High Tide 2010: The Boat That Rocked

LAWSON FLETCHER took to the high seas (aka Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay) for the inaugural High Tide, an afternoon of bands, beers and a boat called 'Lady Cutler'. Photos by LEAH ROBERTSON.

As if it weren’t enough for the indie set to colonise Melbourne’s pubs, warehouses, Lithuanian restaurants and pizza shops, we have now extended our reach beyond land itself, taking to the city’s “high seas” for inaugural boat party High Tide.

Cynicism aside, High Tide is a splendid idea and one that was executed with class: pile a bunch of people that already wear boat shoes onto a tacky, yet well-appointed hire boat, float them around Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay and set the whole day to music. That music being some of the city’s noisiest bands (Love of Diagrams, Pets With Pets, Breaker Morant, Hissey Miyake and Franco Cozzo) and one of its most appropriately summery (The Twerps).

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After a small lifejacket demonstration from the good natured captain of the Lady Cutler – complete with a dad joke he has probably hashed out every time, “And you use this whistle to attract the sharks” – we depart, soon to feel the briny breeze lifting off the calm bay waters as it blows gently from starboard to port (note: ship directions are completely falsified).

It turns out to be just one pleasure among others aboard the Cutler. From the reasonably priced bar and ample space to the continually replenished and scrumptious hors d’oeuvres, everything is shipshape. But before I offer a digest of the day’s entertainment, I feel I must state in no uncertain terms that gigs like this must be organised again, and with regularity, such fanciful trifle it was.

Noise two-piece Franco Cozzo are quick to find their sea legs. With their stilted, aggressive guitar and counteractively tight drums, they surely blew the barnacles off the bottom of the boat. The duo veer wildly between repetitive intensity and staggered, cut-up breakdowns; dogged drones playing up against jagged, aborted songs. Working with, and even past, the talent they’ve got, their set is one where it’s hard to distinguish differences between fuck-up and intention, noise and melody, and this is surprisingly good.

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The ladies and gentleman from Hissey Miyake, on the other hand, seemingly forgot to take their ginger pills before boarding. They continually complain how sick they feel, but it certainly doesn’t excuse their performance: a dirge of bratty, screeching vocals and rigid, unimaginative song structures. The band have all the single-mindedness and talent of an undisciplined toddler beating upon pots and pans, so it’s with more than a hint of good fortunate that the Cutler cruises past the immense container ships on the docks for a mid-set distraction.

Descending back downstairs (the boat had two levels, and hence multiple stages for the acts to alternate on) we are confronted by Pets With Pets, who at their best approach the intensity and experimental nous of Liars’ Drums Not Dead, and at their worst sound like the bad half of the Animal Collective set at Meredith played by dyslexic galahs and cockatoos. Nevertheless, they are cute enough to keep if you found them abandoned on the side of the road. Their textural experiments are by in large successful.

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Shortly after, the shambolic Breaker Morant take to the stage, with a performance that sounds like they’re trying to somehow play two bad songs at once. The band’s “singer” spits spoken word verses haphazardly across the pile of guitars, allowing one to make a lazy but still apt comparison to Eddy Current Suppression Ring, as if Breaker Morant were that band’s demented younger brother. Loose as all shit, but you get the distinct feeling they don’t care.

The Twerps are perhaps Australia’s best answer to the current summery music revival spearheaded by bands like Girls. Similar to Girls, The Twerps make compact Beach Boys parodies, but kind of purposefully shit. This is slacker surf music, written by people who know better, but merrily choose to go about playing these immediately likeable songs anyway.

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The Twerps vie only with Love of Diagrams for today’s most endearing band, as the inimitable headliners put on a fully formed and predictably splendid final act. Their new songs ease off on the post punk-isms, and go down even better live.

It’s only when they’re beating out the last few riffs of the wonderful ‘Forever’, that I glance across to the now approaching pier, take in the incredulous looks of innocent bystanders and realise how batty this little adventure must appear to the general public: a great mess of noise upon a boat that’s probably more used to hosting wedding singers and jazz ensembles than indie noise bands. Never mind those looks, however, for they knew not what fun and frivolity they missed that day on the bay.

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