Live Review: Tash Sultana, Ocean Alley, Big Words

Melbourne artist Big Words warmed us up with soulful vocal harmonies. A few dozen brightly dressed moshers appreciated the five-piece from up close, while most laid out on the hill with a beverage or two for company. An occasional falsetto lofted over R&B-tinged tracks like Soul Jam, while others dreamy piano sections rolled charmingly into tambourine and a resonating bass. Set highlight The Answer had the crowd nodding, an open high hat crashing into the chorus for a satisfying finale.

Hottest 100 winners Ocean Alley were received with eager hoots from a growing mosh. Nonchalant as ever, the Sydney surf rockers had the crowd with them with theatrical guitar harmonies and their trademark lazy, sing-along choruses. People ran down the hill, not expecting the heartsick Knees to play quite so soon. 

Cheers rang out and a sea of orange wristbands waved from side to side during the reggae-infused ballad Lemonworld, while more psychedelic tracks had smooth tempo changes, which had punters admiring vintage guitar riffs. Kids grinned on their parent's shoulders, throwing peace signs as the crowd shouted lyrics about too much sugar on cereal. The seamless transition to instant-classic Confidence impressed, when a wall of people on shoulders rose up, one wearing a pirate-hat atop his mate’s shoulders, who fired finger guns across the crowd as hundreds of people belted out 2018’s favourite song.

Tash Sultana is less about songs than they are about imagination and performance – it’s something that sets them apart from their contemporaries and releases them from conventional song structure. Sultana took the stage to a roar, kicking things off with a smooth R&B beat and infectious riff that had us immediately nodding along, to the visual backdrop of what could only be described as a tie-die black hole. 

At the core of Tash Sultana’s sound is the meaning behind their 2018 debut studio album, Flow State: “It’s when you do something that you love so much that you become your process.”

Live, you can feel that, in the sheer delight the multi-instrumentalist shows for their art, grinning between notes. The crowd did feel it, bouncing about free-spirited as Sultana looped trumpet and stomp boxes craftily, beatboxing with a pan flute and killing it with an electric mandolin. There’s something about manually creating such a complicated sound live which immerses the audience, like they have a hand in making it, and like it’s different each time. 

Tracks like Notion are genuinely psychoactive as they build from simple, reverberating loops into a multi-layered, kaleidoscopic soundscape. It had people leaning in, hypnotised, so when Sultana waved to the crowd, hundreds of hands waved back, and when Sultana raised a middle finger to prejudice and judgment, hundreds more middle fingers joined in. 

This was the Melburnian’s second stop on the Flow State World Tour, and Sultana reminisced about a time when only 60 or so people attended their gigs. The artist stressed the importance of self-love, conditioning yourself to see things beautifully, rather than “hating who I am, I love the person who I'm becoming”.

As Sultana shredded over visuals of a psychedelic jellyfish, the artist was absorbed in their sound with joy and concentration etched on their face, while the crowd was bathed in rolling waves of blue and red light. Through the echoing, breathy notes of Murder To The Mind, the artist’s vocals were like a twirling ribbon, with a rising urgency and a sense of catharsis in the harrowing lyrics. For the finale, Sultana released their flowing locks, headbanging as they built up to a stunning climax of frenzied strumming and foot drumming, leaving the crowd breathless and euphoric.