a negative puff piece. Who wants to read something positive? Well, hopefully you do, as I continue…
AJ and his team (ambitious as they are) nailed it with Harvest over the weekend in Sydney, providing one of the best travelling festival debuts since Laneway earlier in the decade. Following in the traditions of festivals such as it and Bluesfest (whose PR team worked on Harvest), they aimed to create a festival with good vibes, great music (there was hardly a dud all day – what accomplished curation!) and an all around relaxed atmosphere missing from so many events around Australia. And for this they succeeded with flying colours.
I’m sure there’ll be some to complain about this or about that – you can’t ever make everyone happy – but after I left the festival, having enjoyed closing sets from The Flaming Lips and Portishead (who blew everyone away with a vibrant, emotive and spectacularly engaging set), not to mention earlier awe inspiring sets from TV on the Radio, Death in Vegas and The National, I felt a sort of joy I haven’t experienced in a long time – easily since Splendour last year, and possibly since The Pixies closed out the first V Festival in Sydney.
Furthermore, I’ve heard absolutely no gripes about the beautiful festival grounds in Parramatta, and certainly have none myself – they are suited perfectly for this sort of thing. Plus, as was reminded to me on the day, it takes less time to get to Parramatta by train from Central, than it does getting to Leichardt by bus most days. Centennial Park and their noise restrictions be damned… let’s have more festivals out here! The day was loud, the day was grand and I can’t wait for next year. It’s already looking pretty sexy in my calendar.
I’ll leave this short piece with a quote from The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, as said during his set: “Isn’t this the perfect start to a summer evening… this is the coolest festival we’ve been to in a long time.” I couldn’t have said it better myself! A full review will be on its way from Chris Singh and then we’ll see you up in Brisbane for the final leg of the East Coast tour, next Saturday! Tickets still remain… get on it!
Photos by Serena Ho, taken at the Melbourne Harvest Festival.
