Review | All Tomorrows Parties
January 24th 2009 23:56
All Tomorrows Parties
Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour
18th & 19th January, 2009.
Sydney Festival 2009
The Sydney Festival 2009 brought an awesome event to east coast Australia by way of ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES (ATP) which is a development in the staging of music festivals. The name itself comes from the Velvet Underground album and song of the same name which was written by Lou Reed. The song was written in response to Reed’s observations of the hangers on in Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour in 1966 of which The Velvet Underground were taking part. (1)
The first of these events was held at Camber Sands, England in 1999 as an alternative to the larger more conventional events on offer. The main ideas were that it would be held in an intimate venue (usually outdoor) and the headline artists, be they musician or occasionally visual, would curate the festival by inviting their favorite performers to perform. In essence it was to be like an insight into the headlining acts own music collection, per se. Another aspect of the event was that originally, being in an intimate outdoor environment, there was an attempt to blur the personal distinctions between artists, producers, and punters. They would all stay in the same accommodation, (2) and they were to be a sponsorship free event.
The headline act and curators for ATP Australia 2009 were Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Australia’s seminal eclectic punk rock outfit and there choice of cohorts was inspiring.
Though it wasn’t possible to see everything on the bill there was plenty to choose from. A diverse mix including electronica - Spiritualized, visual art – Louis Wain, bluesman – James Blood Ulmer, and heavy soul – Afrirampo to name a few.
For the whole line up you can go to the Sydney Festival 2009 homepage. What I can tell you about are the acts I did get to see.
First up was Hoss, a Melbourne hard-rock outfit that pumped up the volume from the start and delivered an abundantly driven rock set, they were powerful and gusty. The Geyer Zone was an instillation in a tunnel which consisted of minimal lighting and a soundtrack that could barely be heard over the bands outside, so for me that was a bit of a lost experience. Michael Gira comes from New York City and was a founding member of the industrial-rock band Swans. In this incarnation he was without a band and performed solo with guitar and vocals. Don’t be fooled by that description though, he’s solo performance consisted of loud and gritty vocals accompanied by distorted gutsy six string brutality. His emotive delivery was well received. Harmonia are a mesh of ex-members of German bands such as Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Cluster. As you can guess their set was resplendent with electronica. They were a welcomed separation to the hard rock on offer. Robert Foster of the Go-Betweens provided an entertaining set with some fine memories of the eighties.
The Saints had not been seen together by Australian audiences since 1977. They rejoined to do a gig celebrating Brisbane’s music in 2008. With the original line-up of Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper, and Ivor Hay, joined on bass by Archie Larizza. They played exactly what the crowd had come to hear, playing ‘(I’m) Stranded’ and other well known favourites.
The band we all came to see, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, gave a blistering performance delivering all the songs they are celebrated for including “All Tomorrows Parties” and “The Weeping Song”. They were all in fine form and brought the festival to a satisfying crescendo.
That wasn’t the end of the night though. Some stayed on to catch the latter performances that went on until 1:00 a.m. including The Reels.
It must be said that this was an event that will go down in the memories of the lucky few who got to experience it. The Sydney Festival 2009 not only pulled off this coup d'état in festival composition but the support arrangements were also first class. The venue, who could beat Cockatoo Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour on one of Sydney’s glorious summer days, the food was way out of the ordinary, the beverages were affordable and of high quality, and there wasn’t a line-up of more than 10 people for any of these necessities as well as the amenities and most of the time there was no line-up. I congratulate Sydney Festival 2009 for achieving such a high standard in celebration – it was an excellent event and a huge success!
Peter McGill.
(1) Wiki:
(2) Wiki:
Sydney Festival 2009
Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour
18th & 19th January, 2009.
Sydney Festival 2009
The Sydney Festival 2009 brought an awesome event to east coast Australia by way of ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES (ATP) which is a development in the staging of music festivals. The name itself comes from the Velvet Underground album and song of the same name which was written by Lou Reed. The song was written in response to Reed’s observations of the hangers on in Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour in 1966 of which The Velvet Underground were taking part. (1)
The first of these events was held at Camber Sands, England in 1999 as an alternative to the larger more conventional events on offer. The main ideas were that it would be held in an intimate venue (usually outdoor) and the headline artists, be they musician or occasionally visual, would curate the festival by inviting their favorite performers to perform. In essence it was to be like an insight into the headlining acts own music collection, per se. Another aspect of the event was that originally, being in an intimate outdoor environment, there was an attempt to blur the personal distinctions between artists, producers, and punters. They would all stay in the same accommodation, (2) and they were to be a sponsorship free event.
The headline act and curators for ATP Australia 2009 were Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Australia’s seminal eclectic punk rock outfit and there choice of cohorts was inspiring.
Though it wasn’t possible to see everything on the bill there was plenty to choose from. A diverse mix including electronica - Spiritualized, visual art – Louis Wain, bluesman – James Blood Ulmer, and heavy soul – Afrirampo to name a few.
For the whole line up you can go to the Sydney Festival 2009 homepage. What I can tell you about are the acts I did get to see.
First up was Hoss, a Melbourne hard-rock outfit that pumped up the volume from the start and delivered an abundantly driven rock set, they were powerful and gusty. The Geyer Zone was an instillation in a tunnel which consisted of minimal lighting and a soundtrack that could barely be heard over the bands outside, so for me that was a bit of a lost experience. Michael Gira comes from New York City and was a founding member of the industrial-rock band Swans. In this incarnation he was without a band and performed solo with guitar and vocals. Don’t be fooled by that description though, he’s solo performance consisted of loud and gritty vocals accompanied by distorted gutsy six string brutality. His emotive delivery was well received. Harmonia are a mesh of ex-members of German bands such as Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Cluster. As you can guess their set was resplendent with electronica. They were a welcomed separation to the hard rock on offer. Robert Foster of the Go-Betweens provided an entertaining set with some fine memories of the eighties.
The Saints had not been seen together by Australian audiences since 1977. They rejoined to do a gig celebrating Brisbane’s music in 2008. With the original line-up of Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper, and Ivor Hay, joined on bass by Archie Larizza. They played exactly what the crowd had come to hear, playing ‘(I’m) Stranded’ and other well known favourites.
The band we all came to see, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, gave a blistering performance delivering all the songs they are celebrated for including “All Tomorrows Parties” and “The Weeping Song”. They were all in fine form and brought the festival to a satisfying crescendo.
That wasn’t the end of the night though. Some stayed on to catch the latter performances that went on until 1:00 a.m. including The Reels.
It must be said that this was an event that will go down in the memories of the lucky few who got to experience it. The Sydney Festival 2009 not only pulled off this coup d'état in festival composition but the support arrangements were also first class. The venue, who could beat Cockatoo Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour on one of Sydney’s glorious summer days, the food was way out of the ordinary, the beverages were affordable and of high quality, and there wasn’t a line-up of more than 10 people for any of these necessities as well as the amenities and most of the time there was no line-up. I congratulate Sydney Festival 2009 for achieving such a high standard in celebration – it was an excellent event and a huge success!
Peter McGill.
(1) Wiki:
(2) Wiki:
Sydney Festival 2009
| 25 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
