Myself and a whole heap of South Aussies headed to Melbourne to see
Good Vibrations last weekend. What an amazing party!
I got there early because I wanted to see
Danielsan and
Agent 86. They were both pretty good. I wandered about for a while, checking out the stages and settled in front of the main stage to see a band - now the set times says it was
Mr Jigga, but I have a feeling it was actually the
Sneaky Sound System... either way they were rocking the funk very well.
When my friends rocked up it was a case of simply hanging out and walking about, so I caught bits of
DJ Peril,
RU Cl and
Data Rock, all of whom were fantastic, particularly Data Rock.
One of the standouts were
Breakestra, who were very funky and played some of my favourite Breakestra tunes, such as Impeach the President. I also managed to catch some of Estelle, who was pretty spunky!
I just
had to see
Shaun Ryder and Kav of the Happy Mondays on the Laundry Stage... and I gotta say time has not been good to ol' Shaun... he was so pale, fat and splotchy, and could hardly mumble the words to his own songs! Although it was good to hear some Happy Mondays, Gorillaz, Stone Roses and other great Madchester music.
I wandered over to the B Bar to catch
The Nextmen, who were one of the best at the show. Fantastic tunes, played very well. I simply love the happy breaks / hiphop they were playing, and I can't wait to see them again!
After them, I bolted to the Roots stage to catch the end of
Talib Kweli and
Jean Grey. Apparently Jean rocked it, but I only caught one of her tracks and about 2 of Talibs, which was disapointing, but they still rocked.
DJ Z-Trip was one of the main reasons I went to Melbourne, but he also played Adelaide on the Friday night before, so I was a little disapointed with his set as it was essentially the same. He still rocked it though, and
Supernatural has an unnatural talent on the mic! Most amazing MC I've heard.
But the whole reason I went was to see was the Godfather of Soul,
James Brown. Although the warm up was good, with the band jamming and the other MCs shouting "James Brown" alot, he took about 10 minutes to arrive on stage. But when he did - OH MY GOSH! Even though he's almost 80 years old, he's still got it. Resplendent in a red sparkly suit, he funked out big time! Ok, so he may not have been as active as he was 20 or 30 years ago, but he is still a consumate performer! And that's yet another one of my all time favourite "must see performers" I've witnessed, and by gosh it was great.
It was fantastic that so many South Aussies headed over, there were about 30 of us all up, and running into everyone here and there was simply awesome. There probably won't be another time when there will be so many of my friends interstate! I had the best time in years!
