All plans for an early start and a timely return to the festival site don’t materialise. The early start does happen but the time is spent editing Saturday’s photos, then thinking about making a move, waiting for other people whilst they think about it and then think a bit more about it, then have some food, and then give it a bit more consideration. Tough decisions as to whether see/photograph Dananananakyrod or The Middle East are rendered immaterial as their playing times pass by and White Lies also lose out thanks to the heavy traffic encountered en-route. So the day starts at a leisurely 3:15pm, with Friendly Fires’ set in the Mix Up tent.

I’m there having noted the amount of column inches and award nominations that they’ve been afforded but can’t say I’m impressed. Whilst they are badly beset by technical issues during the first three songs, which makes it very stop/start affair, you can’t help but get the feeling that young people will dance to anything.

Make a detour to see Bob Evans for something to do and am surprised that his second song sounds like something off ‘Wish You Were Here‘ and goes on for about 10 hours. At one point he moves over to the side of the stage and is on his knees on the edge playing his guitar with a gaggle of photographers pressed up against the stage and jostling for position to get close-ups. That he’s in near darkness doesn’t seem important to anyone so either everyone has mega-expensive high ISO monsters or they end up with a load of really underexposed photos. Whilst everyone is chimping to see what they’ve got, he strolls back to the middle of the stage and does it again (albeit further back), this time vaguely near some light. Sometimes laziness does pay off.

I will gladly admit that I never, ever ‘got’ Doves. And having seen them play live I think I can safely say that I will never ‘get’ Doves. And you know, that’s ok, because whilst others may sing their praises with all the superlatives under the sun and talk of ‘anthems’, to me they’ll always be plodding, pedestrian indie rock.

The Gutter Twins, however, are a completely different proposition.

It’s been a long while since I last got to see Greg Dulli play live, back when The Afghan Whigs were touring ‘Black Love‘ in 1997 to be exact and also a few years since I last saw Mark Lanegan playing alongside Dave Grohl with QotSA at Glastonbury. And so seeing the Gutter Twins play at Splendour is a really exhilarating proposition, especially when once again Brisbane is denied a festival sideshow from an international band.

Unfortunately the majority of Splendour are showing their true colours and have decided that their time would be better spent watching Grinspoon, so there’s maybe 100 people in the GW McLennan tent 10 minutes before they are due to start. Numbers swell a bit in the end but it’s still a criminally small crowd.

My excitement nevertheless makes up for those missing out, to the point where I forget to change memory cards and then spend half the first song scrabbling around on the floor of the photo pit in the dark trying to find a spare card.

It’s a completely sublime performance, and whilst most attention is no doubt centred on Mark Lanegan, who could sing the phone book and make it sound captivating, it’s very much Greg Dulli’s band and his songs, voice and playing are superb. It’s no surprise really when the Afghan Whigs always were one of the better ‘grunge’ bands around at the time and one whose albums still hold up today when so much of the early-mid 1990’s albums now sound quite dated and unremarkable. As well as songs from their ‘Saturnalia‘ album and recent Twilight Singers albums, the back catalogues are revisited, included magnificent versions of Screaming Trees’ ‘Sworn and Broken’ and the Afghan Whigs’ ‘Summers Kiss’.

It’s a tough shoot though, with the band playing sat down, eyes shut and with music stands and microphone stands in front meaning it’s almost impossible to get an unobstructed sightline. Sometimes when you photograph a band you have a strong idea of what you want to get, and when considering photographing Mark Lanegan I was inspired by some of Steve Gullick’s photos of him but the conditions just conspire against me.

All of the Splendour 2009 photographs are on Flickr and the individual band sets are in the following links:

Friendly Fires
Bob Evans
Doves
Gutter Twins

 

From the sublime to the ridiculous; The Living End.  There are so many things that are wrong before they even play a note; they’ve replaced the late-cancelling Jane’s Addiction, hardly a like-for-like exchange, they have just had The Specials essentially support them, the crowd reaction they get from the crowd as they walk onstage makes you despair for Generation Y and their woeful taste in music and Chris Cheney makes a quip something along the lines that if you want a job done right get an Australian band, something that only endears them more to the audience.  And then they play and it’s the usual awful second rate Stray Cats meet Green Day tunes, as played by grown men in their mid-30s who have never gotten over the fact that they weren’t around in the 1950s.

