Reviewed on Friday December 9
Less than five years ago, Flume was a music industry outsider. Half a decade on, the Sydney producer was playing to over 18,000 fans at Qudos Bank Arena, the culmination of his influence and career on display in this spectacular hometown show.
Much like Flume, Sophie has come to define a subgenre of electronica: PC Music. The UK arist with a penchant for hiding his face opened to a smaller crowd, and while he took more of a club approach to his set, Samuel Long’s blend of percussive-heavy bangers and hints of dancehall seemed to mostly fall on confused ears. The one appearance of an actual Sophie track – the song ‘L.O.V.E.’ – was a shaky addition. Despite good intentions, Sophie’s characteristically sparse instrumentation and jumpy beats are simply not engineered for an arena show; abruptly ending his set after a brief 30 minutes, it was pretty clear the producer felt the same way.
Vince Staples, on the other hand, was a bona fide crowd-pleaser, and in spite of a claustrophobic set-up, the Californian rapper delivered a high-energy set over thrumming, bass-heavy beats. Fans of Staples’ starkly brilliant feature on With You.’s ‘Ghost’ were delighted with a clubby edit of the original, as well as ‘Jump Off The Roof’ and ‘Norf Norf’. Despite briefly stealing it, Staples insisted that this was not his show, and once Harley Streten took the stage, this became all too apparent.
A heavenly host of strings preceded Flume’s entrance, sweeping throughout the arena. Then came a crashing boom and a whirring soundscape, strobe lights dancing to the beat of an arpeggio. The curtain dropped, revealing the humble artist standing inside a giant V-shaped station, complemented by a symphony of visual stimulation around him.
Demons melting, glass shattering, crowns spinning and kaleidoscopic bodies tumbling in a black void; entire chapters could be written to describe all the visuals in play. Streten balanced new and old material perfectly; a Like A Version reprise of Ghost Town DJs’ ‘My Boo’ featuring Staples and Kucka perfectly sparking our collective R&B nostalgia.
While there was a noticeable absence of Chet Faker tracks, Streten played to his strengths throughout, dropping his ‘HyperParadise remix’, ‘Never Be Like You’, as well as countless favourites from his debut album with pinpoint precision. Flume isn’t part of the zeitgeist, he is the zeitgeist, and this was the show to prove it.
