Come Together Festival
Luna Park, Sydney
Sat 7 - Sun 8 June


Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Day 1: for me, it was all about Day 2. The day of rock. The screaming girls were almost as loud as Stealing O'Neal themselves belting out tracks from their debut EP 'Spin For Me' and their very recently released 'Collidescope' including the leading track Chin Up Baby. The highlight was their Australian tinged version of Arctic Monkeys I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

Adelaide's own In Fiction had the crowd singing along with their catchy tracks such as When The Camera's Off and Liar Liar, taken off their debut album 'The Forecast', released last week.

Calling All Cars exploded onto their stage with an energetic and captivating set, the three piece producing a sound that is definitely on the same powerful page like Horsell Common and COG.

Late afternoon saw Many Machines On 9 and Children Collide. Between these two was one of the highlights of the day for me - Trial Kennedy. The vocal ability of singer Tim Morrison live astounds me and gives me shivers just reminiscing. Trial Kennedy put on a fantastic stage show and today they were on fire.

Another band that had all guns blazing was Melbourne's The Getaway Plan. With high rotation on Channel V, the crowd knew exactly what to do when guitarist Clint Splattering started playing the chords to the extremely popular Where The City Meets The Sea.

Across the other side of the stage enters Dead Letter Circus, with another powerful set of lungs on frontman Kym. A great set included of tracks off their debut EP; the audience was very responsive especially when they exploded into their popular track The Mile.

Mammal came and passed before the other Adelaide contingent The Hot Lies, took the stage. Powering through tracks from all of their records, the crowd were quick to warm to frontman Pete Woods' huge personality. Finishing off the set with the catchy Emergency Emergency, the crowd were well and truly ready to take on what was thrown at them next.

I've seen Gyroscope countless times and not once have they managed to disappoint - including this time. Storming through old tracks and new ones including crowd favourites such as Weapon.Enemy.Friend, Driving For The Storm and the obvious crowd pleasers such as Safe Forever and Doctor Doctor before ending with their AFL hit Snakeskin. Gyroscope continue to prove that they are worthy of being titled one of the best live bands in Australia.

Finally the stages were merged into one as the dynamic three piece that is The Living End took the stage to thunderous applause and they hammered through their hits as well as previewing a couple of newies to be released on their new album. The Living End are, quite easily, the best band in Australia, and the crowd that were calling the band back onstage for an encore no doubt would agree.

The bottom line - a fantastically organised festival showcasing some of the finest bands that Australia has to offer. I'll be back next year.

Words & pix: Fiona Stafford