Eighteen year old teen sensation Laura Marling pulls a pretty sizeable crowd in the GW McLennan tent. Although I’d seen the name before, mainly in the UK broadsheets, I’d not heard her music. It’s quiet, acoustic, sounds a bit like Joni Mitchell and is a perfect lazy Sunday afternoon soundtrack. On stage she cuts a fairly shy and timid figure, not surprising as she has previously said that playing in front of large crowds makes her petrified. Ultimately there are only so many photos you can take of a singer playing an acoustic guitar stood in front of a microphone and playing gentle, acoustic numbers. So after two songs I’m out of there.

Scouse/Norwegian, ex- stage school (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts) pupils, The Wombats, play to the biggest audience of the weekend, a crowd that far exceeds the numbers who saw Devo the night before and the numbers that will see Wolfmother later this same day. They go straight into ‘Kill The Director’ and the masses are going mad. But in following with much of the Supertop line-up is it really warranted? They sound not a million miles away from a Busted or a McFly and you feel that it is only their lack of boyish good looks that prevents them from being a true, bona fide boy band. I’ve got better things to do so I don’t stick around to see the crowd carnage that one can expect when they get around to playing Triple J favourite ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’.

Better things include seeing Paul Dempesey over on the GW McLenna stage. But once again I’m denied by unhelpful security telling me once again that I haven’t got the right pass to get into the photo pit. To be fair to them, there is an A4 poster by the side of the entrance which has the passes allowed into that area and it doesn’t include the Photographer pass, but it’s largely dependent on which guard is on the gate and the how many photographers have turned up at that time to get into the pit; the more photographers, the greater chance of being waved through. So once again I take a few photos from the crowd but it’s somewhat dispiriting to have walked over, carrying a heavy camera bag as I go, and not been allowed access. I think I only take about half a dozen shots and go for a sit down instead.

The next Dew Process Splendour shoe-in, officially launching their album launch at the festival are Brisbane’s The Grates. Whilst I abhor the phrase ‘guilty pleasure’, as it’s the remit of the worst kind of music scenester, one who doesn’t have a true love of music but only likes music because someone told them it was acceptable to listen to a particular band, The Grates are my ‘guilty pleasure’. They’re a band that are so unashamedly joyful and fun that you can’t help but like them, and they have the added bonus of having the songs to back up the cartoonish on stage jubilation. Despite my festival photographing weariness, Patience dressed up as Bat Girl cannot but fail to give me a new spring in my step. And whilst from a purely show-biz point of view it’s all about Patience, musically it’s all being held together by the Alana, the world’s happiest drummer.

It’s always a complete pleasure seeing Robert Forster, but seeing him playing Go-Betweens’ classics like ‘Clouds’ and ‘Head Full of Steam’ to a fairly small (but adoring) crowd is something of a tragedy, even more so when compared to the numbers watching The Wombats only a couple of hours earlier.

Thanks to the blog I wrote about Everett True vs The Australian Music Press I’ve had my blog mentioned and linked to on his Guardian and Plan B.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/08/im_front-page_news_down_under_but_for_all_the_wrong_reasons.html

http://planbmag.com/blogs/staff/2008/08/16/news-from-brisbane-2/

Bit strange to thinking about it really. 

I didn’t have any great plans for it; the lack of critical discourse in Australian music press is just something that interests me and a subject I’m passionate about, so it was just an excuse for getting some stuff off my chest.

It hasn’t been lost on me that my most newsworthy and commented on blog is one that doesn’t have any photos on it…

The alarm goes off at 6am, although feeling pretty tired and in a world of pain, much like I did when I climbed Mount Warning earlier in the year, I don’t manage to get out of bed until 6:30am. It’s straight into editing and I manage to get the ones I’m sending off for consideration for print finsihed off quickly and so start on the web photos. I upload some photos to flickr, write a quick blog, do a quick bit of music forum photo/blog whoring and it’s time to get back up to the site and photograph another day’s worth of bands.

