Fun In The Fortitude: Valley Fiesta ’09

Zombie santas, circus freaks and girls in fluoro scuba outfits. JODY MACGREGOR reports from the weekend’s Valley Fiesta, which saw Kev Carmody, The Mess Hall, C. W. Stoneking and others performing across three stages in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Photos by ELLENI TOUMPAS.

Valley Fiesta is Brisbane’s free annual festival, with acts spread across three stages in the Fortitude Valley. This year the city council has taken over its organisation, but things don’t get off to the best of starts when Lord Mayor Campbell Newman opens proceedings on the wrong stage (the timetable had him down for the “Mall Stage”, but he was on the “Street Stage” instead). In his speech he explains that this year the “Chinatown Stage” has become the “Theatre Stage” – later this afternoon it will host improv, circus performers, burlesque and so on. It’s part of the broader agenda of selling Brisbane as a cultural centre with a varied arts scene. We like to convince ourselves sometimes that we’re actually a distant and wayward outlying suburb of Melbourne and not really part of Queensland at all.

Also on the wrong stage is opening headliner Kev Carmody. Arrayed against him are the following facts: it’s lunchtime and the crowd’s still sparse; the sun’s beating down on empty bitumen at the front of the street stage; acts from the Chinatown Stage are distracting the audience by performing street theatre; a fire engine wails down Ann Street while he plays ‘Needles In The Nursery’; and, to top it all off, his arthritis is playing up. Despite all that he still manages to win over the listeners. An unrecorded song called ‘New Town Dog’, a bluesy number about being done wrong by a woman, is especially impressive – even though he self-deprecatingly suggests the last verse still needs work. And anyone who doesn’t get a lump in their throat when Carmody plays ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ has no pulse.

Performing, oddly enough, on the stage they’re supposed to be on – the middle of Brunswick Street Mall – are locals Ball Park Music. It seems unfair how tight these half-dozen indie kids are as a band given they were thrown together randomly by a teacher at music school. ‘All I Want Is You’ is a well-observed slice of working man’s rock that drops an awesomely incongruous guitar solo amid boy-girl vocals and pop melodies. When their keyboardist picks up the trombone suddenly they sound like Madness, and apparently it’s time to skank. ‘I Don’t Know What’s Right For You, Young Bean’, which they say is off a debut album they’re recording, is another highlight. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Throughout the day, performers from the aforementioned Chinatown Stage wander through the streets doing their acts and generally being strange. Three girls in fluoro scuba outfits swim through the crowd observing us like we’re particularly fascinating undersea creatures; puppeteers manipulate tiny old men puppets and generally creep out children; and circus freaks politely watch some of the acts, clapping with deformed arms. While sometimes stealing attention from the music they add colour to the event, especially when the circus tent boxer and the weird puppet people meet in the middle of Brunswick Street and spontaneously start brawling.

Punishing heat in the afternoon is followed by brief rain in the early evening. I head off for a quick respite, returning later to catch Sydney’s Cuthbert And The Night Walkers play their bouncy-castle pop at the Mall Stage. ‘Red Frogs’ is such a hyper-cute song, and I’m surprised the backing vocals (“Our favourite colour is blue and we like red frogs!”) are sung by female singers rather than a choir of excitable children force-fed sugary treats. Irish pub sea shanty ‘Maggie’s Health’ is also a treat.

Still at the Mall Stage – renamed the Naked All Sorts Stage, something to do with the people handing out free condoms in the crowd – are Perth trio The Panda Band. On stage, their songs sound diminished, with more bluster but less intensity, reduced to skilful renderings of the usual suburban rebellion rock cliches and poses. It’s all too generic and “Insert Solo Here” for me, but maybe they’re just having an off night?

On the other hand, The Mess Hall manage to reinvigorate and rehabilitate every cliche of two-man blues they encounter – howls, garage riffs and two-fisted drumming. Their rhythms are so catchy even the members of local band Rocketsmiths can be seen air-drumming along in the audience. Brisbane’s busiest keyboardist, Seja Vogel of Sekiden, Regurgitator and occasionally Spod and a dozen other bands, joins them for a song and adds sweet backing vocals. ‘Lorelei’ is like a stranger riding into town, lighting his cigar, squinting heroically and tossing his poncho over one shoulder to reveal a pearl-handled revolver that shoots this Saturday night dead.

Sunday presents an odd mix of country and hip-hop across the Valley Fiesta stages, but first, Drawn From Bees. The band have won a triple j “Unearthed” competition in which the prize is a shitty 12.45pm timeslot when the burning daystar is at its punishing peak. Despite having most of their audience scattered off to the sides in the shade while they roast on the Mall Stage, the band put on an energetic show, colliding playfully with each other while running through songs like ‘Bus Now’ and ‘Long-Toothed Setting Sun’. Hearing them performed live doesn’t help me understand their cryptic lyrics any better, but they’re good songs regardless.

As part of the hip-hop section of the day, local Castel gets bonus points for having a live rhythm section instead of just a DJ looping soul samples ala Hilltop Hoods. He has one of those as well, but still – bonus points. Unfortunately, his flow doesn’t change enough through the course of his set, leading to the feeling you could predict the punchlines if you tried – or at least where his emphasis is going to fall when he gets to them.

There’s been a Mexican Day Of The Dead theme to this year’s Valley Fiesta. Orange skulls are everywhere, which suddenly makes sense when participants of the “Zombie Walk” pour into Brunswick Street around 4.15pm. They enjoy a surprise rave and, of course, ‘Thriller’ gets played. For the rest of the day zombie makeup becomes as common a sight in the crowd as sling bags and big sunglasses.

African-born Melburnians Diafrix attract and then hold a crowd of people who have mostly never heard them before, at the Mall Stage. It’s an impressive thing to watch, and they pull it off with variety and an engaging stage presence that sees MCs Azmarino and Momo stalk back and forth, squeezing past each other across the small space. They draw on their disparate influences from reggae and dance and their African heritage, the latter most notably in the incredibly catchy ‘African Affair’, which has practically everybody – even a zombie Santa Claus – dancing.

The wind picks up and it turns chilly by the time C. W. Stoneking emerges. Dressed all in white, he announces that he’s glad he decided not to wear his “parachute tracksuit”. All his stage banter is a bit surreal. Reality is not welcome in the world of C. W. Stoneking and its buddy authenticity can get lost too. He opens with old-fashioned blues on banjo (‘Early In The Morning’) and continues with his calypso love song for General Douglas MacArthur (‘Brave Son Of America’). He’s ably backed by a four-piece band throughout these and other oddities, especially his propulsive murder ballad ‘The Love Me Or Die’, which is as fitting a capstone for the festival as any.

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