If there is one good thing that has come out of Jane’s Addiction’s pulling out it’s that the time that I planned to spend watching their whole set can now be spent catching a bit of Sarah Blasko over in the GW McLennan tent.  Whilst anything would be better than having to endure a single second more of The Living End, it’s even more of a godsend when finding out the next day that I miss a cover of ‘Jane’s Says‘ featuring Grinspoon’s Phil Jamieson.  Members of The Living End and Grinspoon on the same stage? I’m just amazed that the world didn’t explode Sci-Fi anti-matter style with the coming together of two of Australia’s worst bands.

But Sarah Blasko eases my woes somewhat. She’s a bit of a guilty pleasure but there’s something mesmerising about her even though, having seen her a few times and having her first two albums, I’m still not entirely sure about her voice.  It has an icy crispness and a pureness about it but sometimes lacks something more emotive.  It’s clinical and there’s no rough edges; almost like it’s too perfect. I stay for a few songs and it’s mostly new stuff from her recently released album, which on first listen sound great, although she also slips in an exquisite ‘Always On This Line‘ before I have to run away and photograph over in the Supertop.  She still hasn’t learnt to dance in the last few years though.   

Sold as Bloc Party‘s only Australian date, their headline slot tonight proves to be nothing of the kind really, with a show the night before at The Great Northern in Byron, a Nova and Soothers (I can remember when no one wanted to be associated with anything Nestle made) sponsored gig in Brisbane the Monday after Splendour and a special Sydney show at the MCA that only Mastercard holders could buy tickets to.  Selling out or buying in? You decide.  It’s fun to photograph I guess.  It’s an energetic performance but nothing to really write home about.  I saw them back in 2005 and was distinctly underwhelmed.  I guess I’m not their demographic but to me it’s an empty and hollow sound.  I wouldn’t quite put it in the Landfill Indie box, I think there’s a little bit more going on that that, maybe not a whole lot more but it’s just not that interesting and the songs have a very by-numbers, predictable feel about them even with all the cleverness that the band seem determined to put into them.

I first saw The Happy Mondays at my first Glastonbury in 1990 (back when it cost £38 to get in and you could buy a ticket the same week of the festival), just as Madchester was peaking.  They were rubbish. Like really rubbish.  Our paths have crossed a few times over the years and it’s always been the same old story, sometimes to embarrassing levels.  But tonight it’s actually fun, even though the lighting is appalling and makes photographing really hard work.  Maybe my expectations were so low they couldn’t fail to be met; maybe I’m just getting nostalgic in my old age.  (Checking out old videos of theirs on YouTube writing this blog is making me feel very old anyway, realising that it was almost 20 years ago).  Shaun Ryder stays in the shadows at the back of the stage, finger in ear, as ever desperately trying to sing somewhere vaguely in tune, although to be fair I’m not sure he gets that close, and so it’s up to Bez to provide the entertainment, which he does spliff in hand for the duration.  I guess you just have to take you hat off to Bez, someone who’s managed to last 20 years in the music industry by being an onstage dancer with a little indie band.  Having expected the worst, it’s a surprisingly nice way to end Day 1. 

All the 2009 Splendour photos are on Flickr and the individual band sets are in the following links:

The Living End
Sarah Blasko
Bloc Party
Happy Mondays

 

Bluejuice are a band that’s yet to win me over, having seen them at last year’s Splendour and then a few months later supporting We Are Scientists at The Zoo.  As Stav from the band kindly commented on that post (and which shamefully I didn’t get around to replying to), they’re obviously not my thing.  And yet watching them this afternoon, even though I only see them for a few songs, I find myself warming to them more than before.  It’s a much slicker performance that the one at The Zoo and the sound is a lot less grating than it was that night.  Following Stav around the stage through my viewfinder, as he brandishes his mic stand I suddenly notice Jake out of the corner of my eye leaping theatrically off the fold-back speaker; I think I was the only photographer in the pit not primed and ready for it and that’ll teach me for not paying more attention.  It’s the main jump that he does in the first three songs as well.  He does a smaller jump in the second song but just from the stage and I’m the wrong side of him to really benefit from the second chance.  What the photo gains from the position of the bass player is lost to the height of the stage and the encroachment of the fold-back speakers into the frame.

