Rhythm and Vines

03/03/2009

by Phil Luke

I like to be first. I like beating everyone to it and yelling at the finish point like a maniac parachuting.
So imagine the face I have moulded when this article is only published during February and MTV laughing away as they broadcast live.

Tearaway magazine hit the occasion with a full team, with Alex as our commander, Doug as our specialist photographer, Raj as our expert cameraman and me as... myself.
Once upon a time, R&V was simply a day event. R&V 2007, in my opinion, was a mass amount of instant dopamine. It was full on as there was always a worthy list of performances to crowd surf and lose your mates to.
R&V 2008 was the year the organisers decided to expand and make the day of dopamine into three days of dopamine.
However, it was not a full three-day assault of the senses as we all had a curfew of 3am as that's when the gigs would pack it for the night and await 1pm.
Seriously it felt like my mum was overseeing the event.

Day one:
In the heavy 3pm Gizzy drizzle, the opening crowd of a hundred first paid attention to Liam Finn. Till that day I was a virgin to Liam Finn and today I have put forward an official complaint that Liam Finn deserves a larger crowd as his music deserves a much bigger reception.
Every time he did a solo he became Medusa and when someone else was required for instruments he would become human again.
He is an impossible amount better live than his recordings. Even with such a tiny crowd, R&V had begun.
I had never heard of Santogold but man were they awesome! Two rocking dancers with straight faces and spangle gold suits jumping and standing next to an absolutely wondrous singer.
This is what I love about festivals such as R&V - finding someone new to put onto your iPod such as Santogold. There is something special about hearing someone you have never heard of before and then all of a sudden falling in love.
The next big feature was the Kooks but the moshpit crowd seemed to hate me and threw me out constantly. So I tried bullrushing back into the moshpit but I kept bouncing off the brick walls called humans.
Alex also kept on getting sandwiched by mountains of humans but he had the mental hardness to stay in it.
Raj was nowhere to be seen.
To end the first night, we closed with the mind-blowing Franz Ferdinand.
Wow. Just wow.
I am constantly banging on about the live factor within all these performances and while I thought Liam Finn was spectacular, Franz was on a new level entirely.
Their encore was even more mind bending with the band all pausing for a moment from their instruments to thrash the drum kit.
However, the crowd was left hungry after such a performance, so to the camp sites it was.

Day two:
As dawn set in on our sleepy eyes Alex, our commander-in-chief, ordered us to experience R&V. This consisted, unlike yesterday, of going to more than one stage.
It was from here that Alex told us of the great six stages of R&V. These included main or Rhythm stage; the Vines stage which was truthfully in the trees and an awesome dance area; Futureshock which was in another country; the Cellar stage which actually had ground that was not mud; and the Escape Lounge which was a soothing area to sit down.
All of these stages put together made one hell of a festival. Why? Because when the performances were up and going, it was very hard to complain about anything.
Speaking of quality, day two held two fantastic Kiwi heroes of music. Anika Moa (of whom Alex has a puppy-love crush on) and The Phoenix Foundation showed that Kiwis are damn good at what we set ourselves to.
Anika has a wicked sense of humour and a gift in getting a tiny crowd off their feet.
Eventually she attracted more to her wicked performance, leading to a decent sized crowd for Wellington's premier Phoenix Foundation.
Honestly, I had the time of my life in a small moshpit swaying and rocking to these two.
Later, Public Enemy came on. Well, much later, he was late to the stage. By then, I had a horrible sense of déjà vu as the crowd kicked me out. Again.

Day three:
Within no time of hitting the tents, it was the 31st. This was going to be a big day so the crew and I mainly stuck around the Rhythm stage as the main exploding acts were going to occur there.
We began with the Black Seeds, another New Zealand music hero(s). It was more a jam session then a celebration of their many fantastic albums.
And boy oh boy could they jam. I seriously did not think I have heard a better session than the one the Black Seeds put on.
Then it was the Datsuns who were on with full-on pedal thrash lighting and moshpit bullrushes.
Then Shihad came along and I was trapped in the most notorious moshpit known to the galaxy.
After a few blood and bruises I emerged out of the war to crawl back to the media tent. Doug pointed and laughed.
After Shihad, the countdown took over and so did the fireworks. Then Carl Cox took the main stage.
I was now jealous of Alex and Raj who were somewhere in the moshpit as Carl sure as anything knew how to spin and mix. I have been around and danced to some of the world's best DJs but Carl opened the new year in the best possible way.

New year dawns

First light of the new year hit the festival. In a subtle and beautiful manner, the sun said time to go home and wait another 365 days.
And even though I lost my most beloved sandals, my stomach hates me, the skin is screaming as it peels and I have some intense new scars, what makes R&V fantastic still has not changed.
It is the people like you and me who go there to cause such a Kiwi vibe and the artists who are nothing short of amazing.
Take the tip, R&V is one of the best ways to open up a new year.