Flashback live gig continues! So the next day could be even better than the first one really, even if that was totally insane day and night! I should have really just sleep in the car-park or something but I guess it was fun going all the way out to Altona again. I think, it was about 40 or 50 minutes bus drive out of Melbourne city or something. It seem a lot people bitched and moaned about how out of the way it was at the time but I was saying yesterday some people complain about the strange things. To me, it was such a very special festival so why not put it somewhere a bit different? I already traveled all the way across Australia to see all this so a little bit more didn’t matter to me! I’ve also included a little map of the venue set-up below, if anyone else is really that interested?
The artist that goes under the name Lost Animal is the act I would have love to see but missed on this day/night because the debut album called Ex Tropical is one of my faves but I think I’ve said that before? I do love Harmony, Don Walker, Dan Kelly and all those were playing on the second stage on the second day but I missed them all. Plus I’ve been told The Stickmen did played one of the best sets of the whole weekend too. But because the main stage had such a total killer line-up I didn’t really leave it once I got to it. Plus then pretty much getting right on the fence for most of it! I did see a little bit of Cam Butler before going to find a good spot!
Writing the Sunday in the right order, unlike I did yesterday. So that means it all kicked off with My Disco. Who brings all the crazy flashing laser lights with them, somehow those lights were in time with the drummer’s beats which amazingly entertaining. Would have to now go down in my book as one of the best greatest killer opening band at any fest, I’ve ever seen!
Crime & The City Solution were an under-rated Aussie band who after a two decade hiatus singer-songwriter Simon Bonney now based new home city of Detroit had some brand new songs so with help of Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten), David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower, Wovenhand), Jim White (Dirty Three) etc. just had released American Twilight album. They also played a side show at a club the following week which was even better than ATP set, I just have to say!
The Drones did play a great set that day, pretty much played a bit of a greatest hits setlist, not that they have ever had a hit single but you know what I mean? Also did preview couple of new songs from the then forthcoming coming I See Seaweed album too!
Next on at this unbelievably fest line-up was Pere Ubu perform The Modern Dance album which almost didn’t happen, the band had so much trouble getting a visas to Australia for some reason I didn’t understand? Pretty much flying in that morning, playing this one and only gig/set then after it having to get back in the air to go home to America. But making it special for the Aussie fans by playing that whole classic debut album in full plus somehow fitting in even more songs at the start, David Thomas just has to be yet another one of the greatest front-man of all-time too!
Then the amazing reformed original line-up of Beasts Of Bourbon was up next. So that’s the 1984 members of Spencer P. Jones, Tex Perkins, Kim Salmon, Boris Sudjovic and James Baker all on stage together. This might not mean much to blog readers from overseas, maybe? But this was yet another special moment at this fest playing a setlist culled from those first three classic Beasts albums which are total Aussie indie masterpieces which every Australian should own but most likely don’t! Sometime the week before, maybe the Thursday or Friday I got to see Spencer P. Jones played a wicked solo set at the tiny Cherry Bar on AC/DC Lane in the CBD. Thinking about that now is sad because Jones passed this year a couple months back now!
So if my head/mind hadn’t exploited yet it did because I guess the really big one for me out of all this stuff was Einstürzende Neubauten! These headliners I discovering them as a teenager and never having seen them live until this point. This was EN’s the first Aussie show/visit since 1991, they did play an even better theater show a few nights later!
The track Sabrina was one of the only song they played at both gigs, two totally different setlists so I couldn’t really believe it at all but it did happen! Blixa Bargeld was in his bare-feet while everyone else throw bits of metal around the stage. I read somewhere at the time they need to get a drum kit built here in Australia because they couldn’t bring it from Germany. Now it’s huge metal drum kit, that is it’s totally made of sheets of metals and must have weigh more than a few tons. Blixa did apologized for not touring Australia sooner but then told the Melbourne crowd after Berlin your city is where he’s lived the most, it was a well kept very big secret back then but for a lot the 80’s/90’s/2000’s he called Melbourne home, which I think totally shocked a lot EN fans!
Anyway I don’t think I’ve really show in my writing how great these sets at this fest really were but once again they were bloody great and my word fail me! So once again I didn’t take any of these photos above myself! One more blog post tomorrow about this epic fest with everything I couldn’t fit here in these two posts so far, OK?
Cheers 🙂
a1000mistakes 
Great Show 2013! Pere Ubu (One of my favorite groups since the late 70s!) and the Neubauten at one Festval! It must have been Paradies. Not for the ears but fot the brain. Great Bands. You got no Tinnitus at all?
By the way: Tinnitus reminds me on Bruce!
In 2013 I’ve got my badest concert-visit of all time: Bruce Springsteen live in Leipzig without the help of technical staff, I think. Expensive Ticket, longdistance ride to come to Leipzig, and then this kakophonical crap! feedback, sharp echoing all over. He’s a no-name for me, since then.
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Yeah, yeah! 🙂 both at the same fest! It was unbelievable! Nope, i don’t know why but my ears never ring after a gig now? Lucky, i guess? 🙂
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