Splendour In The Grass - Live Review

If you love flower crowns, tiny shorts, people hailing assorted pairs of gumboots, mass amounts of merchandise and hearing the name “Frank Ocean” more than nine-hundred times in a single day and you weren’t at Splendour in the Grass 2013? Then boy, YOU missed out.

It was a festival full of expansive amounts of food stalls in small locations, mysterious tiki areas, merch stands running out of Alison Wonderland and Flume merchandise in small sizes almost immediately every morning and constant envy from anyone over the age of 18 of the younger performers such as Lorde, The Jungle Giants and Jake Bugg performing at Splendour while multiple hordes of the older attendees were drunk in puddles of mud. You’ll be proud to know I was not one of those drunk puddle people.

On the Friday, my pals and I floundered around from stage to stage losing each other constantly in the process (as you do) and then re-finding our group in the strangest places. In stranger times. Everything about the place was magical though if you ignored the whole being-knee-deep-in-mud business. I’m not weak for wearing gumboots, just as a disclaimer. I’m just way more practical and they were totally cute. Thank you Big W for your constantly enjoyable sales.

Dune Rats were genuine highlights of the Friday while being one of the earlier bands on stage. With their stoner “I don’t care” attitude in tow as per usual, they knocked it out of the park and managed to stir up enough rowdy teens to the point of knocking each other out in the mosh pit. Ah, bless.

An unexpected hit was Robert Delong. I mean, I’d known that I knew of him from a friend but I didn’t realise that when his current hit Global Concepts came on literally hundreds would come dancing from out of nowhere into the Mix-Up tent to soak up the 4 and a half minutes of glorious beauty that is that song. If there was a secret flash mob at Splendour at Robert Delong’s set, it did well.

While on the trek to see Babyshambles, we overheard the whole Frank Ocean shenanigans. The whole SITG camp was alarmed and aroused by the thought of who would take his place. Would a mystery band ACTUALLY BE a mystery band? Were Alt-J not actually going to be there at all aside from the fact that their merch was at the merch stand? Were we going to change our life courses to end up in the Smirnoff area and party with multiple DJs?

No. The mystery band was always Alt-J. Weak. Yes. Alt-J were always planning on being there. No. I never stood foot near the DJ-land and only regret that decision on days ending in the letter E.

Babyshambles were a fascinating band to watch. Not necessarily just the band themselves, even though it was amazing watching Pete Doherty not care about anything ever on stage while breaking and throwing things, but the crowd was full of confused younger people and overly-excited late-twentysomethings and watching the whole experience felt like watching a beautiful and confusing reality show.

I’ll summarise the last three acts I saw of the night in 3 words:

TV On The Radio: Badass

Klaxons: Electric

Mumford and Sons: Banjo

After Friday demolished everyone’s legs, we decided to take it a lot more cool on the Saturday. With that, we did and we didn’t.

Starting the day with Twinsy was the best decision. As a long time fan and third-time seer of their live show, I’m still not over it. They’re just great showmen and you’re an upfront liar if you say a bad word about Water Bombs or suggesting that you’ve never jammed to it like your life depends on it. Twinsy are fantastic and you will not hear a bad word from me about them.

Vance Joy was another great decision. Granted, I was one of the masses waiting around for Riptide but it was incredible to hear live so zero regrets there. Also much like the masses waiting around for Riptide, I became a fan of Vance Joy and his catalogue and not just the song.

Villagers were absolutely stunning to watch. As someone that went to support probably their #1 Australian fan, I was enthralled by their live show. Frontman Conor O’Brien told story after story and charmed the entire audience so easily. If you like Bright Eyes at all and you haven’t listened to Villagers, do so immediately. They’re a happier and more beautiful version.

Staying at the Supertop stage from Cold War Kids onwards was a wonderful decision. While Cold War Kids ruled and Birds of Tokyo surpassed expectations, it was Empire of the Sun that slightly (read: entirely) stole the night. Bringing dancers, costume changes, a strange encore, a smashed guitar and a massive monster fish thing along with Luke Steele’s unfaltering vocals, they flew through every song like it was a daily routine. A really flawless daily routine. There’s been few times I’ve ever seen a crowd react in unison in such a way as when Alive kicked in. It was one of those unforgettable gig moments you’d tell your kids about in twenty years when they’re begging you to shut up about your old school music.

Also The National were one of the best bands I’ve seen in quite some time. If you want to see live raw emotion, go see The National. It was one of those ‘you had to be there’ things. If Triple J recorded it, LISTEN TO IT AND ADORE IT.

Sunday was personally my fullest day of artists but lethargy was settling into everyone’s skin and bones and all anyone wanted was a cuddly bed and a segway. Preferably not fused together. However, battling on, I managed to see most of my (at this point) unreadable list of bands.

I can’t recall the last time my eardrums got such a pounding like the one they received at The Jungle Giants. Maybe I’m just becoming a grinch now that I’m twenty but it was genuinely painful. Aside from that side of things, it’s gnarly how loved and appreciated the band has become. Also how far they’ve come musically. Playing new songs such as Domesticated Man and Skin To Bone, they only managed to strengthen the outrageous love from their thousands of fans. Seriously though, the tent was packed out for their set. It was bananas.

The crowd dispersed straight afterwards leaving a small and welcoming crowd for Surfer Blood who delivered a strong set and became unintentionally humourous. In the good way. I love them. No hate.

FIDLAR, on the other hand, holy mother of god. Thousands packed in with the intention to mosh. And mosh they did. Beers were thrown, lead singer’s shoes were stolen (then given back), speeches were given and hormones were flying. It was everything you could expect from a FIDLAR set.

Now judge away as I’m about to say this but I’ve known Everything Everything since 2010 so I’m just really stoked that they’re now loved and big here. They were also really, hands down, one of the best bands of the weekend. The vocals were on point, the band were dressed in unison, they engaged with the crowd and Cough Cough went as well as you would figure. They’re something you need to see if you have the chance.

SURPRISE SHOCK HORROR WHAT THE FLIPPING HECK ALT-J ARE THE MYSTERY BAND? NO. WHAT? NO. They walked on while some Daft Punk song was playing (Technologic? Harder Better Faster Stronger?) and then introduced themselves by saying “We’re Daft Punk and now we’re playing Tessellate”. It was beautiful. Watching people jet as soon as Breezeblocks finished was surprising due to Of Monsters And Men taking over the headlining position but their loss was everyone else’s gain thanks to the next band up being the flawless creatures on this planet that sometimes go by the name of Passion Pit.

Passion Pit dived and ducked throughout their set and had some lows but triple the amount of highs. They also had some technical difficulties towards the end but played it off as though they were actually criminals in an episode of Scooby Doo and didn’t want to get caught by those meddling kids.

Lastly, Of Monsters And Men. They were as stunning, sweet and sincere as expected. They continued to keep the crowd intrigued by interacting and playing around. It was just genuinely lovely to watch. I can’t say much more besides nice words that sound delicate about them because they’re just sugary indie chipper goodness.

Splendour in the Grass is something you HAVE to experience at least once in your life. You’ll either want to become a veteran with it or never go again. More likely the former than the latter. There’ll be songs that will forever attach themselves to your Splendour experience and instances you’ll never want to remove from your memory. Splendour is like that one Pokémon sticker in the sticker book you have that you refuse to use in order to preserve its goodness and its cleanliness. You never want to use it because you never want to lose it. It’s definitely the pinnacle of the “counting down the days till it arrives then counting down the days till next year” definition. As that one mystery band once said, Splendour, “Please don’t go, I love you so.’

-Jess Gleeson

Photos by Jess Gleeson.

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