Good Vibrations Sydney 2007

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  • The Good Vibrations Festival is without a doubt one of the biggest music festivals to hit Sydney this summer. Boasting five stages, over a dozen international artists, plenty of local talent and a festival space that can only be described by one word: large, it was guaranteed to be a good day out. Before getting stuck in to the music, a few things should be said about the venue, facilities and crowd, all of which are equally as important as the music at a festival. Although utilising a considerably larger space than last year, the Centennial Park grounds were once again home to the festival. Spacious almost to the point of being overwhelming, the first thought that entered this reviewer’s mind when he arrived was “with thirty six thousand people in here, this is going to be rather intense”. Intense it was. By the time all the ticket holders had arrived, Centennial Park had become a sea of party people. Not that this was a bad thing, the grounds were large enough to cater for the crowd and eliminate any sense of claustrophobia due to the massive numbers. However the size of the venue was also somewhat of a disadvantage: long treks between certain stages did grow tiresome by the end of the day. The crowd was for the large part polite, friendly and interested in only one thing: having a great time. Of course at any huge congregation of people there are always a few bad apples, and this was no different, but the outstanding security staff quickly took care of any issues that arose, meaning nobody’s fun was spoiled throughout the day. And now on to the music. I must apologise in advance, as with any party featuring so many stages and so many acts, timetable clashes were inevitable, and so it was always going to be impossible to catch everybody. Rather than see ten minutes of each set, I felt it wiser to choose a plan and stick to it. So if there’s an artist you’re hoping to read about and they aren’t in here, my humblest apologies. The day began over at the Good Vibrations stage with Yogi, who eased the already growing crowd in to the day’s festivities with a perfectly mixed, keyed and phased set of deep, warm, luscious house grooves, which included plenty of Random Soul productions, such as ‘Bodies Movin’, ‘PJ Sessions’ and ‘It Feels Alright’. Meanwhile, at the Laundry tent, Australian breakbeat ambassador Dopamine was sticking two fingers up in the air to his timeslot, rinsing out rough breaks such as Bassbin Twins’ ‘The Dogs’ and his remixes of Random Source’s ‘Halo’ and Jay Stewart’s ‘I’m Crazy, You’re Crazy’, cleverly interspersed with splashes of heavy, low-slung tech grooves. And of course it goes without saying his mixing was tight as a nun’s nasty. Give this man a later set next year and let him teach the young’uns a thing or two! Good Vibrations Sydney Next up, the B-Live stage was the place to be, as Break Inn residents The Impossibles showed us how it’s done Ableton style. Utilising two laptops running Ableton Live, DJs Impact and Munkay (accompanied by the ever-lively MC Forey on the mic) cut, pasted, mixed, mashed and looped their way through more tunes than the crowd could keep track of. Favourites like ‘Can’t Stop’ by Stereo 8 and Punks’ ‘She’s Not In’ made an appearance, each mashed almost beyond recognition with acapellas as surprising as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and samples as ironically stupid as C&C Music Factory. Forey also provided plenty of light-hearted entertainment throughout the set, showing the crowd not all MC’s take things seriously, impersonating Borat, and apparently bringing “Westy” back. Next door at the Laundry tent Mark Dynamix took over from Basskleph, who by all accounts played a sterling set. Technically, Mark was outstanding as always. His mixing was tight, his set flowed perfectly and his phasing was superb. However his track selection simply didn’t appeal to this reviewer. There were periods of monstrous, loopy techno magic, but he was forced to drop mostly big room electro house such as D Ramirez’s remix of Roger Sanchez’ ‘Lost’ to get any response from the crowd. However, with that in mind, he has to be commended for reading the crowd well, and demonstrating he is a versatile, adaptable DJ. Further, the opinion of one reviewer ultimately pales in to insignificance when compared to that of the hundreds of screaming punters that packed out the Laundry tent as he played. On the other side of the festival, Koolism were rocking the Roots tent with a combination of material from their most recent album, as well as some old crowd favourites such as ‘Koolism Is’ and ‘Stage Presence’. Deep, chilled hip-hop beats were cleverly juxtaposed with bumpin’ party vibes, creating a set that ebbed and flowed, but never lost direction. The MC had plenty of energy on stage and regularly interacted with the crowd, but it was DJ Danielsan that really stole the show. Numerous times the crowd found themselves staring in amazement as he scratched, juggled, cut and doubled his way through a flurry of records, at one point demonstrating his incredible abilities for a full two or three minutes in a solo of turntablism frenzy. Back at the Laundry tent, it was time for Desyn Masiello, the master of the warm, summery progressive house sound. Playing considerably harder than the style he’s often associated with, Desyn