Sydney Festival’s late night programming at their Festival Village in Hyde Park has always been impressive. A mix of paid and free gigs that start close to midnight and remind Sydneysiders of the sort of nightlife and entertainment that this city does so well, yet seems so intent to take away from us. As the stars of Saturday night’s Magic Mirrors show pointed out, perhaps if we started betting on things, the show could push past the 1:30am lockout. But I digress…
The show in question was Dreamland – a special Spiegeltent show bringing together Jack Ladder and The Dreamlanders for a night of one-off collaborations and career retrospectives – and it was always destined to be one of the highlights of this year’s midnight festivities. Indeed, this exquisite night of music did not disappoint.
Sitting alongside the irresistible swagger of frontman Jack Ladder, The Dreamlanders are made up of Kirin J Callinan, Laurence Pike (of PVT), Donny Benet and Neal Sutherland (regular PVT collaborator). What made this night unique was that rather than only play the music they created together as The Dreamlanders, the night would be treated as a mutual retrospective, adding in songs from all their careers.
With 14 songs played over 90 minutes – pushing things just beyond 1:30am – the breadth of their coverage was limited, though they promised that under a residency they would be able to cover more ground. A one night only event for 2016, the ball is in Sydney Festival’s court to consider it for 2017. Tonight’s sold out crowd and the band’s phenomenal performance should surely have sealed the deal.
So what did they perform? The night started with Laurence Pike, solo and just a beat. He welcomed us all to Dreamland and then Kirin came on to add his signature guitar. Donny was next, slapping that sweet bass. Neal Sutherland walked on to add the keys. And finally Jack Ladder emerged, adding rhythm guitar and kicking right into their first track “Beautiful Sound” off of their record Hurtsville.
The night was quality from start to finish – with the band enjoying entertaining banter and sounding as good as ever throughout. Even for an artist who embodies some serious swagger – comparable to the likes of Nick Cave or Tim Rogers – it was difficult to wipe the smile off Jack Ladder’s face. They all seemed to have having a blast up there – or in the crowd, which was where Kirin spent part of his set for his track “The Toddler”. Or perhaps, ON the crowd, is a more apt description, as he crowd surfed and sung the track which usually is performed without any backing instrumentals at all.
The rest of the set did lean onto the last two Jack Ladder records. The most recent, Playmates, dominated the first half of the set, with the popular “Come On Back This Way”, “Her Hands” and the dance-tastic “Reputation Amputation” all shining through, while “Embracism” by Kirin and an early PVT track were thrown in along the way. Off of Hurtsville, we had encore opener “Cold Feet” (which was preceded by the band being convinced to at least partially remove their shirts, under Kirin’s direct request that the audience had to join them) and the album’s namesake.
In response to someone yelling out “Play some Bowie!” earlier in the set, Kirin said, “People are dying every day. Don’t make a big deal out of it”, but in spite of this Jack digressed that if they were ever going to play a Bowie song, this was the week to do it. And the second song of the encore was one of his lesser known tracks, “Be My Wife”. “Barber’s Son”, off Jack Ladder’s record Love is Gone, closed out the night, as bubbles borrowed from Meow Meow’s show filled the room.
It was a night of phenomenal music, provided but five of Sydney’s finest musicians. It was always going to be a highlight of the festival, and indeed it did not disappoint.
Photos by Jamie Williams / Sydney Festival.
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