Live Review: Handpicked Festival

Saturday’s perfect weather and Summer vibes set the scene for Handpicked Festival’s fifth year at the Lake Breeze Winery.

With major improvements from last year, Handpicked 2018 was exceptional and demonstrated how committed and passionate the founders are to making this a staple festival in South Australia.

Obvious improvements were the layout and flow of the event. Water tanks and well-staffed vendors ensured happy, hydrated punters could easily access food and fuel when needed. But most outstanding was a particularly creative solution to a common festival side-effect; dealing with the abundant rubbish issue. Distinctly different from 2017, the grounds remained ostensibly free from discarded bottles and cans. How? Boy Scouts ran frantically around in the background like miniature stagehands, gathering the recyclables to exchange for the 10c refund at the SA collection depots. Genius.

And the music? Adelaide Hills’ native Ollie English was first up and proved he was a worthy recipient of the SA Music Award for ‘Most Popular Blues & Roots Artist’. His Bill Withers-esque soul and forays into acoustic funk were a welcome start to the day. Along with his band, his set ensured a quality daytime performance was available to the large number of families present earlier in the day.

Being that the festival is hosted at one of South Australia’s most beautiful vineyards, there was a little luxury to take advantage of. A vintage bus that was converted into a bar and viewing deck provided the perfect spot to survey the full scene of the grounds and stage. Delicious food, cocktails and friendly staff were everywhere; but there was a nice little bit of ‘extra’ for those who prefer a bit of room and respite in the VIP gardens.

Punters who were all about the action, however, had Alex Lahey for a less civilized afternoon gig. Lahey’s light-hearted, self-deprecating setlist of first-world problems gathered a strong audience who full-fledge related to the Cheap Trick meets post punk vibes of her sound. The set was highlighted by the popular single I Haven’t Been Taking Care Of Myself, with the crowd digging the inherent ‘whateverness’ of Lahey and co.

She was followed by Vera Blue, who without a doubt delivered the take-way performance of the day. Dressed in a whimsical pink gown with loose hair playing in the welcome breeze, Blue was elemental and mystical thought her early evening set. Clearly having a good time while doing so, Blue’s ability to control her pitch in an almost whistle-like chirp was goosebump-inducing. While most in attendance were at least familiar with her recent radio play, including latest single All The Pretty Girls, it’s fair to say that anyone seeing her live for the first time might have been pleasantly surprised to find a genuine artist on stage. A few eyes were rolled as many in attendance went all in with some act-out-the-lyrics dance moves for Lady Powers, but hilariously it seemed to have an effect - with many more joining in and doing the same thing by the song’s end.

Next up in the Australian-themed line-up were Broods. The duo, who’ve been busy touring internationally, were happy to be performing in their home country. Following a singalong of Bridges, clearly moved lead vocalist Georgia Nott commented: “After playing support for so long you sometimes forget you have real fans.” Their latest single Peach was a crowd favourite and generated some uninhibited dancing in the setting sun.

The biggest rock act of the day was Ball Park Music, who took the audience on a departure from the grooviness of the arrangements of the day so far. Those in the thick of the rowdy crowd beneath the stage loved every second. They knew the lyrics well; evidently “I only have sex with myself” rang true for a lot of their fans, generating a scream-along-if-you-know-the-words response. Singer Sam Cromack was after more from his audience and conducted a bit of a participation act from the stage. Instead of buying into the facade of lights and colour, Ball Park elected to turn up their fans with a totally pitch black performance. Theirs was a bit of a garage band sound - loud, disorganised and good for getting out frustrations.

For those attendees who were waiting out the sexual frustration of Ball Park, headliners Boy & Bear were up next and they absolutely smashed it. On the folk-pop spectrum, their sound is richly musical and instrumental. Given the youthfulness of the crowd, it’s not hard to draw comparisons to Fleet Foxes or Lord Huron (in essence, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles). But they do stand out with a penchant for dramatic compositions including drums (so many drums), banjo, mandolin and strings. They also love a good jam and it was such a welcome addition to the day, showing the organic side of music rather than the pre-fab technicality of the more pop-centric acts of the line-up. A mid-set performance of Southern Sun demonstrated they had achieved the goliath feat of fully gaining the attention of the audience (the music: 1. Phones: 0).

The most memorable moment of their set, however, was their outstanding cover of Crowded House’s Fall At Your Feet. The clever arrangement of the original had the crowd roaring the lyrics along and general variations of, “I hope that wasn’t the last song,” were heard between the next few remaining songs of their closing set. Overall they ended the day on a high note and made it really hard to say goodnight to such an excellent day of music, sun and feels.