Photo: Justin Edwards

A musical examination of Brisbane’s turbulent past, the Pig City festival was inspired by author and cultural critic Andrew Stafford’s work of the same name. Helmed by QMF director Paul Grabowsky, some of the city’s most well known acts from the last 30 years came together under the Big Top at a UQ Sporting Oval to celebrate the music and remember the political times in which (most of) it was produced.

Opening the today’s proceedings are The Apartments. Their lyrical indie-pop is smooth, with each song building to a point beyond where you thought it would or could go. Peter Milton Walsh is immediately engaging; his wry bitterness is touched by a surly cynicism that comes through on his vocals, which are more intense and raw than studio recordings let on.  With such well-written songs and evocative live sound, I’m surprised The Apartments weren’t scheduled for a later performance.

Younger than most of the crowd, Screamfeeder look and feel rushed from the get-go. Tim Steward seems nervous, though he must have a special kind of confidence if he’s willing to rock out on a pink Hello Kitty guitar. Their indie tracks are solid if unremarkable, perhaps because, in the spirit of the event, they play a lot of older material. Closing track Dart comes off their 2006 release Kitten Licks, and is the standout of the set.

Shunning their ‘always the bridesmaid’ tag, the tight set from melancholic psychedelic pop group The Up & Downs helps me contextualise the sounds I grew up attributing to the bubbly Custard and the irrepressible Screamfeeder while a kid listening to 4ZZZ. Their hit track The Living Kind receives the appropriate voluminous recognition after a rocky version of Neil Diamond’s Solitary Man.

Anyone who doubts the power of words needs to catch Brisbane’s finest storyteller, Kev Carmody. With just his guitar, the 61 year-old is mesmerising, blending jovial conversation into his casually barbed songs of injustice. The Whinging Song and Images Of London remember the ‘70s social inequity, both overseas, and here under “the peanut farmer”, but it’s From Little Things Big Things Grow that speaks loudest, and moistens an eye or two.

With nine members onstage, the high priest of the Pineapples From The Dawn Of Time marches on stage holding the tropical deity aloft in what must be one of the most talked-about sets of the day. Amidst warnings about bad acid, they redefine ‘psychedelic’ as the lost art form that it is, complete with the satire of Cheesecake In Kedron and the fun of The Flea That Ate My Stash.

The Pineapples stick around as the chorus for Unkle Fats & The Parameters, who play the anthemic title track for the day, Pig City, which returns the fading brassy-rock jam to the big festival stage.

It’s a relaxed David McCormack who leads a casually rotating band through a familiar list of Custard highlights. Instant singalongs like Alone, Girls Like That and Anatomically Correct sit comfortably between other “Oh yeah, I know this one” album tracks, proving that even beyond the hits, Custard have one of this city’s most enduring pop catalogues. Bouncing to a set-closing thrashy Apartment, dedicated to an address on Musgrave Rd, Red Hill, is gloriously involuntary.

Watching The Riptides’ singer and only original member Mark Callaghan run, high-kick and grin around the stage is a bit like watching an over-enthusiastic Dad meeting your pals at a 21st – embarrassingly uncool, but completely endearing. Thankfully, the dancing and clapping crowd adore the five-piece’s surf-rock, especially the instrumental Shake It, and closer Sunset Strip.

Photo: Justin Edwards

Placing Kate Miller-Heidke’s popera-tinged renditions of three Go-Betweens songs backed by the Brisbane Excelsior Brass Band in between the day’s two highest energy sets is a conceptual mistake that makes even less sense on the day than it does on paper. In another context this would probably work well, but with anticipation for The Saints riding high, the crowd tensely waits for this to finish, teetering on the point of heckling.

In a warming show of solidarity singer Chris Bailey and local folk-rock hero Ed Kuepper rekindle their intuitive musical partnership headlining the day with The Saints, a one-off combo complete with Caspar Wijnberg and Ivor Hay. An entire generation of musicianship shows through Kuepper’s dirty, meandering guitars, pulsing out of the dual Marshall quad boxes like waves, surfed to the shore by Bailey’s eccentric, ranting monologues. I’m Stranded airs well before the brass section kicks in for the glorious riffing of Know Your Product. At set’s end, Chris and Ed return to the stage for a bluesy jam before capping the encore off with a rocking cover of River Deep, Mountain High.

Tired, and more than a little dusty, we file out the gates to the nattering of people reminiscing and comparing – something we may indeed enjoy in another 30 years time.

SEBASTIAN HAYES, SIMON TOPPER & JAMES STAFFORD

Comments (5)

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*