Reviewed onThursday March 24 – Sunday March 28 (main photo by AirSwing Media)
As far as contemporary music goes, Bluesfest’s 2016 lineup may have been the finest Byron Bay has ever seen. Of course, this is a family-friendly festival that caters for everyone from hip local teens to the bring-your-own-deckchair crowd, and with its retro attractions landing more on the pop side of the spectrum, the blues diehards may have felt under-represented. Still, predictability was out of the question at Tyagarah this Easter – and that can only ever be a good thing for a festival in the current climate.
The spirit of unpredictability came to define Hiatus Kaiyote’s Thursday afternoon set, with Nai Palm leading the charge; so too the sundown performance by Kamasi Washington. This relatively youthful rising star and his band come with a jazz mindset but a glam rock execution – in what other jazz context would a tenor sax trade solos with a keytar, or a double bassist improvise through a wah-wah pedal? It’s not the type of thing Cold War Kids go in for, but then again, the Californians are far from orthodox. Some years ago, their avant-garde indie music moved in the direction of stadium rock, but not so far as to be self-defeating. They were made for festivals like Bluesfest; appealing to the masses, but never middle of the road.
The same applies tenfold to Kendrick Lamar. Last time he toured Australia was in support of Eminem, a rap icon of the generation past, playing stadium-sized shows. Now, Kendrick is the biggest thing in hip hop worldwide, let alone at Bluesfest. He stepped up to the microphone to a massive reception, then walked away before speaking a word. A last-minute case of stage fright? No chance. Once ‘For Free?’ got going, the flow never ceased; not through 12 songs from To Pimp A Butterfly, nor another half-dozen from Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. This had always promised to be a mammoth performance, and Lamar made sure of it. He squinted through pools of sweat to deliver line after line, all with palpable determination – not merely determination to entertain or impress, but to achieve something even more; something genuinely engaging. Needless to say, it worked.
A calming breeze blew through the Delta tent on the Friday afternoon as Bluesfest veteran Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges performed graciously to an appreciative audience, joined briefly by local favourite Kasey Chambers. Mojo Juju got off to a slow start with her stripped-back set-up, but it may have been down to the heat, for Frazey Ford did the same – at least until the assertiveness of ‘Done’, her self-described “bitch anthem”.
Graham Nash shared stories about Woodstock and Joni Mitchell, though they only really served to highlight just how literal his lyric-writing has always been. Unlike Nash, City And Colour may not yet have recorded any ubiquitous anthems, but the layers of Dallas Green’s writing run much deeper, and the reward was a gorgeously illustrated and overwhelmingly unifying performance on the main stage. The warmth of the afternoon translated into The National’s closing slot, their horns interplaying with the Dessner brothers’ guitar lines as Matt Berninger was in particularly fine voice. This masterful band never fails to astound, and the festival set saw the inclusion of tender cuts like ‘I Need My Girl’, ‘Pink Rabbits’ and ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’ alongside the grander moments.
The Saturday lineup saw Bluesfest in its more traditional mode, with sets from Joe Bonamassa, Tedeschi Trucks Band and The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band. An artist from outside the stock-standard milieu was Elle King, but even she paid tribute to a legion of past stars in a set heavy on covers (though popularly received). Of them all, D’Angelo was the king of the middle night – as evidenced not only in his marathon two-hour billing, but the repeated tributes paid to him by other artists at the festival; Lamar, Green and Ford among those who declared their excitement to be sharing the Bluesfest stage with a neo-soul legend.
The inevitable Byron Bay storm came through on Saturday, so by the next morning, the festival site was caked in mud. No matter for those who were there to have a good time with the music – chief among them Con Brio, a shirtless party-starter whose set was full of gospel gang vocals. Gospel was the order of the day for The Blind Boys Of Alabama, too, bringing a heavy dose of faith and harmony to their Easter performance. Modest Mouse dealt not in religion but in slightly contained anarchy; Isaac Brock’s jack-in-the-box enthusiasm making up for a chaotic sound mix and over-deployed smoke machines.
The Wailers had the Jambalaya tent heaving for their ‘in full’ performance of a compilation album, Legend, while The Cat Empire pulled a capacity crowd to the Mojo stage thanks partly to a new album of their own, Rising With The Sun – that which landed at number one this month, just in time for Tyagarah. The Decemberists followed with a slightly sparser audience, but they also brought with them the most impressive set of amps at the whole festival, and a surprisingly powerful sound to boot. Their set was bookended with 15-minute folk songs in ‘The Hazards Of Love 1’ and ‘The Mariner’s Revenge Song’, but it was all in good humour, not indulgence.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds may have been billed as such, but the Britpop icon earned his headlining place thanks to the hits he wrote for his old band, Oasis – and unlike his brother Liam, Noel is nothing if not a crowd-pleaser. ‘Champagne Supernova’ and ‘Wonderwall’ got a run, naturally, but it was on deeper cuts like ‘Half The World Away’, ‘Sad Song’ and ‘D’Yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?’ that the old-school devotees found their best rewards. Even the fact Gallagher can perform more Oasis B-sides than actual singles in a festival set, two decades since his prime, is evidence of the endurance of his songwriting. After the farewell ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, he lapped up the ovation: “How good? I know. I’m the best” – and even with vintage stars like Tom Jones and Brian Wilson to come on festival Monday, you’d have been a killjoy to call Gallagher out on his arrogance this time around. It was all part of the fun.
