Winter Garden Party 2007

If I needed any further indication that pop was eating itself, all I needed to do was turn up to the Winter Garden Party. Maybe I am getting old, but when I see kids wearing fluoro headbands, baggy shirts with 'ironic' statements in big lettering, I have to ask myself, "am in the correct decade? Or like Marty McFly, did I enter a time machine and go back to the time of my conception - the eighties?" I even saw a kid sucking a lollypop tonight! Maybe all those journalists heralding the entrance of 'new rave' were correct...the thing is, there doesn't seem to be much 'new' about it at all. Same fashion, same music.

What about the music? Well, headliners the Midnight Juggernauts certainly furthered my hypothesis that I was stuck in some bizarre time-warp, providing a set of seemingly the same song over and over again. This song consists of heavy and frenetic drumming, spacey synths with electro flourishes, some distorted bass or guitar, and unintelligible Ian Curtis meets David Bowie vocals. Whilst it was fun to dance to for the first few songs, the lack of variety in their repertoire wore thin for those not on stimulants. However, I can imagine that with a bit of chemical encouragement their primal thumping beats and unrelenting grooves would be fantastic. This, however, was not their night.

Whose night was it then? Undoubtedly the crown belonged to Blue King Brown. This rootsy eight-piece, ably led by firecracker frontwoman Natalie Paapaa, had the crowd in the palm of their hand from the first reggae-inflected up-stroke. Mixing the personal with the political, the band does not fit into the stoned surfer vibe of many of their peers, but instead bravely walk an extremely fine line between good-time party music and bold statements. An evidently democratic band who admire one another as musicians, their positive vibes spread instantly to the audience, with even unknown new songs warranting enormous cheers. You know you are doing something right when even the violent-looking drunk guy next to me was screaming "YEAH! PEACE! WHOO!" Blue King Brown is an important band, and you are likely to be hearing a lot more of them in the future.

Elsewhere on the evening, Ajax spun a crowd-pleasing set of his trademark taste-making electro, ironically playing at the same time as his remixees, the Midnight Juggernauts. Watussi were unfortunately without much of an audience early in the night - perhaps the audience was still home because of the chill - but those who hadn't arrived missed an outstanding set of Latin-infused funk, right down to the horn blasts and charismatic frontman. Further, the brand-spanking-new Acoustic Stage and Karaoke Lounge injected even more variety and life into the Winter Garden Party.

So all in all, another successful chapter of this University of Wollongong institution. Next time though kids, please leave the fluoro at home. For everyone’s sake.

By Ben Moffitt