It may be another day but they’ve still got the same Coldplay CD that they played between bands for the whole of yesterday. Someone, quite possibly Guy Hands himself, has obviously paid a lot of money to ensure that the Supertop crowd are the test subjects in some kind of musical Pavlovian experiment. It doesn’t work for me though. I end up hearing those Coldplay songs so many times over the weekend, that by the end of the Sunday, not only am I so over their new album that I have no need or desire to go and buy it, but I think that hearing it again might make me go on some Coldplay CD smashing rampage…

My plan has me photographing Newcastle band and UncharTED winners, Here Come The Birds first up, but our easy start to the day means that we don’t actually get to site until after the have played. My plan then has me photographing Little Red at the GW McLennan stage but we’re running so late that suddenly there isn’t enough time to get over there as Yves Klein Blue, starting at the same time as Little Red, have suddenyl started their set on the Supertop stage. So I end up seeing and photographing Yves Klein Blue yet again and yet again they fail to impress.

British India are next on up the Supertop. Looking and listening to them play it’s pretty obvious that they’ve been listening to a lot of AC/DC, and it’s no surprise that they have been produced by Harry Vanda. Their recent album’ ‘Thieves’ managed to get to #5 in the Aria Album chart (based on a tiny amount of sales if you believe everything you read), and whilst its an energetic performance and fun to photograph, musically it’s just the usual derivative Oz Rock that Australians can’t seem to get enough of, but which means little outside of these shores.

Next it’s time for the first walk of the day over to the GW McLennan stage for Even. Having seen the name before, recently seen that their debut album Less Is More was voted in at number 36 in The Age’s 2008 poll of the greatest Australian albums ever, but having never heard them I was looking forward to seeing what they were like. But they are disappointing, very pedestrian and seemingly playing largely on autopilot. It doesn’t make for the greatest photographic experience either. It’s another small crowd in the tent to see them, although I guess they are playing to a slightly bigger audience than the 5 paying punters they got recently at a show in Coolangatta.

Although not on my plan, as I’m in the vicinity I end up at Van She in the Mix Up tent. Next time Everett True derides the Australian music press for being too soft on Australian bands there should be a little photo of Van She. They are horrible. Despite being about to launch their debut album and despite playing a sizeable stage at a big festival, it’s a half-hearted, dull, passionless, going–through-the-motions display of a half-hearted, dull, passionless, going–through-the-motions set of songs. Having see them a few times previously when they played a mini SE Queensland tour with Mean Streaks, The Valentinos and Faker in early 2006 they haven’t progressed or improved much in the last two years, only fuelling the argument that the Australian music press constantly celebrates mediocrity.

Splendour’s love affair with mediocrity continues in the form of Vampire Weekend on the Supertop. It’s just so…so…bland…and…so…so fake. They truly have all then authenticity of a bunch of rich, privileged, white kids, who have got copies of Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’, playing African-influenced music. The fact that the band have even described their music as ‘Upper West Side Soweto’ makes we want to do very bad things to them. But the crowd go wild, and sing all the words. I expect that if, god forbid, an actual African musician, was playing over in the GW McLennan stage at the same time as Vampire Weekend, that they’d still largely be playing to an empty tent like most of the other bands playing the GW McLennan stage over the weekend. 

Back over at the Supertop and it’s time for Cold War Kids. Looking at the line-up for the weekend you can’t help but get the feeling that the organisers had their ears glued to their radios on the 26 January, when Triple J does it annual Hottest 100 run down, and then rushed out on the 27th January and booked as many bands as it could you had featured in the higher reaches of Triple J’s list. So many of the bands on this year’s bill seem to fit that category, and lacking a weighty back catalogue have the feeling of ‘one-hit wonder’. Cold War Kids with their third top billing on the main Supertop stage exemplify that theory. Whilst they put on an entertaining live show, complete with Joe Cocker influenced hand gestures, there’s not much of substance in the music that lies behind.

