Playground Weekender in Review (2010)

25 February 2010 by Max Easton

Nestled amongst the banks of the Hawkesbury River, the Playground Weekender is Sydney’s only regularly run remaining live-in festival. Leigh Plover and Max Easton were on site to capture the goings-on.

The Playground Weekender has been a festival story book since its inception four years ago. Having first stepped onto the festival site in 2007 from a 20-person capacity mini-ferry as the first load of attendees the festival ever had, it was easy to see that a lot had changed in that period of time. Each year has taken on a new dose of preparation; with the stages of progressively higher quality, the festival layout improving beyond sight and a large portion of previous complaints accounted for. So it was with much enthusiasm that we arrived for 2010 in a catamaran, ticket in hand for Playground Weekender number four.

The immediate feeling you get as you start setting up your tent is the fact that the vibe really is as good as people always said it was. Amongst the handful of wankers and tools necessary to run a festival were thousands of incredibly chilled and sociable people dawdling the festival grounds, seeing music, drinking booze and generally just having an awesome time. By the end of the weekend, we’d made a half dozen new acquaintances, drank whiskey on the banks of the river, found someone sleeping in my tent and been openly busted surgically removing a collection of dust from the nostrils – it had very quickly become one of the most sociable festivals any of us had attended, a fact that in hindsight, stands pretty damn true for previous years as well.

And there was music at this thing too. Playground caters to a wide range of tastes, the crux of which is the dance and DJ scene, a scene which is so far detached from what we’re used to (Orbitalwho?) that we essentially spent the weekend as aural amputees. Thankfully though, amongst the stacks of DJ’s pulling crowds who we would never, ever understand, there existed a handful of brilliant artists who put together some of the finest festival sets I’d seen (which is a statement not normalized to the degree of alcohol induced enthusiasm.) From sizeable internationals like OK GO, Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Polyphonic Spree to Australian newcomer’s the Black Ryder and Megan Washington, there were enough great sets of music to more than justify the purchase of a ticket.

Friday shaped up as the mildest day of the weekend before the driving, sunburning, dehydrating sun flavoured Saturday and Sunday for the worst. The day was quiet on the music front, with the heat already keeping people away from the main stage and the dance sensibilities of the majority keeping them in the big top for a series of DJ sets. This left Australian acts the Holidays and King Tide with mild turn-outs, made up for by a swindle of indie and reggae sensibilities respectively. After the sun had set over the edge of the tree-lined cliff faces surrounding the festival site, the Playground Weekender was in for the treat of the original viral sensation, OK GO, followed by US cult legends, the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

OK GO are known for their dabbles in cleverly choreographed video clips, the creative side of which didn’t fail a soul for their festival set. Showcasing anything from a camera attached to a microphone to a series of fluffy guitars with lasers on them, the picture has been pretty well painted. Yes, laser guitars with frills. Unfortunately for OK GO, their unique live experiments occasionally failed, with the sound team unable to keep up with Damian Kulash’s guitar venture into the crowd and a choreographed bell routine ‘for the convicts’ falling short of whatever they were expecting to come of it. All that aside though, and they had thrown together a phenomenally cool set that was not only unique visually, but aurally also – with a great set of indie rock loaded with stilted tempo and catchy hooks, a minor contrast to what was to follow in the form of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. BJM had sound issues of their own, with vocals set ridiculously low, balance and bass issues and sound bleed from a stage set too close all tarnishing a set which was otherwise awesome. It was enough to have me with a hand in my empty wallet attempting to purchase a side show ticket only to have the credit card declined; which $8 beers have a tendency of doing.

Saturday heated up a couple of notches, removed the minor cloud cover and sent anyone who ventured near the main stage for the finest day of music scrambling for shade some hundred metres from the speakers. The attraction of the ice cold Hawkesbury river left us absent for a set by Manchoir, one which became a minor festival legend as countless passersby recounted lines sung by the comedy troupe. Local act Cameras soon followed with a solid set leading into Sydney newcomers the Black Ryder, the band who we were the most enthused about leading into the festival on account of the passing around of their debut album ‘Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride’ through the Soulshine offices. And by offices, we mean a pub somewhere in Brisbane. The Black Ryder were everything you could ever hope for from a live performance of what was one of the finest Australian albums of 2009. Translating its essence to the stage was no easy feat, but one that they took on with enough vigour to leave the small crowd pretty flipping impressed. There were enough signs in this short festival set that the Black Ryder will be making some pretty massive motions internationally, something we’re extremely excited about seeing.

By nightfall, an incident during the set of ABBA covers band Bjorn Again had slowed down the running of the stage. By the time Johnny Marr had walked out with English pop band the Cribs (who delivered nothing but confusion as to why they had been hyped at all aside from the inclusion of one of music’s biggest names to their line-up) the sound stage was almost an hour behind schedule with some extremely panicked scuttling carried out by the sound techs. These woes were put aside by the Polyphonic Spree, who stood as one of the most reputable live acts on the line-up. Somehow cramming around 20 artists on stage, they played an uplifting set of covers and originals, soaring across the Hawkesbury air and smearing Cheshire cat grins across the masses. It was a set that reeked of innocence and acceptance, where the only thing you wanted to do after seeing that band play was to hug something. For that hour, all the DJ-crowd cynicism that had brewed throughout the weekend vapourised, replaced instead by a subtle feeling of music-induced euphoria…a feeling that dragged itself through to the first quarter of the wait for Lupe Fiasco. That, of course, didn’t last long…and either did we when we went back to camp at the time he was timetabled to finish. Unfortunately, after much fucking around on stage, Fiasco lived up to his name by appearing almost an hour after he was supposed to finish, something that was eventually tracked back to a slip-up by a sound tech before Bjorn Again…which is a lot of bullshit to put up with for a set of ABBA songs.

Sunday peddled along slowly, with searing heat again the theme of the day. We managed to brave it to catch Aussie hip-hop newcomer Kid Mac from the distance of the shade before drinking the heat away until the arrival of Megan Washington. Washington was another of the festival’s highlights, playing a mixture of tracks from her three EP’s to those who could find room in the sparse afternoon shade at the front 30 metres of the stage. Having learnt our lesson from year’s prior, our stuff was packed and ready…the previously several hour ferry wait for home lessened to 10 minutes as we farewelled the festival via a float down the middle of the stunningly scenic Hawkesbury River by sunset.

The Playground Weekender is and always was one of the most fun festivals on Australia’s festival calendar. Having come from an extremely quiet first year and gradually built to something that is now its own institution, the folks behind Playground have given a superb example of how to build a festival successfully from scratch in today’s flooded festival market. As is the case every year, the major gripe is still the over-abundance of DJ and dance acts VS live bands, but it’s coming increasingly prevalent that they’re finding their own niche within the Good Vibes crowd, and you can’t really criticise based off a matter of taste. With their fifth anniversary arriving in 2011 due to bring back almost anyone who has ever enjoyed the festival, Playground is set for another round of improvement; something that we’re very, very much looking forward to lining up for in February next year.

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