- If you’ve been living under a boulder, Field day 2003 was a massive festival held at Sydney’s Domain on New Year’s day showcasing some of the best international and local talents that may arguably be guised under the ‘breaks’ genre.
Some of the talents included Freq Nasty, Plump DJs, LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad, Scratch Perverts, Junior Jack, Soul of Man and Kid Kenobi.
On arrival to the Domain the first thing I noticed was the line, having turned the corner nursing a killer hang over and having no sleep from New Years Eve the last thing I wanted was to be held up. I was to be surprised however, and credit must be given for the line being moved so quickly, a quick check to see if my ticket was stolen and an id check was all most people had to wait for.
I’ve never been to the Domain before, and I must say it’s just one big oval with a couple of stages and what not, but as anyone that was there would most certainly agree that as one person testified “it goes alright” regardless of simplicity. The main arena was at the front of the park, the Fuzzy Breaks tent was set up facing the city.
There were dodgem cars, the smallest ferris wheel in Sydney and a twirly merry go round to add to the day time carnival atmosphere that shined through even the sky looked ominously as it was going to rain (and later it did).
Darin McFadyen, dreaded, break beats and definitely unique also known as Freq Nasty was playing when I reached the breaks tent. He had just started and the slight trickle of people coming in from the grass into the tent had filled it up to the flawless set he played. The tent was hard to judge, but I would estimate about 2000 people capacity, Freq Nasty looked up with a grin quite a few times to see them being very receptive to every track change, every break and beat. It was good to see a DJ enjoy the crowd half as much as the crowd enjoyed the set; and the crowd absolutely loved it.
Self confessed Scratch Perverts Tony Vegas and Prime Cuts combined hip hop, funk, breaks and even Nirvana’s Teen Spirit to move the crowd. The spirit being transferred to the ground when the whole stage sunk atleast 5-10cm as the crowd jumped up and down in response. MOP’s “Ante Up” and ODB’s “Baby I Gotcha Money” were also played to start of the set, which slowly but surely got into harder beats. Listening to them I got the impression that Scratch Perverts really WORK as DJs. Perhaps some of the other sets were better suited to dance to, but these guys work to move the crowd and it was an awesome performance. I was even surprised they dropped, quite successfully “Mundian to Bach Ke” (Ragga rmx I believe), a song I thought there was no hope for.
LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad, need more be said? Arguably these guys played two sets. The first lasting for about 8 seconds. All I heard was a little from MC Conrad then low bass and all of a sudden just silence.
After a minute or two of uncharacteristic silence from the Breaks Tent MC Conrad came back on the mic and apologised to the audience “Now this is how it should sound…” and the bass was dropped straight after to a desperate crowd. Apparently, and this is correct at the time of writing Bukem stopped the track after MC Conrad wasn’t happy with the sound (I had first thought they blew an amp). Experience showed here. I don’t believe the average performer would have noticed the sound was off and that is why I say they played two sets. The second of which was absolutely amazing, in quality both sound and techniques.
Soul of Man is a lie, he has no soul any longer, he must have traded his to the devil so he’d make it rain harder. I don’t think lucifer told him he wouldn’t have needed the rain because he played a flawless set. Regardless the rain started much harder exactly as he started to play his first track and even the ones who had been standing in the rain already made their way to the tent in a mass exodus. Kid Kenobi was also involved in putting out tunes to a mostly rain soaked audience, I must admit however I didn’t catch them change over.
Perhaps by request, perhaps by accident or just some weird alien conspiracy Fuzzy put Plump DJs and Krafty Kuts on the different stages and when Krafty played the last set at the breaks tent they absolutely shined. They repeated a few tracks but the crowd granted them artistic license and ‘breaked’ on. With the rain having subsided and people drying into the night they must have spooked Krafty into forgetting the channel volume was down or missing a cue at a crucial moment of the mix. It was all made up and forgotten by the next track however, lets hope it was because he was enjoying himself.
One thing mentioned to me during the day, and a recurring theme was playing things that I refer to as “cheese”, top 40 tracks and things that are musically just too tacky.
I heard a few of the same songs, in roughly the same order in different sets. Hearing four songs in a row from a previous set may have been a little unsettling for some. Hearing pop-rapper Nelly’s “It’s getting hot in here” might have scared a even a few more, till it broke up and mixed out like another tight sample in a good set.
While I thought hearing the same songs in roughly same order and mixes in two different sets was a little worrying my personal theory in regards to selecting is; the crowd is 1.
Verdict; Go next year no matter what you're into.
Advice; Buy a raincoat from the geezers out the front.