By now the sun has set and it’s gotten quite cold. Good job I have all those walks over to the GW McLennan stage to keep me warm. When Band of Horses’ singer Ben Bridwell greets the audience with ‘G’day ya facking cants’ it’s not much of a surprise to find that they’re friends with The Drones and being supported by The Gin Club on their East Coast tour. You can just see The Gin Club’s Ben Salter doling out the tequila backstage and telling him to say that if he wants to make an instant impression… But with the introductory pleasantries out the way it’s straight into ‘Is There A Ghost’ from last year’s excellent ‘Cease To Begin’ album. Although I can only stay for four songs they are one of the highlights of the day (but I do have a soft spot for alt-country in my old age…).

Australia’s very own Stray Cats tribute band, The Living End, are next up on the main stage. Although they’ve just released a new album, that they’re one of Dew Process’s latest signings made them a shoe-in for the festival. I’d seen them once before, at Homebake in 2005, watching their set in the midst of a sea of drunken, shirtless bogans. This time I’d managed to avoid that unpleasant experience somewhat by being in the photo pit but as last time there’s no great shakes about the band, not even from a photographic point of view as they play most of the first three songs under the glare of some very red lighting.

 

My final trip of the day back to the GW McLennan stage – my seventh for the day – is for the tent’s headliners, The Polyphonic Spree. Again a band I’d seen once before, at Glastonbury in 2003 and again a band that I hadn’t really been that impressed with, largely due to them not really being able to project their performance from the Glastonbury’s main Pyramid stage, despite the numbers in their ranks, in the middle of the afternoon. However, it’s a completely different scenario when they’re playing somewhere more intimate at night and you’re in the very front row. There’s something really overwhelming about suddenly being confronted by a twenty-something strong band right in front of you. With all the backlighting my poor camera was finding it difficult to focus quickly and, with the Spree starting late and the time lost thanks to The Fratellis not being made up, I only stay for one song, needing to make sure I get back to the Supertop in time for the day’s headline band, Devo, and I don’t get much good in the way of photos.

Somewhat strangely Devo are very big in Australia. Before the festival people seemed very excited to either be seeing them here or at one of their side-shows or, if they hadn’t got tickets, jealous that they were missing out, in contrast to my own ambivalence. Whilst they’re known in the UK, I think it’s more as a one/two hit wonder band (‘Satisfaction‘ + ‘Whip It‘) from back in the day. As such, to me they weren’t major festival headlining material. I still don’t think they are major festival headlining material, but I really do enjoy what I see of their set, the first 4 or 5 songs. It’s fun, quirky, played with good humour and they sound really fresh and surprisingly contemporary for a largely electronic band from the 1970s consisting of a bunch of guys pushing 60. Fun to photograph as well, despite all the red light, as they give you something to work with. 

 

With Devo starting late, by the time we get out of the photo pit it’s gone 11:10pm, with Tricky’s set due to start at 11pm. Anticipating that we’ve probably missed out first three song allocation to photograph him from the pit we don’t even try to add another act to a very long day. For me it’s a real shame as he was one of the acts that I was most looking forward to seeing and photographing. Bloody Fratellis… We walk past his show on the way out and it looks very dark so it doesn’t look the photographic experience would have been all that great. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself…

Back to Ballina, everything is set to re-charge overnight and the photos are downloaded and quickly assessed. By 1:22am it’s a time for bed, and a time to dream of a 6am alarms and some proper editing of the 16 acts I photographed on the Saturday. After all, tomorrow is just another day…

Plenty more Saturday Splendour photos on Yahoo Music. 

A quick non-photo post for a change.

I was interested and slightly bemused a couple of months ago when I heard that Plan B creator/editor and ex-Melody Maker writer Everett True was relocating from Brighton to Brisbane. As weekly Melody Maker readers back in the day, we all used to hate ET with a passion, largely due to his constant self-referencing in his articles. Having said that his review of Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted made me go out and buy it, so some good came out of his writing.

