Review: Splendour In The Grass, Day 1

Posted on August 6, 2012 by 6foot9

5:30am starts are not my forte at the best of times let alone cold winter mornings. But this was Splendour, and an early flight was but a small speed hump in what was an otherwise long and exciting road ahead.

This was my debut Splendour at the original Belongil Fields location, suffice to say there was some energy in the air. Whispers of past and memorable sets were heard echoing throughout the town, one of which was Bloc Party’s debut set here way back in 2005. Would tonight live up to expectations?

Venturing in at 2pm to catch Youth Lagoon seemed like a good place to start. That was until the 100yr storm hit. Half an hour of thunder, pouring rain and hail. If your shoes weren’t already mud incrusted they definitely were now. Unfortunately for Youth Lagoon it meant there dreamy pop infused set was slightly over shadowed, literally.

We trekked through the mud to check out the last half of DZ Deathrays who had the slightly older a older crowd whipped into an old school metal frenzy, great entertainers and great to watch.

Sundown meant the start of Spiderbait, one of those bands I associate with teen angst and growing up. Never seen them before and stopped listening to them in 2002, but it didn’t stop me from getting right smack bang in the middle for it. All the songs you know, they played. Buy Me A Pony, Calypso, Black Betty and even a cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit (which to be honest split the crowd a little, some loved it, others thought why bother?). All in all they put in a stellar performance.

James Mercer led the new look Shins through much of their latest album, while peppering in a few favourites along the way. Mercer’s performance was bang on and the pleather of indie loving kids lapped it up like a dog on a hot summers day.

At The Drive In was the surprise act on the bill in my eyes, never a massive fan, not because I didn’t like their music but I just never really got into them. I caught the last half and wow do they still have it. Energetic as ever and sounded so crisp! Perhaps the best crowd of the 3 days, pure mixed bag of older nostalgic rockers and young angry teenagers.

Closing out the night in the Supertop was alternative indie rocker Jack White and his 5 piece band. Mixing in tracks from both The White Stripes and his solo album ‘Blunderbuss’, the cigarette puffing, white boot donning White punched out some great tunes. Obviously he closed with Seven Nation Army, and obviously it was awesome, however some of the set lacked that same energy and at times I felt it was all a little bit self-indulgent. But hey, the guys a performer and perform he did and people loved it.

Day 2 Review coming tomorrow morning.