What was once known as “Sydney Festival First Night” will tomorrow be rebranded as “Day One” – a day long event that runs throughout the city of Sydney. This morning at Sydney’s Town Hall, the artistic director of the festival, Lieven Bertels, walked media through tomorrow’s festivities that ends in a concert in the Domain that Daptone records’ Gabe Roth told us is “going to be crazy”.
Unlike past years where there were dozens of events happening in locations all over the city, this year the event will take you from Hyde Park in the morning, to Darling Harbour in the afternoon and then the Domain in the evening, meaning that families will be able to enjoy all the activities of the day without missing a beat.
The day will begin in Hyde Park at 9.30am with the “Fun Run”, which will feature Humphrey or ‘Humps’ (AKA Performer Tristan Meecham) as he attempts to run a marathon on a treadmill in an ode to the ancient Greek messenger Pheidippides. The performance will include DJs, acrobatics and the dancing styles of the Spandex-clad troupe Haus Da Humps, as Humphrey takes the audience through the legendary story of Pheidippides while he sweats it out on the treadmill.
Families are then invited to make their way down to Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, from 2pm to witness a floating celebration featuring more than 100 acrobats, dancers and musicians, all celebrating the arrival of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant Rubber Duck, measuring a massive 15m high and 18m wide. The celebration will include dancing tug-boats, a “flotilla of bath-tubs”, thousands of little rubber ducks, the Sydney Philharmonic Choir, TaikOz Trio drummers, didgeridoo players and a saxophone ensemble. Epic much? The performance will run until about 4pm.
From there, you’ll want to go get your spot in the Domain for the Daptone Super Soul Revue, which will feature Sharon Jones with her 10-piece band The Dap-Kings plus Charles Bradley, Sugarman 3, The Budos Band and many more, in a three and a half hour event MC’d by Blinky Griptite from the Dap-Kings.
For those unfamiliar with Daptone records, the independent Brooklyn based label are responsible for keeping the sound of soul, funk, gospel and afrobeat alive in the last decade. On this, Sharon Jones related her own experiences: “You can understand what we’re talking about (when we’re singing this sort of music). You can hear the stories. People still want to keep the old (music) around. It’s something they can connect with to their grandparents and their parents.”
In talking about the label, Daptone co-founder Neal Sugarman (who will also be performing in Sugarman 3) described it as “a regional label… we need to know the people before we work with them. People like Sharon (Jones) and Charles (Bradley) helped us build our studio and a lot of the bands share similar musicians, which you’ll see tomorrow night… most of the backing bands are off shoots of the Dap-Kings.” And in that note, Lieven Bertels called the event “The best way to present the music of the label – as a family.”
The event will finish at 11pm. Stay tuned to the AU review for up to the minute coverage of everything Sydney Festival related over the next three weeks!
Photos by Nik Thorup.
