2011: Best of gigs

2011 was my most musically productive year, in regards to gigs. Over the last 365 days I went to 64 gigs/festivals. This smashes my previous years by a long margin. I imagine the increase is due to my photography, but I like to think it was just a great year for live music in Australia!

There was the normal year starter of Future of the Left, followed by festivals in torrential rain, festivals in crazy heat, multiple trips to Melbourne and Sydney for shows, in-store performances, orchestras, flood-benefit shows, cover bands, friends' bands, classic bands playing arena shows, bands I've waited most of my life to see, my favourite band of all time and lots of new bands I'd never heard of before yet became instant fans. What a year.

Despite my bemoaning of the death of the festival, there were too many good ones for me to pass up this year. Most years I'll go to 2 or 3, but this year I went to 6, 2 of them as a photographer. Considering one of them was a 2 day festival (in torrential rain a few days before the floods), it was quite a tiring year.

With so many gigs (I think I saw 237 different sets), it's really hard to do a top 5, so I made an internal compromise and came up with my top 8 gigs of the year that was 2011.

8. Off With Their Heads/Against Me! (4 May, 2011 @ the HiFi)
If you've ever seen Against Me! live, you'll probably realise their inclusion in any best-gigs-of-the-year list is mandatory. Through an extended set you could just see them enjoying playing as much as we were enjoying watching. It's rare to get a synergy between a band and a crowd at a venue of a large size like the HiFi, but everyone in the band and the crowd had massive smiles on their face. Throw in a long set list full of classic songs designed to get the crowd pumping their fists and singing along, bring along another great international punk band in Off With Their Heads and you get a great night of punk rock.

(click here for the original review)

7. Sufjan Stevens (26 January, 2011 @ the Tivoli)
This was my first time seeing Sufjan. Although more of a fan of his acoustic-folk, I knew this set would lean towards his newer electronic stuff. I figured it was worth going just to see the few songs I really, really like. What it ended up being was an ethereal all-encompassing experience. Not just a gig, but a whole show. Sufjan conducted a light, laser and balloon show that added incredible depth to his music, allowing me to appreciate it at a new level. And he still played some of the folk classics.

(click here for the original review)

6. Melvins/Primus (3 March, 2011 @ the Palais Theatre, St Kilda)
No surprise this was going to be on my list. Primus is my favourite band, no matter what, and my trip to Melbourne was purely for this show. The venue was sitting only (heavily enforced by the ushers), but it was in ridiculously comfortable leather seats with plenty of room. Kim and I were right near the front of the upper balcony and we first watched an all-out aural assault by the Melvins with 2 drummers following a classic set of Primus, including a few new songs as well.

(click here for the original review)

5. The Chariot (20 April, 2011 @ Sun Distortion Studios)

Their first tour of Australia and they absolutely slaughtered the venue. The opening bands weren't really to my taste, but when the Chariot came on I no longer cared. The stage broke and was carried out in pieces. A yellow pages phone book was ripped in half and thrown in the air. The bass guitar broke a string, something I thought was nigh on impossible. The bass player was carried out of the venue still playing. Everything was destroyed in a full on noise-assault. It ended with everything in pieces and the band slumped to the floor and me wanting to see it all over again.

(click here for the original review, picture gallery and bonus video)

4. Modest Mouse (21 July, 2011 @ the Prince of Wales Bandroom, St Kilda)
I travelled to Melbourne just for this show. There was a fight in a mosh pit (what the fuck Melbourne indie fans?), there was no Johnny Marr, but it was still one of the best times I've seen Modest Mouse play. They played something off almost every album (fairly rare) even a few impromptu acoustic songs that Isaac has obviously forgotten most of the lyrics for... stopping to apologise at the second or third verse. The kicker for me though was the fact the encore saw them playing for an hour and a half longer than they were supposed to. Is there such a thing as too much Modest Mouse? No. Not at all.

3. Harvest Festival (Kevin Devine/This Town Needs Guns/The Holidays/The Walkmen/Mercury Rev/TV on the Radio/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah/Bright Eyes/Mogwai/The National/The Flaming Lips/Portishead) (19 November, 2011 @ the Riverstage)

Granted, any festival featuring the Flaming Lips will blow you away with their fully immersive spectacular. But this festival was enough to make me actually enjoy the whole day, instead of suffering through a day of mediocrity just to see one or two bands I really like. Harvest restored my faith in the music festival. It wasn't just about music, there was plenty other things to do that were actually interesting as well as plenty of art and installations. The grounds were laid out perfectly with no noise-pollution between stages and the bands were top-notch. I may have also cried when the Walkmen played The Rat. What a magnificent day it was. I wish all festivals were even half as good as this.

(click here for the photo gallery I shot of the day over at Tone Deaf)

2. The Mercy Beat/Trash Talk/H2O/The Bronx (25 February, 2011 @ Step Inn)

The night before the Soundwave festival and this was a hard-to-get-tickets-for flood fundraiser in the tiny-ass band room of the Step Inn. Originally supposed to be featuring Terror on the line-up, flight connections meant they missed out, but it didn't stop one of the greatest gigs I've ever been to. Trash Talk played an insane (as always) set, going all out with amazing energy. H2O showed why they are one of the best hardcore bands and featured guest spots by members of New Found Glory and Terror (who just showed up) and the Bronx wowed us all the way through to the wee hours of the morning, even playing a song they never play live: Strobe Life.

(click here for the original review and photo gallery)

1. DZ Deathrays/Fucked Up (9 December, 2011 @ Alhambra)

They put out one of the best albums of the year and then they came out on a stadium tour with the Foo Fighters. Luckily they threw this gig together quickly. Alhambra didn't know what hit it. Fucked Up played an awesome set that had security confused and saw Damian spend most of his time shirtless in the crowd with everyone going crazy (which of course is his normal routine, but it's still great to see). He even stopped the band and retrieved an evicted punter when security got a bit too over the top. It was full of great songs, DZ Deathrays were the secret opening band playing their first Australian show in god knows how long and Fucked Up were nice enough to stay behind afterwards and meet everyone. Of course there's a bit of fanboy-bias in this choice, but it was just an amazing night.

(click here for the original review and here for my Tumblr-based photo gallery)