The Great Escape Festival - 2007
Easter Weekend brings The Great Escape Festival to Newington, in Sydney. Originally stemming from the infamous Cockatoo Island Festival, TGE is a 4 day camping, music and arts festival. Having been to Cockatoo Island and the subsequent TGE’s on the mainland, how could I miss another year? A fair amount of rain and complete lack of media pass did thwart my attempts at some front of stage photos, but I did manage to get a few good ones.
Day One - Friday
Emergency!Emergency! - a brother and sister duo, using the usual synths, keyboards, a guitar, a multitude of pedal effects and an old school Nintendo GameBoy, pre-programmed with game noises.
Joel Plaskett Emergency - A Canadian boy hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who was playing all 3 days of the festival. He also played last years TGE, and picked up a LOT of fans through that, some of which I overheard, came to this year’s festival to see him perform again. An absolutely awesome performance, very catchy music and a genuinely nice guy face to face, Joel Plaskett was definitely one of my highlights of the festival this year. I’m surprised he isn’t more well known down here. He’s a fair bit of a celebrity back in Canada. Hopefully he’ll be back next year.
The Vines - Craig Nicholls and his antics. I was a little too far away for my liking but them’s the crowd you work with. I also would like to reinforce my hate of the microphone stand for being in the way at the best of times. Not necessarily a fan of their music at all, but much fun to watch all the same.
Blue King Brown - possibly the largest crowd at the Riverfront stage, even with the rain that had come around just as they were due to play. Big tribal party atmosphere, lots of people spreading out the crowd for dancing circles… you get the idea. Lucky for me, I had been speaking to one of security boys manning this stage earlier, who recognised meunc and gave me access to photographers pit. Awesome band heading places very fast.
Fourplay Electric String Quartet - Where else will you hear “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys, or “Killing In The Name Of” by Rage Against The Machine, performed by a string quartet? Only wherever Fourplay are peforming. Two violins, a viola and a cello - If you haven’t seen these guys and you have a chance, don’t miss them.
Sugartime Cabaret - The cabaret last year was one of the highlights of the entire festival and this year was no let-down, with the entertainment provided by the famous Sugartime Cabaret. (www.sugartime.com.au). I still don’t know how he swallowed those razor blades…
Days Two and Three coming soon.
Some top shots here nice work. I went to the festival as well and had a ball. It’s the run event I’ve been to.