review: splendour in the grass, woodford by danielle le toullec

For the second year running, Splendour in The Grass took over the humble town of Woodford, Queensland for a weekend of sun-soaked, dust-ingrained shenanigans against a stellar soundtrack of live music. 

Whether your outfit of choice was a full blown cow, penguin, panda or dog outfit or just a furry animal beanie, you would have fitted right in with this years' peculiar theme of animal dress.

If you wanted to be a bit more stylish, there were some awesome pop up stores dotted around including Aje, Maurie and Eve, General Pants Co. as well as the Mo'rockin Wine Bar, Strongbow booze boat and some delicious food from Grill'd, Govindas, Hungarian Langos, dumplings, German Bratwurst, obligatory festival Gozleme, corn and about twenty million more.

But we're not here to talk about food, are we? We are here for the tunes, so here goes...

Day One

After lining up for twenty minutes to get into the main gates from the campsite (daily festival-fail), we took in the massive festival site as we bee-lined to the Amphitheatre for Jinja Safari. The Sydney band’s playful folk pop was the perfect accompaniment for the sunny Friday afternoon. Marcus Azon closed the set by crowd surfing to the back, jumping to the ground and leading the audience in a run around the valley.

Melbourne MC Illy packed out the Mix Up stage and had everyone singing along to ‘Cigarettes’.

The Kills played a great set despite Alison Mosshart apparently being very hungover. Kicking off with 'Future Starts Slow', she resembled a slightly gothic Cousin It as she hid behind a veil of black hair, dressed in a black shirt and black jeans. As the sun dipped behind the valley, she cried out “Thank fuck the sun is gone!” Jamie Hince’s new wifey Kate Moss was backstage to support his super sexy dirty guitar riffs.

Having made one of the albums of the year, James Blake brought his minimalist, sonic tunes all the way from London to the Mix Up stage. ‘Limit to Your Love’ and ‘The Wilhelm Scream’ and ‘CMYK’ were beautiful to listen to live. He also played a more intimate DJ set at the Jagermeister Hunting lodge, surrounded by wooden logs and fake fireplaces, manned by some lovely lumberjacks.

Festival organisers must have been kicking themselves for scheduling Boy and Bear for the GW Mclennan stage. Even though their debut album hasn't dropped yet, the Australian band drew a huge crowd that made it near impossible to get close to the stage. Crowds poured out onto the hill for the show.

Gotye and Regina Spektor experienced similar overcrowding for their sets, with complaints of sound pollution coming from the Amphitheatre stage. New Zealand crooner, Kimbra joined Gotye for their smash hit 'Somebody That I Used to Know', which seemed to be the unofficial anthem for campsites around the festival.

Kato, one of Sydney's most popular DJ's, delivered a massive set with a setlist that had the Mix Up tent heaving. 

Swedish band, The Hives were resplendent in their top hats and tuxedos. They played to a packed out crowd in the Amphitheatre against a slightly creepy background that looked like a Dali puppet master with large white ribbons sprouting from the poster onto the stage. The charming Howlin’ Pelle showed us all what lead singer swag is all about. After a bit of call and response, he lovingly called out, “You’re some obedient motherfuckers.”

Rising out of the crowd on a cherry picker, surrounded by smoke, Kanye West clearly proved the difference between a performer and a super star. Divided into three acts, his only Australian appearance this year left a lasting impression. We were treated to a massive set of old school Kanye mixed with some of his newer hits. As he told the audience from the perfectly white stage, “It’s fun to do all the classics, but I love doing the new shit.” Using the legendary Queen track, 'We Will Rock You' in the lead up to 'E.T' was pure genius, complimented by the accoustics of the natural amphitheatre.

Rumours of a Jay-Z appearance, rampant throughout the day, unfortunately turned out to be false. Major media outlets were duped but luckily Kanye knows how to rock it solo. With fireworks, a swarm of contemporary back up dancers, outfit changes, moving platforms in front of a baroque backdrop and lasers. Mr. West's cult is clearly still going strong. Flooded with red light, hands pumping up to the stage for ‘Jesus Walks’, it would easy to mistake the Splendour crowd for crazed worshippers.