Bizarrely, given the size and strength of their own back-catalogue and the limited festival time-slot in which to play, You Am I start their set with a cover of Regurgitator‘s ‘I Sucked A Lot of Cock‘.  However, after that it’s a real tour de force greatest hits set. 

The band sound pretty rough though, partly due to the sound in the Supertop and partly because despite having played so many of these songs for so long they sound a bit ragged and under-rehearsed.  They bring out Jack Ladder for ‘Heavy Heart‘, which is slowed down even more that the original and played  lounge-lizard style; again it’s a slightly baffling move, killing the momentum and the mood for a few minutes of self-indulgence, before a return to more up-tempo songs as they wind up their forty five minutes stage time.  When they hit their stride they can still give any band a run for their money but they continue to perplex, maybe needing the inconsistency and left-turns to keep things interesting for them.  They’re frustrating to photograph this afternoon, with Tim Roger’s hat brim keeping the light off his face, and Andy Kent and Davey Lane largely hidden in the shadows.  Luckily there’s always Rusty Hopkinson and even luckier he always makes for some really nice photos.

Birds of Tokyo are one of those awful rock bands that Australians just seem to not be able to get enough of.  They’re like those terrible non-descript soft rock bands that were popular in the UK in the late 1980s.  Some congratulations are in order though; given the amount of radio, tv and music magazine coverage they are a worthy addition to ‘The List‘. 

From a new addition to ‘The List’ to a founding member; fellow Perth band Little Birdy.  Katie Steele’s fashion stylings are the stuff of legends; from never-ending, multi-day photo shoots, as she chops and changes between outfits until happy, to the inside of her apartment, which allegedly hardly a square inch of carpet showing from under huge mountains of clothes and shoes piled throughout the place.  However, there are some people who should never wear leather trousers, probably most of the population to be honest, and Katie Steele is definitely one of them.  And especially not with open toe sandal-type heels.  Additionally, there must be something in the rest of the band’s contract which means that when they play live the only person who’s allowed to have any light on them is their lead singer. 

It’s 7:30pm and there’s finally a band that I really want to see.  The Special’s video for ‘Ghost Town‘ is one of my strongest childhood musical memories and it’s a complete thrill just to be having the chance to see them, let alone getting to photograph them.  Whilst band reformations are so often a huge disappointment, especially when it involves changes to the line-up, as tonight does with founder member and songwriter Jerry Dammers not wanted by the rest of the band, tonight there is no disappointment and it’s a seemingly rare occasion of a reformed band actually living up to their reputation.  It’s a truly exceptional display straight from the very first note and it’s startling watching a band whose members are all into their 50s put so much energy into their performance that it makes the rest of the bands who have played today pale into insignificance.  And then there’s the songs.  Even though they made heavy use of covers and reworkings of older ska songs, particularly on the first Specials album, it’s amazing looking at the quality of those first two records, ‘Specials‘ and ‘More Specials‘, which make up the bulk of tonight’s show; all killer, no filler. ‘Do The Dog‘, ‘A Message To You Rudy‘, ‘It’s Up To You‘, ‘Concrete Jungle‘, ‘Monkey Man‘, ‘Blank Expression‘, ‘Nite Klub‘ are amongst the songs played tonight and add on the non-album tracks of ‘Gangsters‘ and ‘Ghost Town’ and it’s a truly stunning hour of music. There’s always so much cynicism related to reformations, much of it well deserved, especially when the bands appear to just be going through the motions (yes Pixies, I’m looking at you), but if The Specials are going through the motions tonight I can’t even start to comprehend just how good they must have been 30 years ago.  Really special.     

