No, really.
Warning: This post didn't win a medal, but it had the most fun possible in not doing so.
So I'm back in China, and to be honest none too happy about it either. The reason might be because I had one of the most amazing weekends of my life at Summer Sonic. Screw the Olympics. The real awards belong to what went down on Maishima Sports Island in Osaka on Sat & Sun.
Honourable gold medal winners
Speaker climbing: Alice Glass (from Crystal Castles)
I walked into CC's set a little late as we had to trek over from the other side of the event, but it was well worth the walk. Jumped in just as they hit Courtship Dating, with Alice jumping around like some kind of demonic jackrabbit. Ethan and their set drummer were both wearing neon blue mesh sacks which made them look like hazardous waste disposal terrorists. Alice herself had a black ring around one eye and the sexiest black goth skirt known to known to man. Shortly after she proceeded to mount one of the side speakers, lie down and writhe on top of it to the delight of the packed out crowd. Erotic? Very yes.
Crystal Castles' set ended 10 mins earlier that it was supposed to, but Alice's performance alone was enough to think we'd all got our money's worth at only 3pm.
Highlights: Courtship Dating, Love & Caring
Synchronised flouro shirt wearing: New Young Pony Club
My Roommate Alex had told me NYPC were worth it, but the pop sound wasn't doing it for me. Live, however, they were fantastic. Lead singer's Tahita's cropped, bleached hair bobbed with the crowd as we got high on the upbeat synth and live drums. After seeing Prodigy live a few times, my opinion is that hard techno or the like is only dominated by live drumming, but with electropop the raw sound only adds edge that studio records can't pull off. It especially works well if your drummer is a tall sexy chick in a bright dress.
Partial credit should go to myself - we had about 6 Aussie guys jumping up and down but I felt the testosterone levels were too high, and roped in a few of the nearest Japanese girls. One thing you have to love about Japanese is they do respond well to peer pressure. Suddenly we had 6 girls half our size dancing around with embarrassed grins on their faces. Very impressive and even more fun than CC.
Highlights: Icecream, The Get-Go
High Jump: Hadouken!
Hadouken suggested they were going to be intense from the get-go, opening with Get Smashed Gate Crash, and the crowd became a moshpit in turn. James Smith responded with multiple high jumps off the drum stand and vicious, English-accented young-white-boy rap. All in all? Pretty full-on.
Declaration of War is the band's best track, but it was actually relatively tame in comparison to the rest of their set. The heat was so intense and I'd run out of water that I was ready to get some air with 10 mins to go, but then they dropped Breathe by the Prodigy. Heavy on the synth, dark and hard, I'd almost have to say they performed it better than Flinty & Liam Howlett themselves. Mint.
Highlights: Get Smashed Gate Crash, Game Over, Breathe (cover)
Heavyweight sound champion (Saturday): Justice
And here I was worried they'd be bollocks. I'd heard their live sets were boring and too much like their album, but when the roadies started stacking fake speakers around a large fake hi-fi system upon which were most definitely perched some turntables, my heart became all aflutter. I'm seeing Justice? The Justice? I should be so lucky. And lucky we were.
The lights went down, the leds on the hi-fi came up, and two hairy Frenchmen stepped onto the podium. Applause ensued. Earblasting synth followed. And suddenly we were swept into a raw, discordant, broken beat tempest of everything that's so fantastic about Justice. It was heavy, it was hard, it was unbe-flipping-lievable.
In typical French style, it wasn't just about the music. The light show was immense, especially impressive as it was nearly all black&white. With 15 to go, Xavier (the less hairy one) walks out in front of the (fake) Maxwell speakers, and puts his hands to them like a deaf man feeling the bass. Gaspard puts his finger in the air like Moses. The sound blinks out at a crescendo. The speakers light up from behind, suddenly seethrough white like a reverse-polaroid. The crowd goes nuts. 20 seconds that feel like forever go by. The DJs, motionless. "Justice! Justice! Justice!" resonates. And just as suddenly, the drop appears from nowhere, driving a frenzy throughout the excited masses. And so it went on.
French people are lazy too - they managed to make us sing We Are Your Friends for them for a good few minutes. And they needed some serious help on D.A.N.C.E. But credit to them, they managed to crank out a far superior version of The Party along with a climactic Waters of Nazareth all by themselves.
The Aussies I met at NYPC seemed to think Justice was the best thing they'd ever seen. This was coming from guys who had seen, nay, witnessed, the miracle of Daft Punk's Alive tour. Justice was fantastic, there's no doubt, but so much of it felt like it was following in the wake of Alive rather than beating upon its door. The extravagant stage, the arms in the air to form a crucifix, the exclusivity of the tracks all felt like someone had cottoned on to a very good idea and made it their own. Not that that didn't make it bloody good. If you can't beat them, join them.
Earliest successful set time: Yelle
1.30pm isn't the best time for a gig. Noone good has been on before you, and everyone's still saving all their energy for the evening. But it didn't seem to phase French electropop star Yelle. Her outfit, like a designer glossy black&white bag with armholes, complete with glittery black tights, seemed like it belonged on a catwalk in Paris rather than on a humid stage in Osaka. But her emphatic grin and bounce got everyone going. She's another one of those artists that is too poppy for my on wax but the live drumming (and sassy French attitude) brought the fanboy out in me.
A Japanese girl half my size rolls up, and starts singing all the (French) lyrics at me with a big smile on her face. Flustered and embarassed, I did my best impression of lipsynching to songs I don't know the words to in a language I don't understand. More fun than it sounds.
