Report: A Tale Of Two Homebakes

After a year lay-off, AARON CURRAN was on hand to witness Homebake’s return to the Domain in Sydney on Saturday (December 3). Photos by DANIEL BOUD.

There were two Homebakes held at Sydney’s Domain on Saturday, with little in common between them. There was the guitar-dominated, heritage-focused Homebake headlined by older acts such as Grinderman, The Church, The Triffids and Ratcat, supported by younger bands with an indie rock aesthetic befitting the newly named (and smallest) Rowland S Howard stage. Then there was another Homebake, featuring a mellifluous if sometimes anodyne array of newer pop, dance and hip-hop acts – Gotye, Kimbra, Cut Copy, PNAU, Drapht and more - that played on bigger stages to generally larger and much younger audiences.

The second of these Homebakes seems to be funding the first; the disproportionate gap in numbers between those watching Gotye or Cut Copy compared to The Triffids or (surprisingly) Grinderman suggests that. But the alternative rock/heritage/superannuated approach clearly has a role to play in this festival’s success. It gives Homebake added credibility with artists and media that would be lost if running it as an unabashed pop-fest targeted only at teens and 20-somethings; it widens the demographic pool of potential attendees; and it corresponds most closely to the festival’s early days.

But good intentions aside, the two disparate halves of Homebake 2011 didn’t really fit together, and this was ultimately an event best enjoyed piecemeal. This was partly due to exasperating sound problems, which plagued some performances. (CW Stoneking and The Triffids on the Dome stage, for example, were soaked in the echoing volume of mainstage acts such as The Vines and Gotye.) It may’ve also been down to lifestyle choices: the drunken hordes of texta-inscribed-singlet-wearing schoolies were out for a very different kind of day than the gourmet-picnicking 30-plus mortgagees. At least the weather gods were with us on Saturday. The sky stayed blue and the sun shone warm and long enough to suggest that summer had indeed arrived.

Saturday, December 3

From the first entry gate the queues are long but move quickly, and security is of the tough-but-fair variety. Once inside, it’s clear the Domain is a great location for a music festival like this. There are loads of bars, toilet blocks, food options, market stalls and amusements. Even if you hadn’t brought a rug, the grass in many areas is lush and green enough to lie down and snore an hour away.

Vents on the main stage shout hectoring rhymes against overly-familiar 4/4 beats and the occasional sample of crunchy guitar as if Paul’s Boutique never happened. Still, the guys onstage are lively and committed, which clearly counts for something (they have a small but attentive crowd). In short succession come two more hip-hop acts. Killaqueenz create a raw, infectious party vibe with repeated chants of “dance this shit up, make some heat” and video screens flashing “BOUNCE” in frantic lettering; and 360, who uses ’70s funk, jazz and disco bombs to fuel his laid-back delivery. His verbal flow is loquacious and precise.

Over at the Rowland S Howard stage, which is decorated with posters for the recent Autoluminescent documentary, Perth band Split Seconds make their Homebake debut with a thorny brand of UK-centric skewed pop that is catchy, tight and highly promising – even if it’s a little derivative. (Singing with an English accent or covering a Blur song doesn’t help.) On the southern side of the Domain at the Dome stage, Auckland six-piece Avalanche City say they are happy to be in Sydney, inching ever-closer to home again after a few weeks on the road. They play radio-friendly folk-pop and do it well, using mandolin, piano, violin and more to spice up the arrangements.

Back to the Rowland S Howard stage and only a handful of people are watching Damndogs, a quartet from Melbourne featuring Chris Cester and Mark Wilson from Jet. As the minutes tick past the tent continues to empty. Is this due to their bombastic guitar-driven dance pop, or the overbearing mix? Melbourne duo Big Scary follows with a much more popular set that sees lots of punters singing along in unison (triple j high rotation in action?). Tom Iansek is the polite fellow at the Roland keyboard singing ’80s plinkety-plonk synthpop of the yearning kind. Drummer Jo Syme has a severe fringe and ponytail, provides joyful backing vocals, and beats seven kinds of shit out of her kit. Together they’re more than the sum of their parts and show the kind of pop smarts that should see them playlisted by most of Australia’s radio stations in no time at all.