Afterwards there’s a bit of an argument between most of the photographers and the promoter’s rep, with the photographers convinced they’ve been short-changed and only got to photograph two songs, leading to the rep apologising.  There’s no need though; we got our three songs fair and square, it’s just that they played the short version of ‘Too Much, Too Young‘ which barely makes it to two minutes.  In retrospect I wish I’d switched to a wider lens as there was just so much happening right in front of you that the 70-200 lens just wasn’t the right choice. The most disappointing thing was that the lighting was pretty poor and with Terry Hall sulking around in the dark with his back to the crowd for the most part I didn’t get a very good a set of photos to do justice to just how good they were tonight.

All the 2009 Splendour photos are on Flickr and the individual band sets are in the following links:

Bluejuice
You Am I
Birds of Tokyo
Litte Birdy
The Specials

 

Having arrived at our house for the weekend in New Brighton in the dark and just as a heavy rain storm passed overhead, Saturday starts with a quick walk around the locality to try and find if any mobile signal can be found so that photos and blogs can be uploaded.  As not even a hint of ’3′ mobile signal can be found anywhere near the house, it’s time to get in the car and see where the nearest place with a signal is, which, as it turns out, is about a ten minute drive away in Ocean Shores on top of a big hill.  Friday’s blog is written and uploaded along with some photos from the front seat, although the time taken to upload a few small files indicates that this is not going to be a sensible option for sending photos over the weekend. 

Back to the house and it’s time to get ready for moving off to the festival site.  Making use of the outside toilet I have a bit of a shock on flushing when this little guy gets washed out from under the rim and has to hang on for dear life to avoid being flushed away…

Driving into Byron Bay is a surprisingly painless exercise; there’s no traffic hold ups either on the way or getting into the site and no queues to get the photo passes or get into the festival. In fact it all happens so quickly that there’s plenty of waiting until it’s time to collect the infamous fluoro vests that we need to get into the photo pit.

 

It’s also at this point that I find that I haven’t got any mobile reception for tweeting, instead having to make do with the time honoured tradition of paper and pen.

 

With three albums behind them, Manchester Orchestra have to drawn a bit of a short straw when it comes to their positioning on the bill, being the second band of the day after the North Coast NSW’s Glass Towers but before a whole host of possibly lesser, fairly new Australian bands with limited recording histories.  From a photographic point of view it’s a bit frustrating as there’s a lot of ‘sideways’ playing – the band members playing to each other on the stage as opposed to projecting out to the audience – and the lighting is kept to a minimum, meaning that there’s a lot of dark areas on the stage.  The songs seem to be really lengthy and with all the tempo and rhythm changes it’s hard to tell whether I’ve been photographing for three songs or fifteen by the time I leave the photo pit.  They drop ‘I’ve Got Friends‘, not surprisingly their best known song given the amount of Triple J play it’s been given, in the middle of their set causing a mass exodus from the tent afterwards.  This seems to be an ongoing theme over the weekend; play your most famous song and watch the assembled masses disappear after you’ve played it.  Given decreasing album sales, the increasing reliance on singles and Generations Y’s 2-second attention span, it sadly looks as if this will be an ever increasingly familiar sight at music festivals.  It feels like it’s going to become a real-time version of those 80s revival gigs; reel out a current band to play a couple of singles they’ve released in the last year - their big hit and the new song – and have them shuffle off stage to be replaced by another current one hit wonder.

Despite last night’s heavy showers and the ominous clouds over Byron earlier in the day, walking over to see Leader Cheetah in the GW McLennan tent it’s suddenly cleared up and has become really warm.  Arriving at the tent brings confirmation that as well as introducing a Big-Day-Out-type D structure in the Supertop, the organisers have also moved the entrance into every photo pit to the opposite side from where they were last year.  For the Supertop and Mix Up stages the entrances are now on the far side from each other, meaning a longer walk around until the evening, when we all get to be escorted into the Supertop pit via backstage.  However, as there’s no escort into the Mix Up tent, it means having to negotiate the crowds any time we want to photograph in the Mix Up tent.

Leader Cheetah have been one of those bands that I’ve been meaning to check out for ages but have managed to miss every time they’ve played Brisbane.  No review of them seems to be complete without a reference to Neil Young but listening to them it’s not as obvious as  it might seem.  There’s a definite late 60s/early 70s Laurel Canyon folk/rock tinge but it doesn’t leap out at you as being particularly Neil Young-ish more than anything else from that era (although re-listening on their MySpace site it is a bit more obvious, especially in a song like ‘Bloodlines‘).  It’s pretty good stuff and definitely something to check out again, ideally when I’m not seeing most bands for a handful of songs before rushing off to photograph at another stage.  The tent is surprisingly busy which is good to see at this early on in the day, especially when compared to last year’s emptiness at this stage for most of the day.    

