HIGHWAY TO SWELL

SOUTHBOUND

Sir Stewart Bovell Park, Busselton
Saturday, January 7 & Sunday, January 8, 2012

For eight summers it’s been a New Year’s tradition for music lovers to descend on the sleepy coastal town of Busselton for the camping festival known as Southbound, and after a few years of changing this  and changing that, 2012’s edition saw the format retooled to present its most successful edition to date.

clicking and batteries draining, starting with the tolerable Josh Pyke, who found his amicable tunes meandering across the festival grounds as campers settled in and day trippers found their bearings. Midway through the day, Miles Kane’s set saw retro riffs paired with jaunty pop melodies, however, for the most part, the British crooner’s ‘60s-indebted sounds were head-noddingly pleasant, rather than the great rock‘n’roll sound he was clearly aiming for.
One of the surprises of Southbound 2012 came from one of the stars of 2011. Kimbra hit the main stage in the mid afternoon Busso sunshine to showcase her oh-so eclectic style. Resplendent in a pink dress, with PJ Harvey lips she worked a cabaret sensibility as she performed tracks off her acclaimed Vows album, a Bobby Brown cover and a killer Daft Punk finale.
As the day light lingered so did Beirut: not just the capital of Lebanon, but also the moniker of a musical prodigy who leads a band of horns though weird and wonderful melancholic polka music.
Grouplove were one of a few well known bands to have their songs featured in television advertising in 2011. Was their music this generic before or after the clothing label/soft drink appropriated their whimsical teenage summer anthem? Not sure. Clever punters instead chose the chill lounge with the DJ in a van, super cool Bunno rapper Kadyelle, and her Aussie hip hop styles. Very cool.
Aloe Blacc is the man. Loved in the UK, admired everywhere else, he’s a soul singer and an old soul in a young man’s suit jacket. The radio hit I Need A Dollar hollered across the field. We heard you brother. Easily the lowlight of the two day festival, The Grates played an embarrassing show. Patience Hodgson’s act is tired, the riffs are stale and their songs are better geared towards primary school students. Jim Jones Revue stood out over their mother country contemporaries.
Regurgitator are no strangers to Western Australian festivals (in fact they even played the first Southbound back in 2005), and this time were playing their classic Unit in full. Tracks like Black Bugs impressed the crowd and the ‘Gurge proved themselves, yet again, to be a festival sure thing, if only they could have thrown in some classic tracks from Tu Plang. Arctic Monkeys took us home of the first night with a 20 song strong set of selections from their short but distinguished career. Teddy boy Alex Turner’s birthday celebrations from the day before continued, but it was the overzealous crowd who made his day with more flashing going on than Bussell Highway’s speed cameras on the trek back to Perth.
The drowning feeling set in by mid-Sunday afternoon as people, sunburned and zombified, spilled around most of the stages. Much like Paul Kelly did last year, Tim Finn provided the crowd with afternoon sing-alongs. Whether it was Poor Boy, Weather With You or Six Months In A Leaky Boat, the elder Finn provided many a punter with festival-defining moments, while Unknown Mortal Orchestra did the same with their excellent self-styled lo-fi pop.
The Jezabels adopted a cold, uninterested ethic for their live set: they churned out roils of stout guitar riffs, cavernous drums and falsetto vocals, with frontwoman Hayley Mary pacing the stage ponderously under stark spotlights. It was a stern, impenetrable display inverse to the genuinely emotive recordings present on their debut album Prisoner.
It might have been the last night of summer as the sun ducked behind the skyline, mosquitoes sucked on tattoos, and the angelically pleasant Fleet Foxes took to the stage on Sunday evening. For those who were too cool for such things, the anti-urban band inspired impatience: such gorgeous harmonies, such gentle tunes, such modest guitar playing. But their soaring set more than proved the reason why the beguiling folk sextet holds its crowd in sway: pure musicianship.
And of course there was The Kooks, playing an expectedly magnificently fun set. Their songs were bleak, complex and filled with tensions: lush melody attacked by noise, rhythm pulling against rhythm, a lone guitar suddenly caught up in crescendos like earthquakes. Frontman Luke Pritchard was dancing across the stage as he sang, twirling and twitching and jittering, making his own kind of Southbound groove. Not like a hippie, but not painfully hip either.
As the sun set on the final evening it was clear that Southbound is foremost about the music, but it’s also about the crowd. It’s heartening that 15,000 rowdy, sweaty people can tolerate one another’s neon tutus and bond, albeit briefly, despite stupefying heat and dust. For all our bewilderment at Southbound’s eclectic line-up choices, in our hyper-individualised society, it’s those rare moments of connection with other fans that make for a lasting high.

_DANIEL PARKINSON, JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD & MATTHEW HOGAN