On the way back to the Dome, you can’t miss a very loud effort from The Vines, who make a capable if dull account of themselves. They misstep terribly with an ineffectual acoustic ballad - audience-interest dissipates palpably, like the money in my wallet after a few trips to the Homebake bar - so they rev things even louder for a ho-hum follow-up. Surely I’m not alone in thinking it’s time for a different cover than Outkast’s ‘Ms Jackson’?

CW Stoneking is dressed in white pants, shirt and bowtie, like the son of a very polite preacher man. He plays a set of striking ragtime-infused blues originals with the Primitive Horn Orchestra (tuba, trombone, trumpet) that converts more than a few festival-goers today. The bluesman from Papunya, NT, has an obvious love and ability for this kind of music, which he alchemises into his distinctive compositions and cheerful performances. Like many blues originals, his songs contain a subtle amount of innuendo without being profane enough to offend anyone. Is it really broccoli he’s singing about when he asks the audience to back him on a chorus of, “Oh them greens, yeah them greens”? It would be surprising if CW Stoneking’s popularity in the UK (where he now lives) and Europe didn’t continue to grow. This music is perfect festival fare and he’s one of few acts today whose appeal transcends genre and audience age.

Noah Taylor’s band The Sloppy Boys are not too sloppy at all, given its members include The Mess Hall’s Jed Kurzel and Cec Condon and Ed Clayton-Jones (The Wreckery). Taylor and his cohorts play painfully-loud, feedback-scarred, dirty rock’n’roll. It’s obvious why Nick Cave chose them to support Grinderman recently: The Sloppy Boys are mining a similar black seam of sex, humour, misogyny and catharsis. Dangerous in the wrong hands, sure, but Taylor just about pulls off lines like, “I would be a lying disingenuous little asshole if I didn’t say, ‘I’m gonna fuck you on the lawn!’” Bridezilla’s Holiday Sidewinder dances up front. It’s a same she doesn’t get up onstage to reprise her cameo vocals on The Sloppy Boys’ debut release, Live Free or Die!!!

Next a bit of timeout at the Homebake Cinema Pavilion, watching short comedies like Rob Carlton’s Carmichael and Shane and Christopher Stollery’s Dik, but that’s cut short when a large crowd crams into the building to watch the much-in-demand Lanie Lane play an acoustic set. Even after clearing out the chairs, the crush is “all a bit up close and personal”, as Lane herself says, but she’s a confident performer that can control her audience with good natured banter – even if they are squished uncomfortably only a hair’s breadth from her. She can also really sing, making a simple melody something more each and every time she opens her mouth. The throng loves her, particularly when she’s joined by spiderbait’s Kram on a duet version of Nick Cave’s ‘Henry Lee’. Even the hundreds queuing outside seem to be having a reasonable time of it.

Like Lane, the guys in Unknown Mortal Orchestra have had a hell of a year in terms of critical hosannas and international interest. Frontman Ruban Neilsen is an impressive guitar player and vocalist, his dexterity and songwriting abilities lifting this trio up and above more run-of-the-mill garage rock outfits. What’s more impressive still is the “former” Mint Chicks member and his bandmates are clearly running this project their own way. There’s nothing contrived or manufactured about this music, but it’s still catchy as hell. Single ‘Ffunny Ffriends’ gets a rousing cheer from all in attendance.

Over to the Big Top stage for Iva Davies’ Icehouse, or more accurately in this incarnation, Flowers, as the band were once called before threats of a lawsuit made Davies change the original name to the title of his debut album. Opening with the LP title track ‘Icehouse’, the vocals are initially lost in the mix and the drums swamp the stage sound but at least the levels improve as this entertaining set unfolds. ‘We Can Get Together’ is tremendous fun, as are the covers of Iggy Pop’s ‘Funtime’ and T-Rex’s ‘Get It On’. (Flowers once had the reputation of being Sydney’s best covers band, too.) ‘Love in Motion’, ‘Walls’ and ‘Fatman’ all appear; the last track featuring co-founder and ex-bassist in the group, Keith Welsh, now better known for his managerial acumen in the music business. Accusations of a certain amount of dagginess could be leveled – the age of some of those involved, the visuals, Davies’ instructions about how to dance the pogo – but like CW Stoneking, it appeals to a broad cross-section.

