Big
Tonight I was transported back in time to a golden age. A time when people actually acknowledge each other, will smile at you as you walk past them on the street, will exchange pleasantries and general vibes with strangers, where people will go out of their way to be pleasant and where a community comes together to put on an actual living, breathing street festival.
I am talking about Big Sound and I am in love. Like, where was this hiding my entire life? To think that there was an annual community centric live music festival exploiting an actual entertainment precinct, in this day and age, is shocking and beyond awesome.
As I wandered from venue to venue tonight seeing diverse and wide ranging music sets from artists from around Australia and New Zealand (seriously, even Tasmania was represented), I was struck with nostalgic feeling of Sydney’s King Cross at the height of its heyday, and a promise of what could have been if successive NSW Governments hadn’t completely killed their nightlife with the ridiculous lockout laws, from which Sydney has never really recovered.
Fortitude Valley in full bloom, on a Tuesday night no less, is a sight to behold and the only other night that comes close to the positive vibes coming from the crowd was attending a gig in the Valley on Halloween last year which was bigger than usual as it fell on a Friday night.
Big Sound, as a festival, is a riotous collection of music styles and artists of various popularity and career points. The conference by day and music showcase by night has been masterfully put together by QMusic, the imaginatively named Queensland Music Industry Development Association and if the Ekka serves the purpose of being a love letter to rural Queensland, Big Sound serves as a love letter to Brisbane’s live music scene.
The festival is spread across 13 live music venues (with some venues having multiple stages), all located within easy walking distance from each other and centred around the beating heart of Fortitude Valley, that being the colourful Brunswick St Mall.
It was great to experience a couple of new venues (new in the sense I hadn’t managed to see a gig in them previously), and the sheer number of sets and venues meaning that I had to crack out a spreadsheet and do some pre-planning to make sure I hit the sets I really wanted to see and triage the other opportunities to fill an absolutely packed metaphorical dance card.
I was ambitious in setting my itinerary for the first night with seven sets chosen between 5:10pm and 11:45pm. Unfortunately, my main job got in the way and whereas I had planned to make it to the Valley to see Vincent perform a Big Sound adjacent set at the Royal George Hotel at 5:10pm, it was, alas, not to be. I ended up getting to the Valley at a very pedestrian 6:45pm. Leaving me copious amounts of time to get to Wonderland (633 Ann St) to see a first up set performed by Tanisha that was scheduled for 7:30pm.
Wonderland is an interesting venue. It has two stages for the Big Sound festival, the first being Downstairs and the second (you guessed it) Upstairs. It’s a smallish venue that normally serves, form I can gather, as an R&B Club. The floors were suitably sticky giving credence to the aforementioned theory, and there were a number of booths where on a normal night you can get premium bottle service and VIP treatment.
Tanisha suited the venue well, with her style and genre that of R&B and Soul, apparently with blending of contemporary R&B with subtle UK influences (lets be clear here, this blog is really my political/ideological musings dressed up with a thin veneer of music criticism and asserted journalistic attempts – I have no idea what subtle UK influences is meant to sound like). Regardless, Tanisha was a great introduction to Big Sound for me. He set was filled with feeling and was a delight to witness.
I have to say, 30 minute sets (which seems to be the standard for this festival, aside from some late night DJ sets), sets a good compromise between giving artists the chance to shine and really showcase their skills whilst balancing a large number of artists also looking to perform.
Due to my military style itinerary, I had to rush off as Tanisha was finishing her set, to get to my next appointment, that being Zipporah who was doing the 8:00pm set on the Big Sound Mall stage. Zipporah also performs contemporary R&B and performed a standout set blending her rich indigenous heritage into her lyrical narratives to pull at the heartstrings of the crowd, whilst looking both fabulous and having killer dance moves.
I think what potentially sets Big Sound apart from a normal single night concert, aside from the obvious like multiple venues and the like, is that every performer is using the opportunity to properly showcase their talent and as such are all performing with full bands. I have no idea about the economics of the festival, where single night tickets were about $50 and a three day pass was $100, with most shows seeming to have crowds of around the 50-100 person range (with a couple of notable exceptions). One would hope that the artists and their bands are being properly compensated for their time, rather than doing it for the age old reason of pure exposure. I would opine that its likely a balance between the two.
In any event, Zipporah definitely put her best foot forward with both a band and a trio of skilled back up singers that added a certain completeness to her set. Zipporah has a great stage presence, and whilst already experiencing success, appears ready for stardom.
It was at the start of the Zipporah set that I ran into one of my favourite bassists, Bridgette from Dizzy Days. Who saw me, remembered me from her gig the other weekend and came over to say hello. Luckily, I have a solid poker face (fuck off Ryan, I maintain I am actually good at poker, I just get bored and therefore purposefully reckless which has nothing to do with my poker face) and was able to keep any outward appearance of my internal fangirling to a minimum. But it was nice of Bridgette and a touching moment.
It was good to see artists hanging around and watching other people’s sets. It adds to both the atmosphere and the collegial bonds of the delegates that are there for the conference and networking portions of the festival.
