Lorne Falls Festival 2007

Falls Festival is all about endurance- three days, fifty plus bands and two venues all ready for the music lover to enjoy if you actually make it. As the shuttle bus picked us up from Avalon airport we encountered traffic in Angelsea and once again on the Great Ocean road, giving ample time for the jogger we passed one town over to actually catch up as well as making me miss the first night’s activities.

But as they say, “on with the show,” and if you haven’t heard of The Pipettes then just imagine the vibe of the “hey Mickey you’re so fine” song had dressed in 50s/60s milk bar type clothing. It’s all about high heels and polka dots. Their MySpace songs such as ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’ definitely the ones bringing all the hype in the crowd whilst Lior and his famous ‘Daniel’ followed on to mellow the crowd out and by then the sun was well and truly out so I headed to the Big Top for some shade. The matinee show for today was the comedy stylings of Clare Hooper and Raw Comedy which I had unfortunately missed but caught the last one- Kent Valentine who I thought was only half funny leading me to believe that the crowd was already drunk judging from the extra laughs I expected.

Cut Off Your Hands brought the sitters from the comedy act and Claire Bowditch up on their feet with ‘Expectations’ and the favourite old classic ‘You and I’. It was the first act during the day worth standing the whole set for. As soon as they wrapped up the tent cleared out like lighting clearly rushing to see The Waifs. I chose to stay and watch the Whiskey Go Gos and with their touring buddies Little Red and The Vasco Era in the crowd to support, their set started off in high spirits being introduced by Japanese people in kimonos before Matt opened it up solo. The rest of the band joined in for ‘Kentucky Blues’ before their second single ‘Rodeo’ released a little too early in the set, but saved ‘True Love’ for the right time as by then the crowd numbers were salvaged for a decent crowd to enjoy it. Their live set still need some work as transitions are too long and breaks leave the crowd restless. Little Red on the other hand… As I watched them on stage preparing themselves, they omitted enough musical passion to fill the room. Keeping me amused pre show was Taka already bopping on his drum sound check and Dom doing run-ups to the microphone clearly eager to begin their set. It is very refreshing to see excited musicians being able to expose their music to a wider audience. Opening with ‘Coca Cola’, this set the scene on what Little Red were going to be like for the whole set- bouncing off the walls (well if the tent had any…), jumping from one microphone to another and just when you think they have finally ran out of energy and mellowed out, I believe they have set their caffeine on time release as Taka never seemed to tire out, climbing on top of an amp waving his arms wildly before standing on top of his drum kit for their finale ‘Waiting’. Unfortunately this entire buzz left him to topple over causing a chant for an encore. Dear boy, I sure do hope you’re all right!

Meanwhile back on the Valley Stage, ARIA award winning Gotye got everyone going with his mini-orchestra (sneaking in Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ in that customer service song of his ['Thanks For Your Time' - Ed]) but the definite stand out was the sing-a-long was ‘Hearts A Mess’. Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club followed on and brought the stakes up in terms of visuals. It is always pleasing to see overseas acts coming over and making an effort- with grade A lights (although a tad obsessed with red) the video work also improved as the cuts were sharp and in time with the song. Paul Kelly must’ve been informed about the visual situation as he surprised us by adding sparkling stars behind him and rainbow coloured light balls on the side of the stage opening with ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’. One of my favourite sets of the day as he brought out the other classics such as ‘Dumb Things’, ‘To Her Door’ and ‘Before Too Long’ taking each song to introduce each member in the band including his nephew Dan Kelly back again for support.

By the final day people were more comfortable with the lay of the land and came prepared for the forty-degree heat bringing their awnings and sunscreen many trying to smuggle ice on the bus. Most stayed in the shade until Regurgitator came on near sundown and introduced the sprinkle of rain that fell on this smoking festival.

As predicted Angus and Julia Stone’s crowd favourites were ‘The Beast’ and ‘Mango Tree’, quite a mellow start for today but with everyone tired from the previous activities no one was complaining. Operator Please came on stage to wake us up and it is clear that they are well familiar with the festival circuit by now showing how quite comfortable they are on the bigger stages. Violinist Taylor Henderson more animated and fluid on screen whilst Ashley using more of the stage especially when performing his bass track ‘Get What You Want’. The one downer to their set is that they closed with ‘Zero Zero’ again which is not as known to the audience as their second last ‘Just A Song About Ping Pong’.

Jose Gonzales followed on and brought us back down again, the crowd welcoming his cover of The Knife’s ‘Heartbeats’ (The Sony Bravia advert) and Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’. The Valley Stage seemed to be alternating atmosphere levels following with The Mess Hall and as I am not familiar with their act (it’s been close to four years since I saw them last) that I did not get into their set until their very last song but by then it was too late.

So back to my Regurgitator mention, an oldie but a goodie my favourite was ‘Song Formerly Known As’ from their “Unit” record however ‘Destroy This City’ came the introduction of blow ups, this one being a kiddie pool that had three fans jumping inside it and the security helping out by actually trying to fill it up with water.

The Beautiful Girls coming on stage showing what a difference makes by switching acoustic to electric. It began sounding Jack Johnson but turned to rock mode once plugged in. They closed the set with their new single, filming their video clip but as they played the final song I decided to check into The Big Top as I realised I have not yet to made a stop there that day. As I walked into the shade it was clear that I did not miss much. The tent was practically empty and smelled like trampled chips mushed into the grass. Now despite the lack of attendance, Soft Tigers played with as much energy as if they were playing a headlining show in an arena. Good on ya troopers! Some of The Beautiful Girls crowd did come up for support, but alas there was not much they could do to help.

The next act on The Valley stage was Built to Spill or as I overheard someone put it harshly was “a complete waste of time”. At first I thought the stage suffered technical difficulties with the video feed so unless you were right up near the stage you didn’t really get to see much apart from generic projections. Girl Talk made it all better as he came on with a crowd of his own. Now I am not a dance club goer so this guy was definitely left of field for me however I will say that Girl Talk takes out the most surprising performer. In fact I dub him a legend. He had a brilliant choice of songs and his transitions from ‘Come On Eileen’ (Dexy’s Midnight Runners) to ‘Magic’ (Pilot), onto ‘Come ‘N Ride It (The Train)’ (Quad City DJs) was just superb. I especially liked the surprise of one of the female hip-hop singers of today mixed in with Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’. Other samples mixed in included Tag Team’s ‘Whoop There It Is’, Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ and with the crowd revved up and ready to go, The Valley Stage welcomed Kings of Leon to bring us into 2008 who said they were honoured to be able to bring the New Year in. What a way to end the year and to start a new one. I hope you all survived, Falls Festival you did it again as that was one amazing event!

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