Back at the Supertop and it’s a Dew Process shoe-in, consecutive-year return for Yves Klein Blue.  And what a difference a makeover has made to the band; you could now believe that they’re bona fide rock stars, they definitely look the part now and singer/guitarist Michael Tomlinson has an undeniable star quality about him.  It’s probably no coincidence that everyone I know who likes them happens to be female.  Musically it’s still fairly unspectacular – Libertines lite - and I still remain to be convinced by them despite having seen them a number of times over the last couple years.  For reasons known only to themselves they decide to cover ‘Born To Run‘ and it’s an ugly mess to say the least, with Tomlinson coming nowhere near to even doing a acceptable Springsteen impersonation, but luckily I’ve got other places to be so don’t hang around to hear it all the way to the end.

Having initially dismissed Bridezilla as a bit of a Sydney-media hyped band, I started to really warm to them first via last.fm and then by seeing them at ATP Mt Buller earlier in the year and so was looking forward to catching their full set at Splendour.  The three songs that we get in the photo pit rush by all too quickly so I don’t get any many shots as I would have wanted.  Unlike ATP, singer Holiday Sidewinder is guitar-less for these three songs and looks uncomfortable without it.  Sitting down to watch the rest of their set there is an onstage awkwardness about the band; it’s as if they’re trying too hard to be alluring and vampish.  Watching them you can understand why they’re the latest Australian band to be picked up by ATP, playing at the Flaming Lips curated event in New York in September.  However, listening to their whole set, there’s still a sense that they still need to develop further, with the songs following similar a template, meandering too much at times and maintaining a very even tempo across the set, even though there’s a maturity and obvious charm about their songs.  There is promise but they need to really start delivering now if they are to make the most of the opportunities being put their way.  

I photographed Dappled Cites back at the first Come Together at Luna Park in April 2005 before they truncated their name and dropped and the “Fly” bit; I was fed up with them after the first song, which involved a mostly floundering instrumental track with much posturing and peppered with the vocalists theatrically approaching their microphones to scream into them.  Fast forward almost 4 1/2 years and nothing much has changed.  Whilst fun to photograph, there’s a really irritating smugness about the band in a “look at us, aren’t we clever” way.  I’m all for arrogance and pretentiousness in music, a single flick through my record collection would show you that, but when you sound like you want to be The Killers it doesn’t wash.  I keep thinking that there’s a real 1980′s wrongness about them but can’t put my finger on exactly who they remind me of, the closest comparison I can come to would probably be something like bad Ultravox.  I think they play that awful song that they started with at Come Together all those years ago.  I don’t think it was this one, but was similar, and hopefully this clip might go some way to explaining why I find them so irritating.    

Five bands down and I’m just not feeling into it, not even in the slightest to be honest, but the weekend is still young and there’s still hope for better things.

More Splendour photos on Flickr.

Manchester Orchestra
Leader Cheetah
Yves Klein Blue
Bridezilla
Dappled Cities

Sunday doesn’t exactly go to plan, with the slow editing and general Sunday morning sluggishness meaning I manage to miss both Danananananakroyd and Jack Ladder and despite aiming to get onto site to photograph White Lies, the traffic means I miss half of their set. So the day starts at a more leisurely starting time than planned of 3:15pm, with Friendly Fires’ set in the Mix Up Tent.

Flaming Lips

Hilltop Hoods

MGMT
 

Gutter Twins

Doves

Bob Evans

Friendly Fires

Technology-wise, things didn’t go quite to plan, with the house we were staying in having no mobile reception for me to use my phone as a modem and upload some photos yesterday morning.  Saturday morning’s blog post was made by parking my car on the top of the nearest big hill and uploading from the front seat, but I didn’t have time to do that again yesterday, with editing going really slowly (despite my 6am alarm) and I didn’t have the time to go in search of an internet cafe either.  Onsite there were more technology glitches, with mobile connection being unreliable so tweeting was in fits and starts when I could get connected, meaning I had to revert to the old ways and use a pen and paper to jot some notes down.

