Beneath the glow of the afternoon sun, a small crowd huddled at the foot of Brisbane's The Riverstage (30 April).
The crowd patiently awaited the beginning of Daydream, the latest music festival to tour across Australia, bringing a fantastic line-up of bands across the indie-rock spectrum.Sadly, there was one casualty in British shoegaze greats Slowdive, who had to cancel due to injury (making the announcement the day before the tour kicked off in Melbourne – an hour after we published our interview with bassist Nick Chaplin).
Despite this setback, music lovers trickled through the gate for the final show of Daydream's inaugural run. But the loss of Slowdive meant attendees were treated to extended sets from the dream line-up of locals Tropical F... Storm, plus American visitors Cloud Nothings, Beach Fossils, and Modest Mouse, with the latter three making up for the long period of time since their previous visits. You lose some, but you win some, and this was a big win.
"Mornin', everybody," Cloud Nothings' Dylan Baldi greeted the afternoon crowd. The Ohio trio may have still been working on their home time, but they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to open the show.
Rather than easing in, the band sprinted from the start through the opening trio of 'Now Hear In', 'Fall In', and 'Separation'. In a smaller venue, this grouping of songs would have sent fans into a destructive frenzy.
Instead, The Riverstage crowd were tame, possibly still warming themselves up. Despite the crowd's unpreparedness, Cloud Nothings proved themselves a tight unit, best demonstrated when they didn't miss a beat when the tempo changed on 'Psychic Trauma'.
Soon, heads began nodding and a slight bounce began in the middle of the crowd during 'Stay Useless'. Before anyone knew it, the band had reached the extended noisy outro of set closer 'Wasted Days'. Dylan kneeled at his pedalboard, twisting knobs, and building an overwhelming tsunami of warping feedback that lasted ten minutes or more, and surely energised the crowd.
The familiar saxophones of the 'Saturday Night Live' theme song burst from the speakers. "Live from New York, it's Beach Fossils," an announcer bellowed. "You ready to get weird?" singer-guitarist Dustin Payseur asked the crowd.
It's been a decade since the dream-pop group last toured Australia and have since become much more extroverted in that time. The crowd grew in the time between bands and were treated to live airings of songs from their upcoming album, 'Bunny'.
While the band's early recordings were low in fidelity and shrouded in tape hiss, the newer songs shimmered and glowed like the last light of the sun setting behind The Riverstage.
The new songs sounded tailor-made for big outdoor venues, filled with sighing hooks and reverb-heavy guitars. After closing with the festival's unofficial theme song, 'Daydream', Dustin told the crowd: "Hopefully, we'll be back here before another ten years." Judging by the applause, the crowd hopes so, too.
A sudden and piercing shriek of guitar noise caught Brisbane by surprise. The noise announced the arrival of the only Australian band on the bill, Tropical F... Storm.
Opening with the threatening groove of 'Braindrops', Gareth Liddiard barked lyrics until his lungs were expelled of air. The noise built until it became a sheet of distortion, and Gareth, guitarist Erica Dunn, and bassist Fiona Kitschin thrashed to the sound.
As Lauren Hammel smashed her kit, Gareth and Erica delved into pure-noise terrorism. Gareth played his guitar like the instrument was trying to buck him off, gripping its vibrato arm and dropping dive bombs.
Closer 'Paradise' grew from a mangled guitar dual between Erica and Gareth into a psychedelic nightmare, Gareth falling to his knees and twisting the knobs on his pedalboard and pushing the crowd with the band's barrage of noise, as the strobe lights manically flashed. It was loud, it was discordant, it was beautiful.
The night sky was dotted with stars and a large mass of people gathered at the front of stage. Chatter turned to excited screams and applause when Oregon indie rock heroes Modest Mouse arrived.
A quick "greetings" from frontman Isaac Brock led to the opening chimes of 'The World At Large' and the gentlest vocals from Brock for the night. Gentle soon gave way to manic when the band launched into 'Teeth Like God's Shoeshine', Brock filling the venue with his much-loved gravelly carnival bark.
It was a massive set covering all eras of the band, from the first three sprawling albums all the way to their 2021 album, 'The Golden Casket'. The only album missing from the set list was 2015's 'Strangers To Ourselves', but the band made up for it with EP deep cuts 'Night On The Sun' and the adventurous 'King Rat', starting with loud crunches of guitar and ending with a hokum-inspired banjo-and-trumpet party.
Before 'F... Your Acid Trip', a highlight of their recent album, Brock checked in on the crowd. "Security, is everyone OK out there?" he asked. However, a fan in the crowd must have made him worried as it led to him calling for security to check it out. Blue-shirted security raced from all directions to the front, but before they arrived the fan must've signalled they were OK. "Too many fiestas, huh?" Brock replied.
While many fans heard their favourites (that was '3rd Planet' for me), there was still one song that everyone was sure would come: 'Float On'. Once the first, sharp chord was strummed, fans leapt from the grassy hill and raced down to the stage, and the crowd grew again right before the first note of song's bouncy guitar hook.
A mass sing-along began, the kind expected to close the show. Strangely, more songs came, making one wonder what Brock’s feelings towards the song is.
As the band left and the lights went down, the crowd stayed put in the darkness and their applause gave way to chants for an encore. One minute became two became ten, and the band still didn't appear.
The band haven't played in Australia since Bluesfest 2016, and they hadn't played a show in Brisbane since 2008, so the crowd continued, determined to get their final fill. Fifteen minutes later, their patience was rewarded with an extra half-hour of music.
Whether it's long gaps between albums or tours, Modest Mouse have made a habit of making fans wait. But thanks to the minds behind Daydream, the wait was worthwhile.
