Both Shows had some great acts, but as someone who has seen lost of live music but only a few festivals the overall festival idea has left me feeling a little flat.
In Brisbane I went and saw Nick and the Bad Seeds as well as The Saints, Spiritualised, James Blood Ulmer, Robert Forster and The Necks.
The Show started with Ulmer who is a blues singer who was interesting for a little while but the music became very repetitive and not long after I just wanted him to shut up and finish. There was only one stage in Brisbane at the Riverstage so you did not have a choice of acts if you did not like one.
The other acts followed The Necks interesting but got a bit repetitive after a while , Robert Forster(who was very good), Spiritualised (who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to not face the audience, wrong it just makes him look like an arty pratt)The Saints followed and then Nick. I was lucky enough to be at the front for most of the show and had a great view of the stage and all of the antics.
The bits that I did not like were the wait inbetween sets (30 Minutes) The over priced (and small servings) food and drinks, the overpriced merch and lastly but not least the people who smoke (whatever) in the crowd, it is still a disgusting habit and it smells.
Fast forward to Sunday at the beautiful Cockatoo Island and the Sydney leg (and day two) of ATP. This time there were 3 stages set up and different acts playing at different times. There was almost always something to do although under the ticketing rules I had to be on a ferry at 10.30am from Circular Quay. The weather was a little warm but not as hot as it could have been. The Stages were far enough away from each other that you could not hear the other stages, One stage called the barracks was up a hill and had a backdrop of an old army barracks which was pretty spectacular.
Acts that performed in addition to those already mentioned from Brisbane included Roland Howard, Harmonia(from various German electronic bands in the 70's) and the Laughing Clowns to name but a few.
The artists were pretty diverse and there were other things to do such as watch movies, docos(on the bad seeds) and an art exhibition. My favourite though was the Pop/rock quiz where my team(and I use the term loosely as I had never met them before, and their contribution to the points was limited) came 3rd!!! And I won an ATP T-shirt for my efforts
I got to meet many people that I had not seen for a long time and had a great time catching up with everyone.
I am sorry that exhaustion had set in during Nick and I decided to call it a day when he had finished playing so I missed seeing the Reels play(which I was really looking forward to)
but I would have fallen asleep if I had stayed any longer.Again smokers(cough cough, Phew you smell), food and drink prices were over the top(but at least in Sydney the choice was a bit better) $6 for a Sausage in a bread roll and $6 for chips!!!!! I think I am happy to be in that small minority of gig goers who have not been to a big day out or a Bluesfest. I think I will stick to the smaller festivals like Blue Mts, or Apollo Bay.
Sorry I forgot to put in my review of the Sydney bands I saw, I think I saw about 10 or 12 acts and many were just to catch one or two songs as I could not face to hear any more, I saw the former front man from Swans who seems to have lost his singing voice, Roland Howard(former Birthday Party) was interesting but not something I would put on the top of my shopping list for Christmas.
Harmonia were pretty good but after a while I started thinking if what they were doing was any better than just listening to a record in your room, they were basically 3 old blokes playing with Synths, there was very little audience interaction, but I likeed what they played. Rob Forster again was good, The Saints were much Better than when they played in Brisbane and had the addition of a Brass section flesh the sound out a bit, The Laughing Clowns were great and I must admit that seeing Jeffrey Wegener beating his drums up was highlight for the day, he could show a lot of younger drummers what can be done. I also caught Bridezilla, I had heard of them before but had not heard any of their material, it was quite a surprise I really liked them, and have to admit that I found that the stand out was the Violin player who was extremely good. And yes the Bad Seeds were very good again, but I wish someone would buy Warren Ellis a spitoon or something, as it is pretty gross to see him gobbing everywhere!
There were a couple of other bands that I saw that I could take em or leave em(mostly I just left).
Anyway hope you like my review. please feel free to leave constructive criticism, I am sure that if KMH was playing I would have enjoyed the festival much more.