So here, somewhat belatedly, are a few photos from Saturday.  More on Flickr, more on their way

Bloc Party
 

Happy Mondays

Sarah Blasko
 

The Living End

The Specials

Little Birdy
 

Birds Of Tokyo
 

You Am I
 

Bluejuice
 

Dappled Cities
 

Bridezilla

Yves Klein Blue
 

Leader Cheetah

Manchester Orchestra

The closing hours of Thursday bring with them rumours that Jane’s Addiction – of all the bands on the 2009 Splendour bill, the one that I most what to see and the one that I most want to photograph – have cancelled their whole Australian tour. Friday morning brings confirmation of this, with Stephen Perkins hospitalised in LA with an elbow infection. The misery is further compounded almost instantly with news that the organisers have drafted in The Living End to replace them. Of all Australian bands, The Living End.

In theory you would think that it just couldn’t get any worse and yet there’s a nagging feeling that this isn’t rock bottom. There are a number of occurrences that would make the current situation even worse than they already are: Firstly, The Living End will inevitably either include a Jane’s Addiction cover or at the very least segue one or two of their own songs into JA songs for a few bars. And this will more than likely want me to start throwing things at the band. Heavy inanimate objects, small sharp implements, anything close to hand; the choice is endless. Secondly, if JA reschedule their shows it will either be when I’m out of the country or I’ll be put forward to photograph them and they’ll whip out their current rights-grabbing contract five minutes before they’re due on stage and I’ll have to walk away. It just doesn’t feel that this story that has a happy ending.

I’m not sure how the news has been taken by Splendour’s paying punters. Part of me can’t help but think that the majority of Splendour’s main demographic will be delighted at the changes to the line-up, especially as I’ve experienced similar Jane’s Addiction ambivalence before. At the Leeds Festival in 2002 Jane’s Addiction played on the main stage at the same time The Vines were playing one of the smaller tent stages. You could have walked straight up to the barrier without many problems and watched Perry Farrell etc from the very front if you wanted, whereas you couldn’t even get anywhere near getting into the tent to watch The Vines. Oh, how we laughed. And a similar thing happened a year later at an MTV2 gig at Brixton Academy when The Darkness, at the height of their fame, supported Jane’s Addiction. Half the audience left after The Darkness. What is wrong with these people?

The rest of Friday doesn’t really improve; despite being a day off I end up going to work to try and clear the backlog of overdue reports and proposals, which means I don’t leave Brisbane until 3:45pm, hit the Friday afternoon rush hour and take almost 3 hours to get down to New Brighton, just north of Brunswick Heads, where I’m staying for the weekend. And just as I leave the motorway, the heavens open to an extent that I can hardly see where I’m going, even with the windscreen wipers on their highest speed. It’s some sort of navigation miracle that I manage to find the house.

But here now and enjoying good company, good food and a few drinks. And it’s suddenly 12:30am and it all starts in less than 12 hours.

 

Another year, another Splendour. 

It’s been a hard few weeks, what with a combination of work, working weekends to make up for the days I’m having off to go to Splendour, gigs, next day photo deadlines and The Ashes, so instead of feeling well rested and full of energy for a hard weekend’s photographing I already feel exhausted.  And I wish people around me would stop being ill with flu; this sore throat I’ve been developing over the last couple of days is an ominous sign.

I’ve worked out my plan for the weekend, a combination of things I really want to see/photograph (Jane’s Addiction, Gutter Twins, Specials. Flaming Lips) things that I’ll go and check out (i.e. Doves, White Lies, Friendly Fires) and things that as I’m there I might as well photograph to fill in time and for something to do (i.e. Hilltop Hoods, Little Birdy, Bluejuice, Yves Klein Blue.  Actually, to be quite honest, about  half the bands I’ve put in my plan…). 