The deathly slow march back to camp certainly added to that effect.

Day Two

Fitz and The Tantrums brought their funky jazz tunes from Los Angeles to the dusty fields of Woodford for their first ever Australian appearance. Their covers of The Raconteurs ‘Steady As She Goes’ and Eurythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’ went down a treat. Foster the People played a massive set, with some seriously loud bass. ‘Pumped up Kicks’ was definitely a highlight of the festival.

Gomez played at the consistently packed GW Mclennan stage and reminisced about the days when Splendour In The Grass was like a picnic. The band lineup has remained the same since the band’s conception in 1996. Their cohesion rang out loud and clear as they swapped around, sauntering on and off the stage as they played through more than ten years of hits including ‘Get Myself Arrested’, ‘How We Operate’ and ‘Girlshapedlovedrug’.

Thievery Corporation played a huge set on Saturday night with their unique tunes that mix dub, reggae, jazz and lounge.  Rob Garza, Eric Hilton were joined by a rolling line up of lead singers who took centre stage.

PNAU drew a huge crowd as they closed Saturday night at Splendour, the tent was at capacity with thousands spilling out of the sides. They played a good mix of crowd favourites with Gwenno Saunders making a guest appearance on vocals for ‘Embrace’.

Splendour had some seriously pumping side stages this year. Tipi Forest was a hazy Bermuda triangle of sorts. Underground electronic dance acts kept the splendour going long after the main stages closed.

La Cantina Mexicana were pumping out the slurpee margaritas and the mariachi bands while the Tent of Miracles and Global Village gave acoustic sets and bean bags a whirl.

Day Three

Feeling very dusty, The Holidays were a perfect start to the last day of Splendour 2011. 'Broken Bones' was a highlight as was their cover of Tv On The Radio's 'Wolf Like Me'. Hoops opened their set with SBTRKT and a busload of energy to boost up the flailing crowd. Nina Las Vegas busted out some serious moves, Anna Lunoe rocked it in a blue leather mini skirt and Bad Ezzy tore shiz up.

Cloud Control released a bunch of huge, coloured balls that bounced around the crowd and created a very whimsical feeling in the sunny Sunday afternoon light. A flash crowd formed on the slope of the Amphitheatre and proceeded to run up and down. The Lion King theme song rang out of the massive speakers as the band congratulated one of their members who had just had a child.

Friendly Fires were a great live, hoards of people popped into the Mix Up big top tent to bop to 'Hawaiian Air', 'Paris', 'Jump in my Pool'.

After making the last trek over to the Amphitheatre stage, we settled in for Pulp's last ever Australian show. Jarvis Cocker worked the crowd with some saucy dance moves, putting his hips to work. By the second song he was up on the speakers, complaining that they were a bit wonky. 'Do You Remember The First Time', 'This is Hardcore' and 'Common People' were a great precursor to Coldplay. 

Chris Martin was personable for the entirety of their 60-minute set. His banter showed love for the Australian audience and the television show Neighbours. It almost felt like we were hearing their classic tracks for the first time. 'The Scientist', 'Yellow', 'Clocks', 'In My Place', 'Speed of Sound' and the hit list goes on. Fireworks lit up the sky as they played the opening lines of Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab' as a tribute, before leading into 'Fix You'. They closed with ‘Every Teardrop is a Waterfall’ off their latest album as butterfly-shaped confetti burst into the sky.

This year's Splendour In The Grass was certainly a success with a strong line up of international and local acts that made the inflated ticket price worth it. The light in the tunnel of the Australian winter music festival scene filled us all with enough memories and ringing eardrums to last until the Summer season kicks off.

Until next year Splendour-ers!

illy, jinja safari, splendour in the grass, woodford, kanye west, james blake, the hives, pnau, thievery corporation, gomez, foster the people, friendly fires, pulp, coldplay, cloud control