Review – Future Music Festival – Perth 2008
Absconding from a nearby East Perth residence, we arrived just in time to see Elite Force in full flight. Simply amazing. His mixes were perfect, his selection was second to none and the energy he displayed behind the decks was commendable. It’s always great to see someone playing who is enjoying themselves as much as the crowd, and as the first set of the day, it was a remarkable introduction to the festival – yet it was, upon reflection, the best set of the entire festival.
Evil Nine followed on from Elite Force, and he played a more than competent set. The difference being, that instead of the cut-cut angle of Elite Force, Evil Nine tended to let the tracks ride out and it did tend to lower the energy levels a little. That said, he is a great performer, and he really did pull out some great tunes and he had the crowd pumping all the way through to the end.
Aesop Rock, the set of the day that this reviewer was most excited about. As a long term fan, there was no other set that had the anticipation of a good time than this one Honestly though, these festival people really need to start employing sound engineers who have a clue about the genre they are supposed to be mixing – whoever was behind the desk was crap. The engineers lost almost half the crowd in disgust. Stopping a song half way to tell engineers to get their act together, then leaving the stage at the end scowling is pretty piss-poor. He played a many of his popular tracks, and when the sound and the vocals were audible and not drowned out by reverb, you feel the power behind his lyrics Please, Aesop Rock, return to Perth and perform proper set, with proper engineers, and you will see our appreciation – it wasn’t your fault.
Not being a fan of techno, it was with amazement that Sven Vath actually moved my feet. With a wide range of tracks and not more than a little quirkiness, he had a field of people welcoming in the night with his unique performance – and thankfully it wasn’t the boring, droning techno he usually plays but rather some nicely accessible party styles. Not to mention that the man is a maniac, throwing himself physically into the set with abandon. The man’s crazy, but very cool.
The rest of the day was a mish-mash of moments and disinterest. Eddie Halliwell sounded almost tempting to dance to, but not enough. Digweed, well, I guess people could have reached for the lasers, if they could see them. Is he really suited to the daylight? Mark Knight seemed to play some interesting tunes for a little while, but not enough to keep my feet planted. The Electro tent .. Datarock was smashing for the fifteen minutes of viewing but a lot of the music coming out of there was just too cliche-nu-rave-fluro-must-die for my liking.
Chemical Brothers. So. Damn. Slow. There was very little momentum to them, and gathering from the swaying of so many of the other people in the crowd this wasn’t a singular view. Sure, they played Galvanise, and Hey boy, hey girl but so what? Also, where was Block Rockin Beats? The visuals were appealing, especially the lasers, but the evil blood dripping clown wasn’t cool years ago at the Big Day Out, and it wasn’t cool this time. I don’t want to be stare at fucked up images like that while I’m (attempting to) dance – and why are they rehashing old visuals? It also sounded pretty muddy from out location, which was quite close. They were as big a let down as Aesop Rocks set. Chemical Brothers, retire gracefully – the party’s over.
Leaving Chemical Brothers to see some Marcus Schultz – it was just way too fluffy. Then caught the last of Juniors set at the Future Funk stage – d’n’b at Future! Well, a nice mix of a few Hip-Hop/RNB tunes and d’n’b that is – and with Xsessiv on the mic it was a nice ending to an otherwise extremely mediocre day, and Junior is definitely talented.
It seems that these events have just lost something that they used to have – and that was the sense that when you went to the gig, that you were going to see and hear things that you never had before. This just doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, because it’s a sure enough thing that the majority of people there should have just stayed at home and got fucked up in their living rooms, listening to a Summer Dance compilation CD. The music just wasn’t anything that we haven’t heard a hundred times before. The space of Wellington Square is good, but the sound bleed between stages is terrible. Just because everyone was trashed, that there were lots of people there, or that some big “ravey’ names were playing doesn’t really change the fact that Future Music was possibly the most mediocre festival of the entire summer.
Tags: aesop rock, chemical brothers, datarock, digweed, eddie halliwell, elite force, evil nine, festival, future music, junior, marcus schultz, mark knight, xsessiv