Saturday

Sunday

If there’s one upside it’s that my plan looks a lot less manic than last year’s Splendour, when I seemed to spend most of the weekend walking between the Big Top and the GW McLennan stage and ended up shooting 31 bands in total.  This year it looks like being 22 bands, although no doubt this will change by the time the weekend is over, with bands starting on time (or not) and ease of movement between stages playing a major role in what gets photographed.

Unlike last year, when I was stressing slightly about a poorly camera that was having exposure meter issues and using my old film camera as back-up, I’ve actually got my old digital camera as back up, so hopefully I won’t be worrying too much about my camera dying on me.

As last year, I will be tweeting from the site, something that was very useful last year as an aide memoire for when it came to writing the more detailed blogs, and I’ll also be trying to upload a few photos from the day before on Sunday and Monday mornings to my Flick account. 

I had planned to clear my backlog of blog posts and photos before this weekend but it wasn’t to be.  Actually it ended up being nowhere near close to happening, so posts about The Middle East, Ladytron, Flipper, Deerhunter, Wolf & Cub, Washington, the Incremental Records Launch, the Plus One Records Showcase, Philadelphia Grand Jury and Timothy Carroll will have to wait a few more weeks.

The final additions to the 2009 Splendour In The Grass festival were announced today, to go with the already announced list that I blogged about last month, with the final 18 bands being as follows:

• Happy Mondays
• Doves
• Architecture In Helsinki
• You Am I
• The Beautiful Girls
• Downsyde & Drapht
• Kisschasy
• Little Red
• Bluejuice
• Children Collide
• Miami Horror Live
• Art vs. Science
• Paul Dempsey
• Dappled Cities
• Dananananaykroyd
• Holly Throsby
• Bridezilla
• Deya Dova

This year the first announcement had 28 acts, with the 18 announced today making a total of 46 artists for 2009.  The 2008 second announcement had 21 acts to go with the 26 announced in the first line-up, making 47 in total over the weekend.

In my previous blog I posted that the main disappointment was the choice of Australian acts, which just seemed to be the same tired old acts that get wheeled out at every Australian festival on a two-year rotating cycle.  Looking at the lineup in full, of the 46 acts playing, 5 played last year and a further 8 played in 2007 (although that does include the non-Australian Bloc Party).  Another major disappointment is that whereas 19 international acts were on the bill in 2008, this year there’s a paltry 13, almost a third less.  And the big rumour that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would be on the second announcement proved to not be true, although being just too good to be true it was no great surprise really.

As I predicted in my Part 1 post, Bluejuice have been added to the bill, as have Dew Process’s very latest signings Dananananaykroyd.  No Tame Impala though, which looked like it was a definite considering their omnipresence on every festival bill in recent months. I probably should have predicted Children Collide and Little Red but thought they must have worn out their welcome by now, having been on just about every festival lineup since the start of 2008.  Little Red are also one of the five bands that played last year, along with Bluejuice, Art vs. Science, Paul Dempsey  and Yves Klein Blue.

The playing times don’t get published until a week or so before the festival so I’ll have to wait until then to start planning the weekend and who I’m going to photograph with military precision.  I have previously photographed 16 of the 46 bands playing (compared to 13 of the 47 who played in 2008), those being:

• MGMT
• Hilltop Hoods
• Midnight Juggernauts
• Augie March
• Sarah Blasko
• Little Birdy
• Josh Pyke
• Lost Valentinos
• Yves Klein Blue
• Jack Ladder
• The Middle East
• You Am I
• Bluejuice
• Paul Dempsey
• Dappled Cities
• Bridezilla

Whilst I plan on photographing a number of those bands again, and will no doubt end up doing some that I didn’t plan on photographing anyway, I’m open to suggestions as to other bands that I have to see/have to photograph so feel free to tell me who I must go and check out.  Although the second announcement is disappointing I’m still really looking forward to the weekend; as previously posted it’s really exciting to get to photograph Jane’s Addiction, Flaming Lips and the Gutter Twins.  There’s not a whole lot that interests me personally in the second announcement; I’ll go and check out Dananananaykroyd to see what the fuss is about, I enjoyed Bridezilla at ATP Mt Buller so I’ll try and catch them and for old time’s sake I’ll go and see the Happy Mondays, although, having seen them a number of times over the years, they’ve always been pretty terrible live. 

Five weeks to go.