Then came the moment I was waiting for: A Cause De Garcons. And in the middle of the damn thing, TEPR (who indeed was touring with her) flicks it over to his remix. I went three kinds of apeshit. Demanded everyone in a 5-person radius of me to defy gravity. My feet still ache from all the fancy footwork.
Yelle = 1000x better live.
Highlights: A Cause De Garcons, Je Veux Te Voir, watching a cute french girl dance like crazy and not sweat a drop.
Synchronised backing singers: Santogold
We like Santogold. We really do. And we were so glad she came to visit. We're also glad she brought her entourage, along with two Buddy-Holly sunglassed, frilly blouse wearing statue-backup-singer/dancers with her. They stood, still as lions outside a library while the girl herself layed in with You'll Find A Way. This was my turn to sing along at my new tiny Japanese friend. Enter bridge and chorus, and suddenly the backing singers burst to life in a semi-robotic, synchronised dance, lasting all of 10 seconds - then back to statues. Class.
The crowd was small but they were all about her - perhaps me more than most, hence the bouncing and lipsynching along. But what's not to like about Santogold? She was even nice enough to make eye contact with me, not once or twice, but no less than six times throughout the set. I know sometimes when you think someone's looking at you they're really looking at the hot guy next to you, but she was looking at my enthusiastic self alright. My sweaty, white embarrassed self, just grinning back for fear of doing something dumb. Well, besides being sweaty, white and embarrassed.
A solid set, not heavy on the jamming or alteration from the album, but with enough live edge to make it lots of fun. Plus, as always, credit has to go to the half-dozen people around me who were happy to make an improv jumping circle with me, to my delight. Yay Japan! Yay Santogold, baby. Here's hoping the positive vibes call for a tour down the track.
Highlights: Say Aha, Lights Out, Creator (her final track), hell it was all good.
Debutant medalist: South Central
Man - for a band I only found out were actually a band on Friday, by the time their set finished on Sunday afternoon, South Central had me wondering where they'd been all my life. Dark rock with a techno punch? Yes please.
Their album is much more electronic-sounding than they are live - which works very well. The lead singer rocked out a key-tar looking like it was from the depths of the underworld, and - much to my liking - had a series of foot pedals that fucked with his voice. The crowd responded with what I pick as the dance-pit of the festival - no elbows and swinging arms, but plenty of movement and just insanity. I tackle-hugged 12 guys in 2 minutes. What made it better was the flow of the set - just when you thought you'd given your all, a softer track came in and everyone could chill. It was almost as though they wrote their songs with us in mind. Cheers guys. It was fucking fantastic.
Highlights: Golden Dawn, Revolution, Higher State of Consciousness (final track).
4 track medley: The Prodigy
So I missed most of the Prodigy to hit Pendulum, as I've seen the former twice but the latter have been on my to-do list for some time. However the boys have still got it going on - the 4 tracks I saw were fantastic. In just 20 minutes we covered Their Law, Breathe, something that sounded new (The World's On Fire?), and Spitfire. Past, present, future. All of with the freak-show-gone-wrong Keith Flint and the perennial warrior in Maxim. Damn that guy is scary. And we weren't without the vicious stares ("are you yelling at ME?!") and the fatal bass that got all 15,000 people watching up and jumping.
Can't wait for the new album.
400m sprint: Myself (heading to Pendulum)
To make sure we caught the start of Pendulum, my mate Kobo-chan and I took off at the last minute from The Prodigy. The rushed entrance left us kinda out of breath for the Perth boys, but we soon got back in the fray.
I have mixed feelings about the Pendulum gig - on the one hand it was fantastic to see them live and finally mosh with a mass of fans. But they're no longer what they were. Even the drumnbass roots of Hold Your Colour feel lost in their live set now. Partly its the drums that make it feel repetitive (the bass & synth should be driving the tracks), partly it's that, well, they're no longer a drumnbass act. And without real rock roots, they feel too polished and manufactured to work with the rock. They need more distortion, more chaos, or just more..."grimey".
Still, was pretty damn good. And not a bad way to finish off a phenomenal weekend.
Highlights: Mutiny, Fasten Your Seatbelts, Hold Your Colour (but who wouldn't have wished they'd played Vault?
Honourable Mention: The Fratellis
Stuffed from South Central, I popped in on their (packed) gig and sat in the bleachers. Typically brilliant. Wish I'd had the energy to mosh. Every track sounded even more epic than the "drinking songs" they were before - they've really come a long way.
Missed the cut: Myself (for Does it Offend You, Yeah?)
Apparently they blew the roof. But they'll be back next year. I had to see Biffy Clyro, even though the crowd was...
Did Not Finish: Crowd (at Biffy Clyro)
Biffy were awesome. Come on topless, red pants, white hi-tops? Mate. The tracks were tight, many from the new album but all winners. I moshed my head off, but it was just me and 3 other guys. The crowd was half-empty, and silent. Though I blame the band for half of the awkward silences between tracks - usually there's vacant noise from an amp, a beat or two from the drummer or some banter from someone in the band - but there was nothing. Oh well. At least they didn't shut up when it counted.
Highlights: Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies (which was the only song we got a mosh pit going for), Who's Got a Match?, 9/15ths...again, just everything was awesome.
Off the pace: Late of the Pier
The only beef I had with the weekend came first thing on Saturday. British indie-electro boys Late of the Pier were just tragic. You can blame the midday set time on an open air sauna stadium, where they really belong in a dirty basement club (I think their make-up was running), but they just didn't adapt and the crowd weren't sure how to take their slightly cynical randomness. Music was OK, but wrong time, wrong place.
All in all, to be fair, best music festival I've ever been to. Wow.
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