HARVEST ROCK II - Adelaide 2023
Day 1 - Saturday 28th October - Rymill Park
Written by: Bec Scheucher - Sense Music Media
Photos by: Bronwen Caple >> VIEW GALLERY
For a lot of regular music festival goers, it’s purely the vibe they go for. The line-up of artists is merely a secondary consideration of what background music will be on offer for a whole day of soaking in that special atmosphere and energy. Then there are people like myself, who analyse and scrutinise the line-up, summing up the costs versus benefits and wondering if it is worth summoning the will to endure a day long onslaught of human traffic and the cash to afford it.
When Harvest Rock announced the line-up for its second year, it was definitely a rich and diverse offering but I’ll be honest, no one expected Saturday’s headliner JAMIROQUAI to absolutely mop the floor with everyone, and that is just the beginning. From weeping in solidarity with THELMA PLUM to VERA BLUE suddenly growing wings while covering ENYA, the weekend was crammed with top tier performances and special moments that made the entire 2-day endurance event a roaring success. As Dennis Denuto said; It’s the vibe of the thing.
Strolling in past the comically large cherries offering some very creative photo opportunities for guests, day one was a cracker day with no sideways rain in sight like last year. Rymill Park was buzzing with a healthy crowd ranging from young families to hoards of festival bros. LADYHAWKE had taken the stage surprisingly early in the day for her banging electro indie pop, going full send on the synths. Although I thought she would have been placed better in a later time slot, the energy she brought to the afternoon was perfect and a good act to kick the day of dancing into gear. Sadly my tardiness had prevented me from starting my day with Adelaide legends BAD/DREEMS, who by all accounts put on a rager, but nevertheless, I got a good little boogie in to LADYHAWKE on the Vines stage delivering hits such as ‘From Dusk to Dawn’ and ‘My Delirium’.
Two stages were strategically placed across from each other with a whole lot of food and wine in between and a pretty sweet VIP area perched up behind the bowling club, offering an elevated view of the Harvest stage with some very cushy seating. The vantage points were vast, and the beauty of the set up was that you could still see these stages from the various food villages, so you don’t miss anything while getting a coffee or meal. Although considerably smaller and completely different music, the festival had a definite WOMAD feel to it with the way it was presented. There was a massive range of high quality food and wine on the menu from food trucks, local businesses and primary producers.
Making my way over to the Harvest Stage I was treated to THE ROLLING STONES REVUE featuring some of the coolest cats in Australian rock who had dominated the 90s. As Tex Perkins covered ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, such a perfect track for him and his mad seductive stage chemistry, I naturally gravitated towards the front where I noticed the AUSLAN interpreter to the side dominating the set with his incredible dance moves. It became apparent that the real rockstar was him as the crowd were transfixed by his amazing presence. With a full band including saxophone, bongos and organ keys, the sound was so rich that it delivered a flawless tribute to the classic tracks. Tim Rogers and Adalita performed ‘You can’t always get what you want’ with Adalita looking and sounding incredible (does that woman even age?) and Rogers… looking like he had actually just come from Woodstock 1969.
A couple more bangers ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘(I can’t get no) Satisfaction’ were delivered before it was time to watch WARPAINT at the Vines stage and seek my own shelter from the high afternoon sun before CHROMEO started their incredibly energetic and high-quality set. The crowd multiplied rapidly for CHROMEO before there was a sea of bopping and everyone was well and truly in the dancing mood. I could hear OCEAN ALLEY’s signature coastal groove happening in the distance, but this was a party I didn’t want to leave… so I made that sacrifice while enjoying the fast-paced happy electro funk. A group of small children had discovered a patch of dirt in front of me and had decided to cover themselves in it - because obviously these festivals allow for such joyful nonsense for adults and kids alike. My favourite moment was watching a little girl on her Dad’s shoulders with very cool hot pink ear protection engage the entire set, bopping along the whole time.