He has been blogging for New York’s Village Voice website, including writing about the Brisbane scene since his move, and started blogging last week for The Guardian. Being new to Brisbane he obviously wanted to get off on the right foot, make friends and influence people, and so chose to write about Australian music press…

Although I agree with a lot of what he has said in his first Guardian blog I think he is covering a number of slightly different, if related, topics and, as such, there is some degree of confusion and a resultant weakness in his overall argument, even though there is truth in most of the points he makes.

The most interesting comments for me are the ones that deal with the lack of criticism in Australian music press, as it is a subject very close to my heart.

There is a lack of real criticism in Australian music papers and magazines, although I think JMag and Rolling Stone are probably even worse than street press, who his blog seems to be mainly aimed at. Australian Rolling Stone is one of the poorest excuses for a music magazine I’ve come across. And I’ve flicked through the pages of Q magazine in the newsagent in recent years… JMag is far too close the bands via Triple J, far too tied up with indie coolness, and with having bands/singers actually contribute to the magazine is never going to be anything but a large Sydney-centric celebratory circle jerk, much like the radio station.

As far as street press goes, one of the main troubles, especially in somewhere with a music scene as small as Brisbane, is that a lot of the writers know the local bands. On one hand you’ve got street press reviewers saying that it’s not worth the grief and abuse they get every time they leave the house if they ever criticise a local band. On the other hand, when you get reviewers reviewing singers that they used to manage and are good friends with, editors reviewing their housemate’s album and singers writing their own reviews it does make a mockery of the whole thing.

I did comment on TOMB that if ET was going to write a regular blog on the Australian music scene that he was on a hiding to nothing. If there’s one thing that gets your average Australian’s back up more than telling them that their shit stinks, it’s when they get told it by someone English, and so I feared that his blog would just end up looking like a typical comments page on the Courier Mail’s website.

Much to my amusement, the Courier Mail and its sister-site http://www.news.com.au picked up the story and really went to town on it. Funny, you’d think ET wrote for them and they were milking it for all it’s worth. Oh…

• Silverchair an abomination and so are Oz rock writers, says Brit critic
• UK Music blogger whinges about the lack of a critic on Brisbane’s streets
• Everett True says Silverchair, The Vines ‘musical abominations’

In typical xenophobic Courier Mail-style they couldn’t help themselves but push the ‘Whinging Pom Hates OUR Bands’ angle (I was always very disappointed that Grant McLennan let them use ‘Streets Of Your Town’ for their TV ad…) and they were joined a day later by the Sydney Morning Herald, pushing the same angle.

Fighting words from Brit critic (the front page headline link was more sensational and, from memory, based on the ‘Brit says Silverchair = Abomination’ comment)

Having made the papers, all the Australian music forums have also picked up the story:

• Faster Louder: Everett True says Silverchair, The Vines ‘musical abominations‘
• The Dwarf: Everett True’s Brisbane Blog: Street Press in AUS
• Mess & Noise: Everett True disses Aus street press

But it’s quite interesting and somewhat surprising that despite the usual ‘Love it or leave’ and ‘whinging Pom’-type comments you would expect in the Courier Mail and Sydney Morning Herald, a large number seem to be agree that he has a point when it comes to a lack of criticism.

I think a good example of the lack of criticism in the Australian music press can be seen in UK music website Drowned In Sound ’s review of Powerfinger singer Bernard Fanning’s solo album and single. Would any Australian publication give Bernard Fanning a review like DiS’s?

• Bernard Fanning: Wish You Well
• Bernard Fanning: Tea & Sympathy

The correct answer is no, not in a million years: He’s Bernard Fanning from Powderfinger, he’s a true blue Aussie, salt of the earth, down to earth bloke – as that press release in the DiS review points out, he is a “total legend”. So it would be “un-Australian” to even dare to suggest that his music is a bit shit. And that’s a large part of the problem with Australia; a good review from a mainstream music media publication is weighted more on whether the artists in questions are good blokes and whether you’d want to share a few beers with them down at the pub, than the music that they actually produce.

