Afternoon groove: Phosphorescent on stage at the 24th Meredith Music Festival. Photo: Eddie Jim
The Meredith Music Festival organiser's long standing pursuit of an appearance by Jagwar Ma paid off on Friday night, with the Australian indie-dance outfit delivering a festival-topping performance that helped overcome an otherwise limp start to the three days.
Jagwar Ma had been one of the later additions to this year's line-up, which was one of the strongest assembled in Meredith's 24-year history.
But despite the roster of talent, much of the festival's first day felt uncharacteristically flat. Launching with Australia punk legends the Hard-Ons (energetic, but lacking punch on the day) the festival meandered through the afternoon.
Alt-punk: Cloud Nothings at the Meredith Music Festival. Photo: Jim Eddie
Former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan's scratchy vocals worked well with the sunset, but the stripped-back set (with no backing band) did little to kick the festival into high gear.
And by the time doom metal band Sleep left the stage (it had to be your thing), festival headliners The War on Drugs had to work to wrest the crowd's focus back onto the music.
That was within their powers, having delivered one of year's finer records, Lost in a Dream. But for the first half of their set the crowd seemed distracted. A stronger second half - including song-of-the-moment Red Eyes - cut through to a point, though left Fairfax Media wishing it had seen the performance in a more intimate venue.
Sound check: Courtney Barnett and The Lemonheads' Evan Dando perform at the Meredith Music Festival. Photo: Simon O'Dwyer
Thankfully Melbourne Bollywood band (by way of funk and surf rock), The Bombay Royale, brought some much-needed charisma to the Friday - complete with a giant inflatable elephant let loose into the crowd - peaking with songs, Wild Stallion Mountain and The Island of Dr Electrico.
And that groundwork left the aforementioned Jagwar Ma to enjoy the spoils.
Jagwar Ma draws heavily on the 1980s-90s Madchester scene and came to Meredith on the back of 18 months of plaudits. It was perhaps the single strongest set of the whole three days, even if they threatened to run out of steam having landing their best musical blows before the end - Come Save Me, Man I Need, and in particular the driving Let Her Go.
By Saturday morning the scheduling seemed to right itself. New Zealand indie-folk act Tiny Ruins played early despite their high billing, which was a good fit. Other nice Saturday afternoon moments included Phosphorescent's hypnotic Song for Zula, and Cleveland alt-punk band Cloud Nothings' anthem I'm Not Part of Me.
Meredith then leant back on some of its well-honed scheduling devices. Mid-afternoon funk (The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra), was followed by hip hop in the form of Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah - who was a powerful lyrical force, even if the set struggled for focus at times.
Augie March and Painters and Dockers ticked the requisite 'Aussie legends' box. But the high point of Saturday night was Californian garage rocker Ty Segall, whose live sound was fuller than much of his recorded material.
Jamaican ska legends The Skatalites and hip hop pioneers De La Soul played the role of the Saturday night party outfits, with the later a pleasantly sharper force than on other recent Australian tours. Blasting through numerous hits - the best on this night being All Good - they heavily employed many party hip hop tricks (see call and response), which would be more irritating if they hadn't helped invent (or at least perfect ) much of it.
Stoner rockers, The Lemonheads, were saved for Sunday, with frontman Evan Dando using his time on stage to fiddle with amps, complain about the lights, and play four or five vaguely recognisable songs for the casual observer (such as The Outdoor Type, and If I Could Talk I'd Tell You).
They closed the set with Rudderless, which ends with the earworm chant 'a ship without a rudder/is like a ship without a rudder.'
But while Meredith had flirted with that charge early, by the end of the weekend, as it often does, it had again found its way to near to festival perfection.
Entities 0 Name: Meredith Count: 2 1 Name: Evan Dando Count: 2 2 Name: Ty Segall Count: 1 3 Name: Courtney Barnett Count: 1 4 Name: Fairfax Media Count: 1 5 Name: Mark Lanegan Count: 1 6 Name: Eddie Jim Count: 1 7 Name: Australian Count: 1 8 Name: Meredith Music Festival Count: 1 9 Name: Australia Count: 1 10 Name: Red Eyes Count: 1 11 Name: De La Soul Count: 1 12 Name: Lemonheads Count: 1 13 Name: Zula Count: 1 14 Name: The Lemonheads Count: 1 15 Name: Public Opinion Afro Orchestra Count: 1 16 Name: New Zealand Count: 1 17 Name: Ghostface Killah Count: 1 18 Name: Bombay Royale Count: 1 19 Name: The Island of Dr Electrico Count: 1 20 Name: Skatalites Count: 1 21 Name: Simon O'Dwyer Count: 1 22 Name: Cleveland Count: 1 23 Name: Cloud Nothings Count: 1 24 Name: Jim Eddie Former Screaming Trees Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1xjt4W5 Title: Meredith Music Festival ends on a quieter note Description: On Sunday morning, Melbourne band Krakatau stepped on stage at the Meredith Music Festival to play their biggest gig. The crowd sitting on the Supernatural Amphitheatre was sparse, and perhaps a little uninterested about the band's big moment - it was certainly not the 12,000-odd-people crush that had greeted more-celebrated overseas acts during the festival's previous two days, and which included hip-hop legends De La Soul and indie band-of-the-moment The War on Drugs.
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