I meant to post this last Monday but Telstra managed to cut off my internet and it only came back on yesterday. That's a full week without internet. Two revelations immediately jumped out at me: (1) Telstra really is that shit; and (2) I'm somewhat saddened to realise I rely on the internet a LOT. Sorry, tangent.
Last Sunday I got a last minute call with the awesome news that a friend wanted to give me really cheap V Festival tickets. I had wanted to go but couldn't justify the original $140 price tag considering I was out of work and eating into my savings whilst songwriting. So a $50 ticket made all these problems go away.
So I called my brother (who was also quite stoked) and we headed down the coast for V Fest. Now I went to V Festival last year (free ticket, how good) and was somewhat disappointed. The lineup really wasn't my thing and the festival itself was somewhat of a shambles. The stages were in weird places, it seemed really empty and technical problems were rampant. On top of that it was held on a golf course which seemed weird to me. This year it was at the same place but the layout was way better. And this year I really liked the lineup. So the festival started on a good note for me.
By the time we got there the first act we saw was M83 who are a French 80s electro band. I hadn't heard of them before and I was pleasantly surprised by their set. It was really tight and they pulled some cool sounds. One reservation I had was that they deviated from songs a little too much into instrumental atmospheric (read boring) territory. But otherwise they were a cool band.
At this point I want to point out one of the most annoying things about V Festival. And before you call me out for whining I would like to point out that everyone I spoke to about this agreed with me. The stages at V Fest are called, "This Stage" (being the main stage), "That Stage" (being the second stage), and "Other Stage" (being the smaller stage). I think there was another stage this year as well with another stupid name I can't remember. If this inane labeling of stages doesn't immediately strike you as being stupid then I'll give you a real life example of why it is. As we were waiting for some friends to come back from the bar a lady came up to us asking which stage "Madness" were playing on. The conversation went something like this (almost verbatim):
Lady: "Hi, do you know which stage Madness are playing on?"
Us: "Yeah, I think they're playing on 'That Stage'."
Lady: [pointing behind her] "Oh, is that this stage over here?"
Us: "No, that's 'This Stage'. 'That Stage' is over the hill behind the food stalls."
Lady: "Oh okay, the yellow one right."
Us: "No that's the 'Other Stage'. 'That Stage' is red."
Lady: "Which stage is red?"
Us: "'That Stage'."
Lady: "Which stage?"
Us: [now pointing] "That stage over there."
Lady: "And that's called 'This Stage' right?"
Us: No! [conversation continued further but you get the idea]
If you think that's confusing to read, try talking it to someone where you can't see which words are in quotation marks. In short, stupidest naming of stages ever. And it's one of those things where the organisers have obviously just tried to be clever and cool but all that's achieved by it is confusing, circular conversations like the one above.
So that conversation ended after about five minutes and the lady, now somewhat sure of which stage to go to, said she was off to find her husband. Almost on cue her husband emerged from the bar towards us. No joke, he was the biggest human being I have ever seen in my life. And I don't mean like overweight big, I mean like enormous 6'8" built like a tank muscular huge man big. I think he was probably three times my size. Intimidating to say the least. The lady then told him, "They're laughing at me," while she pointed at us. Needless to say I nearly required the spare pair of boxers that I hadn't brought with me and was about to say, "Hey, we were laughing with you," in order to prevent death by enormous man, when he shrugged his shoulders and headed towards 'That Stage'. I valued life a little bit more after that encounter.
We then made our way over to 'This Stage' (see how excruciatingly annoying the stage names are) to see Kaiser Chiefs. The next thing I want to point out about V Fest is that they suck at putting a timetable together. The three headlining bands were The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs and Snow Patrol. I personally like all those bands and wanted to see all those bands. And it's a pretty safe bet that everyone who is a fan of one of those bands is probably going to want to see all three, just like me. Well to sabotage everyone's plans here V Fest decided to timetable it so that Kaiser Chiefs (on 'This Stage') overlapped a little with Snow Patrol (on 'That Stage') who overlapped again with The Killers (on 'This Stage' - sorry I've taken it a bit far now haven't I?). Awesome! So I was faced with a big decision. Do I see every band and cut their sets short of do I ditch one of them to see the others in full? Earnest conversation ensued between myself and the people I was with. In the end my brother and I decided that we wanted to see The Killers more than anything else and so it was worth missing out on Snow Patrol. The other friends I was with took the (I would say 'rookie error') path of seeing all three.
Anyway Kaiser Chiefs were really good. I'd seen them at Splendour two years ago and they were way better this time. When lead singer Ricky Wilson took the stage I wondered for a moment whether the band had replaced him with someone else. He had lost that much weight. Now it's not as though he was really overweight before but he was solid, and now he was like skinny. Almost unrecognisable from a distance.
Anyway fast forward. Kaiser Chiefs ended, some people made a mad dash to see Snow Patrol and my brother and I made a mad dash to get as close to the stage as possible for The Killers. And at last I get to the point of this blog.
When The Killers brought out their debut 'Hot Fuss' in 2004 it became, and still is, one of my favourite albums. Next came 'Sam's Town' which, while it had some really killer tracks, for me anyway, wasn't as good as the first. Last year, 'Day & Age' came out, their third and latest album. On first listen I didn't really like it at all. Actually that's not entirely true. I really enjoyed the first single, 'Human', but felt let down by the rest of the album. And for some still unknown to me reason, I didn't really give it the repeat listens it probably deserved leaving the impression that it wasn't that great an album. So I came to the festival not knowing how the new songs were going to go in the live set.
For the record, I am ashamed that I didn't give one of my favourite bands more credit. From the first song The Killers absolutely ripped up the stage. Brandon Flowers is now one of my heroes. From the moment he walked out on stage he owned it. His look, his voice, the way he moved around - it was all hero worthy. The crowd was going crazy and singing every lyric as loud as they possibly could. Towards the end of the set it started pelting with rain and everyone just went more nuts. Dave Keuning, the guitarist, was on the side of stage where the rain was coming in but he just stood up on his fold back wedges and copped it head on. Ronnie Vannucci Jr. is one of the maddest drummers going around as well. All in all it was one of the best sets I'd seen. And I'd seen The Killers headline the Entertainment Centre in 2007 but their set this time was so much better. I think partly to do with the fact that the Entertainment Centre sucks and partly to do with the fact they had an off night in '07.
So I left the festival a happy man, immediately went home and listened to 'Day & Age' again with fresh ears and an open mind, and realised that it is a really good album.
But most importantly Brandon Flowers is now in my hero list. He's the man.
Here's a photo from the fest. And no I didn't take it, I was busy going nuts in the front row!!
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