What better way to negate the overpriced booze, steep club entry, desperate taxi-hailing and disappointment of New Year’s Eve in the cities than by heading to chilled-out Falls Music & Arts Festival? It’s one of Australia’s longest running boutique festivals, starting out in Lorne, Victoria twenty years ago. Those who overcame the logistical obstacles of buses, multiple-flights and a homeless sleep in Hobart’s Franklin Square for early-arrivers, were rewarded with the pristine beauty of Tasmania’s Marion Bay. Think Lord of the Rings meets Glastonbury with tents rapidly multiplying across emerald hills as the festival kicked into gear.
We might have been a long way from civilisation but the organisers did a good job thoughtfully ticking all the necessities boxes:
Toilets – plenty of them with nary a line except during prime drinking hours. Of the compostable variety but including toilet seats AND paper.
Alcohol – no waiting and who can fault craft beer Moo Brew for $5 a pop?
Showers – most forewent the lines for a $2/two minute shower for a natural scrub at Marion Beach. A 15 minute trek from the main festival was rewarded with a refreshingly icy dip in clear waters. It might as well have been, as one knowledgeable beachgoer put it, “literally the Artic Ocean”, but there was no better morning refresher.
Food – no simple chips or dagwood dogs here! (Although the standard festival fare was also available to those who desired it.) Think gourmet veggie burgers, French toast, pizza cones (wut!), Baby Burgers and wedges with harissa aioli.
Attendees: Convivial and relaxed aka no shirtless aggressive roiders.
With the 10,000-plus crowd sheltered, fed and watered, it was down to enjoying some amazing local and international acts. Full marks to the crowd for their enthusiasm making the most of what appeared to be a man in drag playing AC/DC, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and Toto’s 'Africa' over a loudspeaker on Saturday night. The moshing-force and shoulder-dancing was rarely replicated over the weekend.
Come Sunday 30th and the real festival started after the [revious day's tropicana warm-up. Sore heads were gentled caressed by the pleasant acoustic folk of First Aid Kit, Lisa Mitchell, Bombay Bicycle Club and the boppable summer anthems of Best Coast. There was only one word on everyone’s lips however as the indefatigable Antarctic-sun crept across the sky: Coolio. Was the Grammy-Award winning rapper really playing? The man behind 'Gangsta’s Paradise'? THE Coolio? Aged he may be, but Coolio can still pull a massive crowd. Vocals were on the weak side. The sole purpose of the back-up band seemed to be interjecting sporadic “Yeh … Yehs” and “Hell Yeh muthafuckas”. The big man’s lesser known back catalogue consisted of a lacklustre tribute to deceased musical greats – “R.I.P Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Left Eye” - and a bizarrely misogynistic wooing of a potential girlfriend – “If you were my girlfriend you’d make me breakfast, I’d drop you at work, I’d play Nintendo, Playstation, Wii, go on the internet, I’d smoke a blunt, you’d make me dinner”. But nostalgia reined strong and the crowd got what they came for – an epic rendition of 'Gangsta’s Paradise'.
Over at the main stage, the Hilltop Hoods were at their fast-rapping, beatboxing best, and got hip-hop diehards and sceptics alike bouncing to 'Hard Road' and the 'Nosebleed Section'. Two Door Cinema Club kept the good vibe going with their danceable beats. Lead singer Alex Trimble’s vocals sleekly carried lyrics of wistful yearning, encased in a contrastingly upbeat instrumental, always dipping into but refusing to stagnate in melancholy. An elated crowd soared on 'What You Know', 'Next Year', 'Sun', 'Sleep Alone' and 'Cigarettes in the Theatre'.
The Hives delivered the show of the day, with the high-voltage energy and antics of lead singer “Howlin’” Pelle Almqvist transforming debatably unremarkable garage songs into show-stoppers. He promised that The Hives would become our favourite band, and they were – if only for a few hours. By the time Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs hit the stage at 2:30am, most had dragged their weary bodies to a tent, but those who stayed were rewarded with some chilled out, video game-esque house.
Monday 31st dawned all too soon for those who had to repeg their tents from being blown away in fierce winds. The cruel mistress of Tasmania’s weather oscillated between burning suns and Antarctica winds. An evening of pleasantly ambient Beach House and Boy and Bear warmed the crowd up for the festival’s headliner as midnight encroached. Expectations were high but in the live arena, the Flaming Lips proved themselves to be a grossly overrated and outdated rock band. Frontman Wayne Coyne assumes he can bedazzle audiences with rainbow confetti, a vaginal video projection and his traverse across the crowd in a man-sized clear bubble. The one-trick pony has been repeated for a decade and those who had seen the spectacle before were underwhelmed by the sloppy set. The silver lining was an enjoyable rendition of 'Do You Realize??' to bring in the New Year.
Hot Chip kept the good vibes going with new tunes from In Our Heads like 'Night & Day' and 'Don’t Deny Your Heart' while placating the crowd with old favourites like 'Over and Over' and 'Ready for the Floor'. The synthpop group have an uncanny knack for distilling and repackaging sounds from other eras; there’s notes of the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Queen, New Order. But while the bricolage is incredibly enjoyable, it remains derivative and certainly isn’t blowing minds any time soon. SBTRKT wrapped up the night nicely for those who managed to push on as the crowd thinned – perhaps an earlier timeslot would have been more suitable. The duo kept the crowd entertained from behind their signature tribal masks, leaping from sparse electronic chimes to a full-blown cacophony of live drums, Sampha’s vocals and loops.
Falls receives high marks as an enjoyable News Year’s Eve alternative made exceptional by a beautiful natural setting.
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Listen to Hot Chip on Pulse Radio