demonstrated his versatility and phenomenal track selection skills, bringing together tough funky tech house, slamming deep techno and thumping melodic progressive in to a coherent whole. Big melodic thumpers such as Henrik B’s remix of Rene Amesz & Wally Lopez’ ‘Strike Me Down’ characterised the earlier portion of his set, which soon gave way to plenty of bouncy tech house and techno – including Adam Beyer’s ‘Stereotypes’ and the acidic 16 Bit Lolita’s reworking of ‘Dirtbike’ by Loafers – and then finally warm, funky progressive house finished things off. And it goes without saying technically he was outstanding. Desyn is on top of the game for a reason: no matter how hard I listened, there just wasn’t anything to fault with his mixing, phasing or track selection. Then it was back to the Roots tent for Jurassic 5. It probably wasn’t the best move placing them in a smaller tent as opposed to on the main stage: the place was absolutely packed, and many people (including myself) were left watching them from a distance of at least ten or fifteen meters outside of the tent. It detracted a little from the enjoyment factor, but the performance itself couldn’t have been any better. Classics like ‘W.O.E. Is Me’, ‘What’s Golden’ and ‘Quality Control’ had the crowd eating out of their hand, and their newer material certainly didn’t disappoint either. DJ Numark also made sure plenty of people realised the DJ is just as important as the MC in a hip hop show, doubling, juggling, cutting, scratching and generally creating turntable mayhem, as well as laying down some left-field beats for the MCs to work their magic over, including an instrumental of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. Good Vibrations Sydney Another trek back to the Laundry tent was then on the cards to catch French house maestro’s Cassius. Disappointing is the first word that comes to mind. It’s not that it was bad, it just wasn’t what many of their long-time fans had hoped for. That being said however, plenty of punters still lapped up the sounds, so they were evidently doing something right. Gone was the filtered, funky disco house sounds, replaced by the big, noisy electro-rock-house that is currently in vogue, peppered occasionally with tech house such as Audion’s ‘Mouth To Mouth’. Though what they lacked (in this reviewer’s opinion) in track selection, they made up for in the creativity stakes: lots of samples and accapellas spiced up the fairly bland beats and buzzsaw basslines, particularly the vocal loops from their classics ‘My Feeling’ and ‘1999’. Over at the B-Live stage Yoda was oscillating between making the crowd dance their collective pants off, and standing and staring in amazement at his skills. The king of cut ‘n’ paste mixing was easily the most technically skilled DJ on the line-up, and probably the most musically adventurous, too. Throwing down new tunes, layers, loops and samples every ten seconds, it was like watching the ADHD version of DJing, but boy was it fun. Party hip hop staples like Sugar Hill Gang were mashed with left-field choices like ‘Tequila’, The Incredible Bongo Bands’ ‘Apache’, the odd James Brown number, and even John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’. Every single tune either evoked massive cheers or outrageous laughter thanks to their novelty value. And the scratching...there really is only one word for it: wow. For the entire set, jaws dropped, asses shaked and hands clapped: a fantastic set in anyone’s language. Then came the set of the day by a mile: London Elektricity. Although ambassadors for the Hospital Records label, Tony Coleman and MC Wrec showed off their versatility, blending warm, melodic Hospital vibes, dark, thunderous rinse out, twisted grimey nonsense, and even some original jungle sounds. The set started off with some deep, grimey beats and with a relatively small crowd (due to the Beasties being on next door), but soon enough the place was absolutely rammed and the energy in the tent was incredible. Quickly picking up the pace, Coleman laid down some sounds more typical of the Hospital vibe - deep, warm basslines complemented by soulful strings and synths – before taking things up another notch and rinsing out some dark, thunderous tear out vibes, bouncy jump up (including the High Contrast remix of Kanye West – ‘Golddigger’) and even some proper old-school Jungle courtesy of Cyantific (‘Cold Fresh Air’). The final thirty minutes was characterised by (for lack of a better word) “uplifting” sounds, including Matrix & Futurebound’s ‘American Beauty’, one of the most luscious drum & bass tunes ever written. Technically, the set was as tight as you like. Coleman’s mixing was absolutely deadly: new tunes were coming in to the mix every two or three minutes (perfectly keyed and in time), and there were plenty of clever switches (quick cuts from one track to the next precisely when the bassline kicks in on the next track for the non-junglists out there) thrown in for good measure too. MC Wrec also provided an excellent vocal accompaniment to the set, sometimes rhyming, sometimes giving shout outs, and sometimes providing some comedic value with calls for “spirit fingers”. Overall the day couldn’t really have gone any better. As is typical of any big festival, there were the highlights and the annoyances, but the positives grossly outweighed the negatives. Check it out next year, you know it’ll be good.
RA