Playground Weekender 2011

A February feature of the utmost proportions, Sydney’s Playground Weekender has fast become a highlight of the festival calendar. Existing as one of our favourite festivals since its inception, Soulshine was on the ground for all the action via Leigh Plover, Richard Wilson and Max Easton

The Australian festival season has a particularly unique way of taking its toll. Once you knock off the December festivals, extend into Easter, pick up the winter Splendour interruption and start again in September, you actually haven’t ever stopped…which is possibly why I’m so overwhelmingly rooted as I write this. But it’s in the dearth of post-festival depression where you learn to appreciate the source of your agony; where life will never exceed the heights of what just passed, or in the converse, where life is the height of what just passed. For the fifth year running, Sydney’s Playground Weekender has been the host to some of the finest of those heights. From its modest 2007 inception I’ve watched its rapid growth and missteps with bleary eyes and enjoyment…and here I am crossing the Hawkesbury again for number five.

Aside from the gorgeous surrounds, the booze, the riverside bathing, the pool party, the booze, the kick-arse swing set and the booze, there’s actual music on show at the Playground Weekender. In fact, 2011 marked their biggest line-up yet, featuring some truly legendary performers across nations and genres…and I would’ve gotten to that…if I could’ve just torn myself away from that fucking Spider-Man pinball machine. Outside of the air-conditioned RSL-like bounds of the pinnies though, the tunes were thick, varied and occasionally not a DJ. You could stroll from punk to dub in 0.5 seconds, and with the benefits of adjacent stage sound-bleed, you could even do it all at once!

Saturday night hosted a single day demonstration of the evolution of disco and dance, queuing a five-fisted history lesson as the bill went through funk, disco, hip-hop and electronica. It started at Roy Ayers and his seven-piece band, smiling through an hour of passable old-school pre-disco, falling flat too often to instigate much excitement, but receiving a solid chunk of adoration from the funk-loving revellers. Then came Midnight Juggernauts, turning guitars into synths for what is now one of Australia’s biggest dance acts regardless of how much you seethe at them. Disco-funk innovators Kool & The Gang were received as a band almost exciting enough to dance half-heartedly to between their three big tracks, and while it was barely worth the strange sensation of listening to your aunt’s favourite band, Jungle Boogie was absolutely everything you expected. Architecture in Helsinki followed, attacking with all the pop frenzy they can muster, but failing to grip amongst their hooks before De La Soul closed out the night with a slice of nostalgic hip-hop to complete the syllabus.

Outside of Saturday, it was the three headliners who proved the biggest disappointments. Cut Copy could be forgiven for their lackluster performance on account of their last minute billing as a replacement for the withdrawn Doves, but they can’t be forgiven for the lack of substance their entire catalogue possesses. Synth-driven and dull, they base each of their tracks on a snippet of a chorus and (aside from some bass-heavy percussion) approximately nothing else. Then there was Tricky; the guy who led trip-hop out of the 90’s to finish the Friday night in disrepute. Tricky was there, thriving on-stage and moving around decks, allowing his off-sider Francesca Belmont to fill in the vocals while he accepted his performance fee from the back. The band dwelled on covers, belting out a strange note-for-note cover of Motorhead’s Ace of Spades (for seven minutes) and despite this ridiculousness, I somehow felt like the only one there with a giant fucking question mark buzzing over my head. Lamb, on the other hand, had their moments. Anyone familiar with their catalogue knows the beauty that lies in their fusion of electronic backing and Lou Rhodes stunning voice, and it was this quality that impressed on tracks like Gabrielle and What Is That Sound. The problem lay in almost everything else; lazy, lackluster and empty.

But I hate being a cynical prick. There was some great music on offer outside of the headlining let-downs that came in just a little down the bill…and it started, of course, with one of Australia’s most locally lauded and internationally ignored acts in You Am I. As far as my memory is concerned, that entire day of the festival started with You Am I playing Cathy’s Clown and ended with You Am I playing Damage. Tim Rogers took the stage with a near-broken hand and no sign of showmanship lost. A fierce opponent of DJ culture, he subtly slagged off the bands they werere wedged between before tearing through the unmistakably Australian sounds that come out of their 60’s rock n roll influences. A couple of days later and Sydney’s The Beautiful Girls take the stage appropriately placed in the sun of Sunday afternoon. Through dub, dancehall, reggae and the surf-roots that they’re largely responsible for creating locally, they drew a crowd and delivered from up and down tempo as consummate professionals.  

High-profile internationals like the sweet, rolling soul of Mayer Hawthorne & The County and English folk troupe Tunng were two of the most impressive and surprising performers. Why you would ever choose the drum-machine centred latter-day dance over Hawthorne's grooves is beyond me; a cohesive outfit that reached into the depths of music's past and modernised it for Playground's audience. Meanwhile, it was Tunng who were the discovery of the festival, merging 60's and 70's folk stylings with electronics and worldly lyricism for an hour of wonder under the setting sun.

Into the hollows of the bill, you found yourself at the haven of hit-and-miss which was The Shack; a laidback locale where un-established acts crammed themselves onto the minimal stage space to debut their wares. Included amongst these were the raucous sounds of Sister Jane, the country-tinged venturing of Cats Are Black and the off-kilter rhythms of Daniel Lee Kendall. Sure, a whole bunch of crap took place at the Shack throughout the festival, but the odd highlights in the water-misted beer garden were worth the laziness inherent in pulling up a seat so close to the campsite.

The Riverstage had its pro’s amongst the con-J’s, again in the form of a handful of local acts. Sydney’s WIM and Melbourne’s Rat VS Possum, whilst still very much a part of the 2010 reverb and harmony society, were pleasant and powerful. Andy Bull’s unusual vocals and accomplished work on keys peaked some interest early on, while Grace Woodroofe made the jump from Perth for her own angel-voiced indie-folk; hauntingly pretty despite her seeming distraction.

So then, as a final cave-in to objectivity, I gave a couple of DJ’s a go to prove that I have the ability to say something good about them…and the guy that elicited the positivity was festival closer Tom Middleton. A fixture on every Playground line-up since the beginning, the Englishman did an amazing job of queuing a series of tracks that sit right at the edge of recognition, putting him in a higher league of DJ over the ‘create-a-beat, queue a 90s hit’ sensibility of many of the others. Even then though, he’s still just a guy playing other people’s songs for a living, and as cleverly spliced as they may be, it’s bamboozling that a skilled creator of mix-tapes can garner himself a following.

The festival closed out with the monotonous pounding of the campsite beats thumping in time to the final day’s dehydrated head-throbbing. A short while after I’m rolling up a $30 tent, a $10 sleeping bag and a $10 air mattress in the hope that they’ll make it along to Golden Plains intact. After the stress of loading and unloading all that cheap crap onto a ferry and sliding it into the sharp edged boot of my square-edged 1984 vehicle of doom, I don’t like their chances. Yet, intact camping gear isn’t the point of the music festival, and honestly, neither is the music. After all, Playground was one of my favourite weekends of the year and I only really enjoyed about 3% of the bill. It’s just pure escapism; out under the sun and away from the working week. Beers whenever the bar opens and whatever you smuggled in beforehand. Playground has its own unique charm, ecstatically fun amongst the chilled and oft-mentioned atmosphere that has seen it so highly praised by so many media outlets and festival goers. It’s a festival that lives up to its tag-line as an event more than just a music festival, and I’ll vouch for that. After spending about $30 in the pursuit of cracking 20 million points on Spider-Man, there's no doubt that there's a shitload on offer that isn't printed alongside the line-up, and I'm more than willing to check it all out again in 2012.