I think there are a number of reasons for all this; firstly, Australia does this whole siege mentality when it comes to its country, a real Us Vs The Rest of the World, small, isolated, underdog and the need to be seen as punching above its weight. Secondly, although connected, is that so much of what Australians are subjected to on the TV and radio – programs, adverts, news and sport reporting – and in what they read in the newspapers and magazines is about reinforcing ‘Australian-ness’, what it means to be ‘Australian’ and the ‘values’ that being Australian entails. But all this has done is create an atmosphere of fear where it is ‘un-Australian’ to criticise anything Australian.

Australian’s will retort to this with an argument based on the use of Tall Poppy Syndrome, but this has less to do with being good or bad at something and a lot more to do with getting ideas above your station, ‘values’ that again are considered ‘un-Australian’, and needing to be cut down to size.

Although not music related, the treatment of Jana Rawlinson reflects this; she might be a current World Champion but through her injuries in the last and current Olympics she is considered by a sizable majority of the Australian people to be nothing more than an egotistical, whining drama queen, to the extent that she was essentially made to apologise for being such recently when she pulled out of the current Olympics through injury. In addition her cause has not been helped by moving to the UK, and selling the stories/photos of her marriage and birth of her child to magazines, further alienating her from an Australian public that virtually demands that it celebrities remain accessible and keep their feet firmly rooted to the floor.

Although I’m anything but a fan of Silverchair, and they were by far and away the worst band I saw at this year’s Big day Out and one of the worst bands that I’d seen in a long time, the comments responding to ET’s blog posting are essentially following a similar train of thought; if Daniel Johns had stayed the same as he was when he was 14 then everything would be ok, but instead he’s far too pretentious, far too flamboyant, wearing makeup, moving away from the dull, derivative plodding rock music of his youth and trying to stretch himself as a songwriter and musician to endear himself to the average Australian. He’s no ‘legend’ like Angry Anderson or Jimmy Barnes that’s for sure…

Criticising anything Australian is like waving a red flag to a bull, even more so when you’re not Australian, and especially so when you’re English and have just moved to the country. But if the whining Australians spent more than 2 seconds to have a bit of a think about it they would surely realise that having a noted music journalist move to Brisbane and write in international publications about Australian bands might actually be a good thing in helping them get some overseas exposure. Like recent articles by a certain new Brisbane resident such as:

• Mick Turner + Five Brisbane Records I Enjoyed Last Friday
• The Gin Club
• Tenniscoats’ Totemo Aimasho (released on Brisbane Label Room 40) and a mention of The Young Liberals
• Brisbane Label Room 40
• I Heart Hiroshima, Dick Desert & The Country Club and More (Butcher Birds, Butterfingers, Warm Guns, Vegas Kings, The Whats, Black Mustang)
• The Twits
• News From Brisbane 1

But maybe that’s just asking too much from your average Australian… 

No good non-photographic blog should be without a list, and in keeping with this blog’s theme here’s a list of Australian bands/artists off the top of my head that I think are really shit, and who make me despair with the undeserved, positive and fawning column inches that they receive in Australian newspapers and magazines:

• Wolfmother
• Powderfinger
• Silverchair
• The Vines
• Missy Higgins
• The Living End
• Grinspoon
• Little Birdy
• Kate Miller-Heidke
• Pete Murray
• Van She
• Faker
• Cat Empire
• Hilltop Hoods
• Thirsty Merc
• Rogue Traders
• Sneaky Sound System
• Expatriate
• Airbourne
• The Galvatrons

Feel free to remind me of all the ones I’ve missed…

Saturday afternoon continues with The Music, who I might have seen before at Reading a few years back, although my memory of gigs and especially festivals is getting a bit fuzzy, even more so having recently celebrated the 21st anniversary of my first gig (U2 at Cardiff Arms Park, 25 July 1987). Either way they are pretty impressive, with the crowd really getting into it. The photo pit is very full for the first time, and with Rob Harvey’s mad dancing in amongst all the smoke it’s some what tricky to photograph.