Before we move to the next set, I do want to say that a Mall Stage, being the middle of a functional strip and therefore public space is always going to have unfortunate limitations and infrastructure around which the stage needs to be built. But really, the presence of a bench with two potted trees being located near the front of the crowd area for the stage is a somewhat severe limitation for the functionality of the Mall stage.
Probably absolutely nothing the organisers could do about what is obviously BCC (Brisbane City Council) infrastructure, and as such, is unreasonable criticism, but surely, considering the amounts that must be generated in ticket sales and the boost to the local economy, either QMusic or BCC could have arranged either for the stage to be in a slightly better location or have, at least, the potted trees removed for the duration of the event.
Anyways, after looking at ill-located trees for half an hour, I made my way back to Wonderland (upstairs this time) to watch a great set from Tusekah who had made the trip over from Auckland, New Zealand. I quite enjoyed the set, even if by now (that being having watched three R&B/Soul artists in a row) I was firming in my opinion that R7B/Soul is not quite my cup of tea. Regardless, I’m all about the experience these days and part of that is broadening my music listening activities, in order to ensure I don’t just fall into a singular echo chamber where I only listen to music that sounds the same for every song.
The bassist for Tusekah was particularly skilled. She would probably make for a successful disco-dance pop player.
A quick trip downstairs got me to Toy Shaw’s set on time. The full band for Toy Shaw included a fiddle player, cello, electric guitar and Toy Shaw on a banjo. Talk about an eclectic mix.
My initial impression of Toy Shaw, based on her first one to two songs, was that she was pioneering a new genre of music that would be best described as psychotic folk (I mean that in a very positive way) where it takes witchy folk a step further. I’m pretty sure Toy Shaw would take this description as a complement given her artist picture on Big Sound’s website involves her in a bikini top, jean short cutoffs, Wednesday Addam braids and holding a sickle.
In any event, her music evoked Crucible style feelings of the type of music that would spontaneously play whilst teen witches are running and dancing through a forest, or that would play after stepping into the Fae realm through a fairy ring and then being forced to dance until your feet are bloody nubs.
To be fair, by the end of the set the music had reverted to perhaps a more traditional folk (didn’t seem to be any subtle UK influences at least) genre and overall it was an interesting experience seeing what was probably the most pure of artistic expression for the evening. Credit where credit is due, Toy Shaw knows the type of music she wants to perform and whilst it is unlikely to be to everyone’s tastes, her artistic integrity absolutely should be respected and, in my opinion, it was a good set, fever dream-ish and resulting in me perhaps being a little scared of her, but overall good.
Next up was the highlight of the night. Ladyhawke at Crow Bar. I had completely forgotten about Ladyhawke and her magnificent musical ability. She had become a star just when I finished high school and started university. That being, she was absolutely integral to the development of my music tastes in some of my most formative years. Her songs My Delirium, Paris is Buring and Dusk Till Dawn are modern classics even if I am not a massive fan of some of her newer songs.
I had come across Big Sound when the line up was announced and I saw that Lara Buchanan was performing. I’ve mentioned her in a couple of blogs now (including my mid-year review of my favourite concerts in the first half of this year) and I would have attended Big Sound purely to see her perform again. However, when I was skimming the rest of the lineup and saw Ladyhawke on the list, I knew that I had to immediately buy tickets.
As such, when I was doing my scheduling for the three nights, there were a couple of absolute non-negotiables that I wanted to see and Ladyhawke was at the top of that list. And she did not disappoint. I was fortunate in being able to secure a space on the edge of the stage, and got a completely uninterrupted and close up view of Ladyhawke. To be fair, the set had a bit of a shaky start, with some apparent technical difficulties impacting her being able to hear her own vocals through her earpiece, coupled with flying in from New Zealand this morning and not having much, if any, rehearsal time.
This was compounded, to an extent, by her initial couple of songs being either about to be released or yet to be released and, in my (realistically unqualified) opinion, weaker songs. However she began to really hit her stride about halfway through the set when she performed Paris is Burning and then she didn’t look back. Really, I would have been happy with the absolutely stellar rendition of My Delirium.
Crow Bar was absolutely packed for the set, with Ladyhawke obviously being a popular choice and by far the biggest crowd I saw for a set all night.
By the end of Ladyhawke’s set it was nearly 11:00pm and I was ready to get back to the hotel, write my review and get a couple of hours of sleep before my planned breakfast networking meeting. Alas, I had one more set scheduled on my trusty spreadsheet.
I headed down to the Wickham (308 Wickham St), another new venue for me, where on the Garden Stage, Mim Jensen, the New Zealand rock ‘n’ roller was due to play a (very late for me) 11:15pm set.
And I was happy I went. Mim really is a trailblazer that showcased broad lyrical mastery in her showcase between traditional rock ‘n’ roll songs, and slower Ballards which pulled at our emotions. Mim was also well supported by a band and backing vocals which really made her music ‘pop’. She is definitely an artist ot watch and I expect big things from her.
The first day of Big Sound has set a high bar for the rest of the festival and I am excited to see what the further 16 sets I have set out in my spreadsheet schedule over the next two nights will bring!
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