Sunset Sounds in Review (2010)

Set in Brisbane’s botanical gardens, Sunset Sounds is a two-afternoon wallop of the best of the Falls Festival line-up. Freshened from a short break from the Woodford Folk Festival, Richard Wilson and Eric Champion were on site for photo’s and words.

Sunset Sets has a mildly tumultuous history, having originally been named the Byron Bay Music and Arts Festival in 2009. Of course, the name just didn’t stick once it was forced to move to Brisbane, so with what one would presume to be a whole load of brainstorming, it ended up as Sunset Sounds in Brisbane city’s music festival hub; the botanical gardens. Run by the folks behind Falls, it functions as a brilliant way to use the masses of top internationals and locals to their full extent for festivals beyond the Falls Festival sites in Victoria and Tassie, effectively bridging the gap between New Year’s Eve and the Southbound festival in WA. This clever little business plan leaves us with the benefit, as it’s possible for us people without Falls tickets to catch the aforementioned masses of artists.

The festival is set over two afternoon’s, kicking off at four in the afternoon (making it ‘Sunset’ Sounds due to the lack of Queenslander daylight savings) across three stages, including Brisbane’s famous River Stage. Starting at 4pm may seem a bit strange, but is something which works quite well considering it sits on two very inconvenient week days right after the holidays…besides, what the hell would they have called the festival if it started at 10am?

 Wednesday kicked off with our find of Woodford, the very fine Middle East from Townsville, with a set which was completely talked over by the throngs of attendees who had only just been herded through the gates. Leaving this for the more upbeat sounds of Little Red led us to Datarock. Despite finding Datarock’s first couple of album’s to be pretty damn sweet retro-throwback disco-rock, there are genuinely no words to describe the lengths of suckiness that they brought to the table. Sure, they’re in no way suited to an afternoon festival slot, but they sounded like an over-enthusiastic pub covers band in red tracksuits. Moving on from that and Emiliana Torrini provided a great set-list full of well-loved favourites from across her discography, including the phenomenal ‘Sunny Road’ and her latest popped up short-and-sweet hit ‘Jungle Drum.’ This provided a good swagger of entertainment that led into the day’s highlight in the form of Seasick Steve.

If you were at this festival and didn’t make the short walk to the Hibiscus Stage to catch Seasick Steve in favour of the Hilltop Hoods, then you have a mental defect. Seasick Steve continues to roll out much talked about sets at every festival he drags his junkyard guitars and John Deere caps to. Having left home at the age of 14 and lived on the streets before being discovered busking with a three stringed guitar, there are no personalities in music like him making appearances at any festival today.

This brought us to the day’s headliner in the form of Moby, a band that almost everyone would have been exposed to in some way or form from either of their hit albums ‘Play’ or ‘18’. They played a brilliant set demonstrating the huge strength of their back catalogue. There are few performers who could look back on their career and assemble a set-list so well-rounded as Moby pulled out that night. Playing favourites like ‘We Are All Made of Stars’ and a version of ‘In My Heart’ weakened by ramming the metronome up a notch or two, Moby made a lasting impression to close out the night and day one of the festival.

See day one photos here.

The day that followed had an equally impressive line-up, one that began with Brisbane’s own John Steel Singers, playing prior to the ethereal whistle-driven sounds of Andrew Bird and England’s Editors. The latter played some great versions of some absolutely brilliant songs that they crafted on their debut album ‘An End Has a Start’ including the track of the same name and the well-received ‘Smoker’s Outside the Hospital Doors.’ Amongst this, though, they played the new iteration of themselves, which is a strange venture into 1980’s disco, a theme that is becoming all too prevalent with pop music this decade. In fact, it was such a stark change in mood that I actually began to walk to the next stage on the start of one of these tracks thinking the between-set DJ’s had begun. This led into the immensely hyped US outfit, Grizzly Bear.

With NME calling their last album the album of the decade, Moby giving them a huge wrap at the end of his set and general buzz surrounding them, I figured it’s about time I saw what all this Grizzly Bear talk was about. After about twenty minutes of soaring backing vocals, minimalist guitar work, the right mix of pedals and electrics to create that indie sound and more soaring croons, it seemed okay. In fact, I probably even liked it…I just can’t shake the fact that I feel the same way about Grizzly Bear as I do about the Twilight movies…I just don’t get it. Grizzly Bear's packed crowd lasted just long enough for punters to hear their radio-friendly hits, which was followed by a mass exodus, presumably to get a decent spot for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. 

The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s are a band that I do get, a band that a lot of people get, and rightfully so. The band was tight, the tunes were great and the energy being punched out of the River Stage speakers was huge. With giant inflatable eyeballs being punched around the crowd and Karen-O’s shrieked emcee work driving the packed out stage, there was no better way to finish off the festival.

Day two photos here.

Sunset Sounds has fast become a Brisbane festival staple; a chance to see the absolute best of Falls in a cheaper, more convenient location. The stages were set-up in spots of perfection both visually, aurally and in the short walking distance between them. Add to that the playing times crossing at spot-on intervals which allowed you to see a good portion of three clashing sets if necessary and you have yourself a festival run just as smoothly as South Australia’s WOMADelaide festival.

Unfortunately for festival goers, the Queensland government had just introduced a mid-strength alcohol enforcement on the bars, something that was dealt with with very little grace by the festival organizers in charging $7 for a mid-strength can. Add to this a dose of bar mis-management which involved pouring said can into a plastic cup and leaving them in a line on a table to get warm and you’ve achieved three things: Decreased alcohol sales (score one for booze control,) pissed people off (score one for no one,) and moved people away from alcohol and towards drugs (score one for the dealers.) There was definitely less alcohol related drunkenness, but that was probably almost counter-balanced by the number of pupils enlarged to the diameter of the skulls that contained them; it’ll be interesting to see the assessment made by those with the hands on the regulations.

Those minor peckings aside, Sunset Sounds is a great place to be. There are absolute bucketloads of good music circling Brisbane’s botanical gardens at all times delivered with supreme sound quality and great lighting, a polish that just isn’t seen enough at some festivals. If you’re in Brisbane with some spare cash lying around after the holidays next year then you should probably make your way down to this. It’s well, well worth the $150.