Yet another walk over the to the GW McLennan stage and yet more security issues not letting me into the photo pit and meaning that I have to photograph The Gin Club from the crowd. It’s really annoying as I had hoped to make the most of having a photo pit to photo them and the rare benefit of having some ok-ish lighting. It is even more annoying when I find out later that a couple of other photographers had turned up after me and strolled into the pit with out any problems.

Next up, Gyroscope on the Supertop stage. Except a load of the photographers were waiting for the PR guy to escort us into the pit and because we aren’t stood exactly where he told us, but about 10m away he doesn’t check if we are wanting to photograph them. And that’s why they are only a handful of photographers in the pit for them.

But when The Drones are the next band to see and photograph, bands like Gyroscope are just meaningless, irrelevant and immaterial Oz Rock. The Drones are easily one of Australia’s best bands, if not the best. As with all the best Australian bands they’re much more appreciated in Europe and the UK and in another 30 years time will probably be looked back on and revered, much like The Triffids and The Go-Betweens are now. I stay for a few songs, the downside of photographing festivals, but it’s the typically astonishing brutal and ear-bleedingly beautiful set you expect from them. Totally awesome, and a real highlight of the day.

From the sublime to the ridiculous; next up it’s The Fratellis. Word on the street is that their gear hasn’t made it over from Perth and The Living End are going to play their slot, with The Fratellis playing the later slot if their gear arrives in time. But we get into the photo pit and the drum kit says ‘The Fratellis’ on the front so I guess the gear did turn up. Although it then takes an age to sort out bass amp issues, so that by the time the band start we’re 30 minutes behind schedule. And I could have been watching rest of The Drones’ set… And all that wait for that… DiS summed it up best when they reviewed their latest album – ‘It is appalling, the worst kind of revivalist Britpop shite that no band should be allowed to unleash unto the masses’. They do have one redeeming feature in that their drummer is absolutely fantastic (even if he is called Mince), so I spend most of the three songs trying to get good photos of him as he does his best Keith Moon impersonation. They play ‘Flathead’ and ‘Chelsea Dagger‘, the crowd go wild but it’s the aural equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel for the Triple J-listening punters.

Then it’s another walk across the festival site to the GW McLennan stage, via Govindas for curry and rose lassi, the first thing I’ve eaten since breakfast, to see Clare Bowditch. Thanks to The Fratellis the Supertop times and my plans for the day are all over the place so I only end up photographing her for a couple songs. It’s only in the cold, sober light of day, when I’m editing the photos that I realise what a mistake this was, and that I should have made the most of he time available, as she’s really quite stunningly beautiful. I only notice this during editing as it seems she was giving me the eye in just about every photo… And as she’s relocating to Berlin it’s going to be a while before I get to photograph her again. I can’t really remember what the music was like (although myspace is reminding me now), too busy photographing quickly and trying to update my shooting plan for the day in my head.  Bloody Fratellis…

It’s a leisurely start to the weekend at Splendour. Have some breakfast, Adam turns up at the hotel, we check, double-check, tripled-check that we all have everything we need for the day’s photographing and Adam drives us up to the site. Then we wave my media pass at various people working on the gate and completely blag our way onto the site and into the car park.

I get in early before the gates open with my pass and hang about at the entrance for Adam and Kylie to get their passes and get onto the site (although they end up having to come in as punters as the pass they were using over the weekend is waiting to be picked up from the VIP tent). I thought I’d get some photos of people coming through the gate, although somewhat sensibly security only let in small groups of people at a time. It then became a bit awkward taking photos of the crowd coming in, as the police and their sniffer dogs keep busting people in frame…

I have to pick up the numbered orange fluoro vest that all the photographers have to wear to get into the photo pit from the VIP tent and then just I hang out there waiting for the bands to start. I did post on TOMB when the line-up was announced that there was no way it was a $200 line-up and wondered where the money had been spent. I think the answer is the VIP tent, and it wasn’t even the real VIP area (with its chandeliers), located just behind the main stage.