Narrowly avoiding BERNARD FANNING’s set which had attracted a large crowd to the Harvest stage but wasn’t matching the vibe I was on, I got myself front and centre for THELMA PLUM, who had already blown me away at Spin Off a few months back. She started her set singing evocative track ‘The Brown Snake’ to a modest crowd of loyal fans that rapidly grew to a full audience as her sweet twirly Disney princess voice carried across the park. Thelma’s performances are always emotional, and she nails that adorable dramatic pout of hers, but this performance in particular was extraordinarily moving and historically significant. Playing for the first time since The Vote, she choked up during the first verse of ‘Homecoming Queen’ before I felt the full weight of it and had to process the outcome and everything I had personally been avoiding right there in the middle of her set. As a proud Gamilaraay woman and an incredibly powerful voice for women of colour, THELMA PLUM expressed through her set the mental and spiritual impact the outcome has had on our First Nation people. It was raw, honest and absolutely devastating. Thelma reached out to her audience with grief and vulnerability and many of us wept with her before she took the power back with inspirational belter ‘Better in Blak’ while the crowd cheered and sang in solidarity. There are sometimes key powerful moments in live music, and this one is honestly top of my list. Plum’s career has taken off and she is an absolute force that will only get louder and more influential as she moves forward with her incredible storytelling and music.
After that emotional rollercoaster, I ventured over to the Harvest stage to find my friends gathered to get down and filthy to NILE RODGERS and CHIC performing some educational medleys of modern music. I was unaware that what I was watching was legitimately music royalty, Rodgers being responsible for an enormous catalogue of pop music, having written popular hits for massive acts from DIANA ROSS to MADONNA. The highlight for me however was the performance of tracks from DAFT PUNK’s five-time Grammy award winning pivitol album Random Access Memories with my personal favourite, rhythmically intoxicating track ‘Lose Yourself To Dance’ which well and truly got the endorphins going. It was an incredible sounding set and a far more important one to watch than I could have imagined. Educational, elevating and sublimely surprising, it was one of those acts I didn’t know I had to make a point of seeing and I’m so glad I did. Everyone was moving and having a good time, and the energy had well and truly peaked. A couple of us broke free to check out the FLIGHT FACILITIES DJ set which mixed a bunch of classic bangers from ABBA to TOTO, keeping us moving and thankfully warming us up for the final act from JAMIROQUAI which unexpectedly blew up Rymill Park.
JAMIROQUAI was not an act on my radar to ever see perform live, they were to me a distant memory of the 90s, like low rider jeans. They were a good fit back then, but I had left them far behind in that era. Frontman Jay Kay commented that when he was told he was to follow NILE RODGERS he had a heart attack- and rightly so. However, the obvious consensus was that JAMIROQUAI exceeded expectations, and while all accounts of his live performances over the years is that Jay Kay is an amazing performer backed by a wildly sophisticated and prestigious band, I was still blown away. The only thing that I wish had been left in the 90s was Kay’s ridiculous purple sparkly Native America head gear, and someone should have schooled him on that before emerging in 2023 to play a festival… but aside from the unfortunate cultural appropriation I could not fault this performance as he maintained his pitch and stage chemistry the entire hour long set.
The full festival crowd had gathered to the Harvest stage bursting with joyful energy and dancing gleefully. I danced so hard in fact that I did my bad hip in, before glancing to the stage wondering how on earth JAMIROQUAI was still going when the music they were playing was released before I was even a teenager. Nevertheless, I powered on, transmitting on that frequency while hit after hit of that special London white boy soul and funk that miraculously penetrated the mainstream airwaves in my youth evoked some intense nostalgia - and a lot of merriment. The multi-instrumental set up with full brass and strings even featured a grand piano bellowing the opening keys for closing track ‘Virtual Insanity’ and made the whole thing just unbelievably juicy, while the high value quality production justified that steep ticket price.
Not one audience member was disappointed, and what a lot of people assumed might be an average but acceptable set from a band that had their hey day over 30 years ago turned out to be the crowning performance to what was a very successful first day. So successful in fact that I limped my very over danced old body home praying that I would wake up refreshed and mobile for another whole day of dancing and carrying on. It was exhausting, but the most satisfied I have been after a music festival for a very long time. It seems that Harvest Rock had managed to deliver more than anyone could have anticipated both with its execution and performances.
