- The day dawned on Sunday 12 February just as pictured in an event organisers dream – sunny, hot, hardly a cloud in the sky. With weather like that it was no wonder people came from everywhere to flood the ticket booth and buy a last minute ticket for the Good Vibrations Festival.
With the day being so hot a lot of people stuck it out at home a little longer and the crowd at Good Vibrations seemed to swell from around 3pm onwards when the internationals began gracing the different stages. This year’s festival offered fewer stages than last year’s, which meant less mad running from stage to stage for me, but also less artists and DJs on my hit list to see. This year the Roots Stage was found at the back of the stage (a hugely popular site for brave/mad fence jumpers who could not stand to miss the tempting action any longer), the Main stage was in the Music Bowl, the Laundry stage was down behind the main stage, and the B-Bar tent was in an isolated corner next to the main gate entrance.
While this year’s festival offered the usual diverse and out there lineup, without a doubt the hugest draw card for Good Vibrations 2006 was the headliner, The Godfather of Soul, James Brown. I believe it was James’ billing that attracted a much wider audience to the event than in past years. Good or bad, there were certainly a lot more fashionistas in the audience this year. Maybe they’re branching out to parties other than Summadayze now?
I started my festival experience at the Roots Stage, where I was to spend most of the day. Bahamadia was a perfect start to the music. She was wearing her Philly shirt loud and proud and chatted with the audience between rhymes, engaging us with how she was enjoying the tour and the sunshine rather than the snow at home. Her MCing was top notch, and worked well with her backing DJ. While she showed her hip hop experience and heritage, she also plugged her new album ''Good Rap Music'' to any new fans out there. I might be one of them!
Breakestra were definitely one of the big highlights of the day for me. I’m just beginning to awake to how good funk can be when played by people like The Bamboos and Quantic Soul Orchestra. Breakestra are of the same ilk, but add a dash of hip hop in there and maybe a little more fun and freeform action. They had a 7 piece band for this tour that the crowd was digging. In the spirit of the new Johnny Cash tribute movie they threw in their version of “Walk The Line” which drew even bigger smiles from an already happy and dancing crowd in the sound shell and half way up the grassy slope of the Music Bowl. This was music to just let go to and soak up on a gorgeous sunny afternoon.
Next up it was time to see a British artist in action after feeling like I’d caught up with the American scene. Estelle had a great stage setup to showcase her MCing with two back up vocalists, a bass player, and two DJs on decks and effects. She had the Roots stage rocking to a hip hop groove with her melodic sounds and words. I’d heard good things about Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli who was being accompanied on stage by Jean Grae, but after the glory of Estelle, Talib just didn’t hook me. Maybe it was all about female hip hop artists for me that day, but the sound of Estelle’s set up was far superior to Talib’s DJ backing, and we just didn’t get enough of Jean.
FreQ Nasty had the breaks heads in the palm of his hands down at the Laundry stage, since he was the only breakbeat DJ on the bill for the day. His set included a sample of Kelis’ “Milkshake” and lots of reggae sounds. I can’t believe how many kilograms of hair he must tote around on his head. In anycase he left some breaks fans asking him if they could bear his children, they were THAT enamoured of his tunes!
The most fun set of the day was without a doubt the mad mashup that was Z-Trip (or Zeeeee-Trip if you pronounce it like he does!) I’ve not heard a set like this since the last time I saw The Nextmen, whose set in the rammed B-Bar unfortunately overlapped with Z-Trip on the Roots Stage. So what did Z-Trip play? He opened with Dolly Parton! Yep, "Ohhh Lord, won''t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?" kicked off the fun, followed closely by Oasis “Wonderwall”, Jurassic 5 “Quality Control”, songs by Rage Against the Machine, Jackson Five, Beastie Boys "Momma Said Knock You Out", and David Bowie. Z-Trip also delighted the crowd by acknowledging Australia through music and had the huge crowd signing along to Men At Work “Land Downunder” and ACDC “TNT”. There was also heaps of scratching and turntable tricks going on, more than enough to enthrall DJs close enough to the front to see (and maybe learn!?)
For the second half of Z-Trip’s show he was joined on stage by the absolutely amazing, highly talented MC Supernatural of The Roots. The music took a backstage from that point and it was all about the rhyme again for the first time in what seemed like ages on the Roots Stage. MC Supernatural just had you hooked on every word coming from his mouth. To show he doesn’t take himself too seriously he did a great game where every time he spun around, he’d face you doing an impersonation of another MC eg Snoop Dogg. This was awesome, taking MCing to a new level with a little physical comedy and sense of humour. He finished his set by jumping down into the pit between the barrier and the stage and issuing a challenge that he was the greatest rhymer on earth and he’d prove it. Thus he set about spitting on everything and anything he could see from the pit, objects people were holding up, wearing, saying to him up so close. It all worked perfectly and you had no doubts about his skill by the end. Notch up MC Supernatural as one of my new favourites!
As soon as Z-Trip and MC Supernatural finished there was a mass exodus to see James Brown at the main stage. Since I had come to Good Vibrations primarily to see Brazilian drum’n’bass DJ Marky, I was very happy to be able to go right up to close to the stage with loads of room to dance. Throughout Marky’s set he drew them back from the main stage though to finish the night with a huge d’n’b frenzy. It was a pity though that delays throughout the day meant a late start for Marky and only a one hour set instead of 1.5 hours. With this in mind DJ Marky did not muck around, and from the moment he dropped the needle it was clear that we were going to get straight into it and it was time for a dose of d’n’b at Good Vibrations!
I took a quick break from Marky to go see James Brown. I’ll admit I only gave him two songs to win me over, and they weren’t my favourites. I can’t handle the patriotism of “Living in America” and the two dancing girls draped in USA flags didn’t help. He had a huge backing band that played very well and a quartet of female backing vocalists. He looked every inch the showman with his glittery red suit and still can do some nifty dance moves. Well, I can now say that I’ve seen James Brown (as well as Nirvana and Jeff Buckley), but I’ll leave it to the fans to speak raptures of how they enjoyed the Godfather of Soul.
I was more interested in contemporary sounds and raced back to see my much awaited DJ Marky and soak up as much of that Latin sounding d’n’b as I could. By now the crowd was much larger as many had returned to see Marky and Stamina MC. I know Marky’s music mostly through his productions, but what really surprised me and I don’t think I’d given it prior thought was how good his technical skills were. He was scratching away, cutting up effects and mixing tracks so perfectly I was just in awe. All the time he was doing this he was dancing away in time with the music, completely into it from the first song! Stamina MC was a great match to Marky and keep things flowing with his rhymes. All too soon it was time for them to finish though and they closed with just a fleeting part of “LK” to make the fans smile. I hope DJ Marky comes back again soon as I am hanging for a 3 hours set crafted by him. In turn he was happy with his reception in Melbourne, as the previous night in Brisbane they’d had few fans to play to while competing against James Brown.
Overall this year’s Good Vibrations didn’t rate as high for me as past events, but each year I welcome the opportunity to experience many acts completely new to me, especially the live ones, and the chance to see long awaited DJs whose work I admire. This year I wasn’t let down and if anything had a more relaxing time than previous years. Thanks Jam Music!