Monday, April 09, 2007
Yesterday Jenny, Alison & I headed down the Victorian coast to the Point Nepean Music Festival. It was awesome! 12 hours, 2 stages and lots of lots of artists! We started off seeing Dallas Frasca. She's pretty full on! I do love her music though. She has a real raw passion which you don't see often in women on stage. She plays really gusty roots music that certainly isn't background noise. It demands to be listened to!
After seeing Dallas, we wandered over to the other stage to see Iain Archer. I'd never heard of him, but wow! For me, he was the highlight. Now, I'm not saying he was the best, although he was incredible. But some of the other acts I expected to be awesome, but I hadn't heard of Iain before. Given my low expectation of someone I'd never heard of, I was blown away! I will be getting this man's new album for sure! As soon as I get paid... His music was melodic and complicated and originally creative whilst still being catchy to hear and easy to listen to. He was a real musician. I was so impressed! And he had the coolest Irish accent!
After Iain, Ozomatli got on stage. What fun! They were a latin hip hop band from LA. There are 9 people in their band! They've got great energy and everyone was up and dancing. There were about 7,500 people there by the way!
The Bela Fleck and the Flecktones came on. Just as Bela was soundchecking I realised who he was! Oh my gosh! I can't believe I got to see Bela Fleck and Victor Wooten!!! It was the most amazing set! Some people got bored and wandered off, beacuse they didn't appreciate how unbelievable they were! There was no singer, just 4 guys going nuts on their instruments! They are some of the best musicians in the whole world! Bela plays the banjo, Victor the bass, Jeff the wind instruments (sax, flute, everything!), and futureman (?!) the Synthaxe Drumitar. If you don't know what that is, google it. It's incredible! I was blown away by how good these guys are! And they don't even look like they are trying!
Then I caught a few songs of Amos Lee's set over on the other stage. He's brilliant! Used to play with Norah Jones. Beautiful voice and smooth blues tunes. Check him out for sure! He's in Melbourne at the moment, so catch a show if you can. He's an American.
Then back to the main stage to see the Waifs. Stunning as always. First time I've seen them live. They are really tight musically. Great set by them. Wonderful harmonies, and you gotta love that harmonica. Josh Cunningham is the most amazing guitarist!
After the Waifs the long awaited return of Missy Higgins! She's been in the States recording her new album after travelling around Australia for a while, so it's been a while since she's done a live show. She was great as she always is. Great performer! However, I wasn't that impressed with all of her new stuff. Some of it was great, but 2 of the tracks I thought were boring and predicatble. I was a bit disappointed actually. She still sounded amazing, but I'm not sure about her new tracks.
Then John Mayer hit the stage. Wow! I hadn't seen him live yet and I wasn't disappointed! He is a killer musician! I'm loving his new album, which I got at the end of last year. I'm listening to it right now actually! I think he's really found himself with the new stuff. Much more bluesy. I am just so impressed with how well he knows all the music, he just ad libs all the time and is free to play around with his own music, and as dumb as it sounds, 'make it his own'. I know it's his music, but every time he plays, it's different. I've seen heaps of his live shows on tv, and he always sings his tunes slightly differently. That's a sign of a good muso. He really gets invovled in his music and it shows. Can't wait to catch another one of his shows!
Then back to the other stage to catch the end of Ben Kweller's set. I don't know much of his music, but I love 'sundress', which I got to hear, so I'm happy. Kind of. It's a long story.
Anyway, the day was amazing and I am so glad I went! A great day of awesome music! I was sooooooo tired by the end of it all, but it was so worth it! I love Australia and it's wide variety of easily accessible music.
Gotta love the waifs! And blues music in general is awesome! Glen, I think you'd love Amos Lee.
Sounds like such a great concert.