The first band I photograph for the weekend is the much-hyped Galvatrons. Somehow they’ve managed to get some really high profile gigs in the UK, including Download and supporting The Police at Hyde Park (albeit on the second stage – they didn’t mention that in the PR…), plus they’re supporting Def Leppard and Cheap Trick later in the year in Australia. First mistake of the day is going to the wrong stage and missing the start of their set. The second mistake is having a can of V whilst waiting in the VIP tent as it makes my hands shake really badly during their set… I guess the third mistake is not wearing earplugs during their set… Despite the fact that most reviews seem to compare them to Van Halen you get the feeling that it’s purely lazy music journalism from people who only know one Van Halen song, as they seemed to use the ‘Jump’ synth sound on all their songs. Entertaining to photograph though, pulling out some photogenic rock moves, but don’t they and whoever signed them realise that The Darkness are soooo 2004.

Next band up are recent Dew Process signings, Tokyo Police Club. Dew Process have a strange roster of bands and watching them play you can’t help but think why Dew Process signed them when there are so many better bands on their own patch in Brisbane. They are not very exciting musically, a bog standard nu-post punk band, somewhere between Buzzcocks and Bloc Party, as if we haven’t had enough of those in the last few years. Not particularly inspiring to photograph either.

My plan for the day has me photographing The Delta Spirit next. However, much to my infinite regret I go and see Bluejuice instead, who I’d been told were really good to photograph. I am a bit disappointed with them, although I’m guessing they probably are more animated when one of their two singers doesn’t have a broken leg and and one of his arms strapped up. To be fair he still does give a really good go, although I manage to miss him jumping every time by not paying enough attention, but musically they just aren’t my thing.

After the three Bluejuice songs I head over the GW McLennan stage where Lightspeed Champion is the next band I have on my list to photograph. However, I catch the last couple of minutes of The Delta Spirit’s set and am bowled over by it, completely amazing. Have just enough time to take a few photos. As is typical, they played in Brisbane on the Sunday of Splendour (supporting Cold War Kids at The Tivoli), so I’ll have to wait until next time they come to Australia to catch them.

I then have security issues, with them saying that I don’t have the right pass (the one that says ‘Photographer’ in big letters) to be allowed into the photo pit. I ask the guy to check and he says no. I asked him very, very nicely and he radios someone who OKs it and so he then lets me into the pit.

Lightspeed Champion was good, with his songs having a very English acoustic-based Brit-Pop sound. Nice shorts/hat combo. I saw in NME (I think) recently where he was bigging up Calenture by The Triffids so he must be alright…

After a few songs it’s time to go and photograph Hadouken! over in the Mix Up tent. They are late coming on due to a long soundcheck but when they do start playing they are just a very poor man’s Pop Will Eat Itself for Generation Y. But without the humour… And probably without the extensive band merch selection… 

They have the sound – indie/grime/rave, a bit like a lightweight Enter Shikari- and the look – umm, chav – that no one over the age of about 18 is really going to get excited about. I wonder if they bumped into The Fratellis backstage…

• Twitter Updates for 2008-08-03:
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• Splendour In The Grass – Sunday Quick Round Up: Just got back to Brisbane.  Feeling a bit fuzzy due to lac.. http://tinyurl.com/6g4qdp #

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Just got back to Brisbane.  Feeling a bit fuzzy due to lack of sleep.  Here are some photos from Sunday at Splendour.  A few more are on flickr.  A more comprehensive set of photos on the way with some proper blogs.

The Grates

The Presets

Robert Forster

Vampire Weekend

The Vines

Wolfmother

Yves Klein Blue