Now to the highlight of the day: The Triffids and friends performing on the Dome stage. Having seen them play a three-hour show some years back, I am curious as to how they will winnow back their roster of favourites to a 60-minute setlist. Mick Harvey kicks things off with a dramatic reading of ‘The Seabirds’, before stepping back into the band on vibraphone, backing Oh Mercy’s Alexander Gow and the Blackeyed Susans’ Rob Snarksi on ‘Estuary Bed’. (Gow misses his opening cue but manages to hang on and acquit himself.) When keyboardist Jill Birt joins Harvey in a clangorous version of ‘Chicken Killer’, the set choices are starting to look familiar: the band is playing their most esteemed album, Born Sandy Devotional, in its original running order. It’s a fantastic surprise to those there.

Some have seemed to miss the point of The Triffids’ infrequent reunion shows – it’s really just a group of close friends occasionally paying tribute to a dear departed sibling and friend – and I wish those armchair critics could see this set today, particularly when the tall and striking UK singer Simon Breed takes the microphone for a breathtaking run at ‘Lonely Stretch’, ‘Wide Open Road’ and ‘Stolen Property’. The band sounds by turns fierce and delicate and David McComb’s superlative music lives again.

Contemporaries of both Icehouse and The Triffids, The Church take a very different approach to their performance today. This is not a mere joust at the past, playing hits and old favourites and giving the audience an easy ride. The Church’s muse has more slippery and less definable qualities, but to their credit it’s an ongoing concern, not simply a dusty artifact fixed and frozen like a fossil in amber. If you were open to their brave approach – to a setlist that took in the new, as well as the old, and a performance that showed exquisite instrumental interplay between Steve Kilbey and guitarists Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes – then you’d leave this show happy. But otherwise it might have seemed a little dull, due to less-familiar material like ‘Sealine’ and ‘Cobalt Blue’ and incessant soloing on ‘You Took’ and ‘Tantalized’. Me, I liked it so much I lost track of time and missed Pnau – from opener ‘Aura’ to a closing (perhaps conciliatory) ‘Under the Milky Way’ and ‘Reptile’. I hadn’t planned on seeing The Church’s forthcoming tour but now I won’t miss it.

In contrast, Grinderman’s approach is beginning to wear me down. As necessary as I’m sure the band is to Nick Cave’s muse – the slutty carnality of the guitar-whipped Grinderman balancing out against the desperate grace of his piano-composed material for The Bad Seeds - the second Grinderman album felt much less substantial than the first, with neither approaching The Bad Seeds at their peak. But Nick Cave is nothing if not a consummate live performer, and he, Martyn Casey, Warren Ellis and Jim Sclavunos certainly turn up the heat for this last main stage show of the night. Cave screams his lungs raw on ‘No Pussy Blues’ and ‘Worm Tamer’ and scurries in and out of the audience like a rat up a drainpipe. The band sound furiously loud and in complete control of their maelstrom. Shame there's not more people watching.

As the festival draws to a close, Cut Copy are reportedly killing it at the Big Top stage, playing to a young crowd spilling out of a huge tent. Some of those who cannot fit in the Big Top wander downhill to look at Grinderman but none of them seems to stay very long. Unsurprising, really, it’s been like that all day.

Perhaps the time has come for Homebake to reevaluate its definition of “classic” independent Australian music and help unearth some pop, dance, funk and hip-hop outfits that could form a more acceptable bridge to the past for today’s young music fans? What do you think - Severed Heads, Essendon Airport, Cybotron, Itch-E and Scratch-E, Skippy the Butcher, and Renee Geyer performing Ready to Deal in full for Homebake 2012? Perhaps that line-up might need a little more work, but a different and complementary approach to Homebake’s programming warrants consideration, if only to encourage the next generation of Australian music fans to more readily connect with the heritage acts Homebake admirably offers.

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