February and another festival

Almost a exactly a month since we went to Big Day Out in Adelaide and
we backed it up with a trip to Future Music. First of all I'd like to
point out that it was wet and by wet I mean probably the most
saturated I've been when not swimming. It's definately the muddiest
i've ever been. So in that light I'd take any review with a grain of
salt.

Overall I was pretty disappointed. I think I was still basking in the
afterglow of Big Day Out and combined with the weather it was going to
be hard slog for it. I found the change overs took entirely too long
and the sets were too short in comparison. No one I saw (with the
exception of the fill DJ baby gee) seemed to play their full set time
and a quite a few of them started late.

Ok enough of the complaining there were highlights.
Franz Ferdinand: these guys were pretty good. Heaps of hits and some
great drum improvisation at the end of their set.
Prodigy: Great. Perfect run of songs from breath (almost opener) to
firestarter. I spent pretty much all of the set jumping. Almost felt
like I was back in highschool when voodoo people hit.

Unfortunately that was about the end of the highlights other than done
excellent crowd movement control.

Empire of the Sun: I was really looking forward to these guys and
after being very late, which was not their fault, I imagine the
continual downpours gave the set crews a major headache they were just
a bit weird. They really put on a show but it was more like a bad
musical theatre performance than a set. There was a comment that the
choreography was akin to a performance by Phoenix musical company.

I could go on and on but I think overall the stage setup, the sound
setup and the lineup were far below the standard of Big Day Out and
for the same (or more for VIP) ticket price combined with the weather
made it disappointing. While Prodigy were really good they weren't
enough to save the festival for me.

The biggest thing of note was the weather though it rained so much. We
were lucky we went late and had VIP tickets so we could hide in the
tents but by the end of the night we were all soaked to the bone and
covered in mud. When I saw the weather I chose to wear some water
proof shoes which was a great idea *until* they filled up with water
then they were not so great. For empire I was ankle deep in mud. The
shoes are all heading for the bin, hours of walking around in a horse
track filled with mud (or worse) makes them not worth resurrecting.
I'm just thankful that I came home with my shoes, more than I can say
for many other goers.

I didn't get many photos as I was trying to save the iPhone from the
weather (I had to keep it in a bag in the end because my pockets were
soaked through) but I will post some soon (mostly shoe mud progress).

Sent from my iPhone