Future Music Festival

As published by Nova: https://goo.gl/1yekKZ

For a city that has just lost two shining festivals, Big Day Out and Soundwave, it would appear that the citizens of Perth are ‘doof doof’ fans. Sweltering heat didn’t deter the tribes to come out in force.

Inspired by the 90s, midriff tops and short shorts accompanied by bucket hats, scrunchies, big sunglasses and caked on war paint had the female species pouting those lips and shaking those hips. The male species sported muscle shirts and tan shorts (or even more likely, no shirt at all), fist pumping their way through the festivities.

Naughty Boy was ready to go MADAGASCARAZY on the Safari stage. It would have been golden if Emeli Sandé were there to lead numbers ‘Lifted’ and ‘La La La’, but the crowd still adored the set, forming a jungle cry sing-along.

The mating rituals had begun, with the punters mirroring images of chaotic animals in heat. Females were seen twerking inflatable dinosaurs and men giddied around like cheeky monkeys.

Over at the Foamarama, the DJ sets brought on wild dancing while punters were doused in suds; an enjoyable escape from the heat.

Back at the Safari stage, Tinie Tempah had a crocodile wide smile, strutting his way up and down and wailing his commands at the crowd to bounce. Hands down performance of the day as his posse brought on the rumble jungle repeat theme. There wasn’t a soul around who didn’t love ‘Earthquake’, ‘Trampoline’ or ‘Drinking From The Bottle’.

Like a flock of birds, all stammered over to the Future Music stage to lay eyes on the legendary Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. “Who came here to have a goddamn party?” shouted Macklemore. Like lions claiming their ground, the crowd roared in response. Garnished with trombone, trumpet, cello, drummers, DJs, dancers and even a costume change mid-set, the space was throbbing with energy.

In 2013, the duo was in town for Perth Festival – a time when the same sex marriage debate had been escalating. Macklemore continued to speak out through ‘Same Love’, with the iconic piano hook sending a squeal through the grass.

Nine-piece Rudimental struggled with the heat, with the males in the band looking for any excuse to de-robe. There was a subtle loss of totes amazon-balls swapping between the three backing vocals for each lead. Blame must fall upon the sound guy, who needed to alter the decibels – but by this stage in the day, the bears were ready to claw into anything and loved pop ditty ‘Free’.

As evening fell, passers by shed gallons of sweat in the Haunted House tent and Chase & Status made the D&B tent lift as every body part shook this way and that. Hardwell had the rave going, while Cut Copy and Phoenix seemed to be at the wrong festival, not drawing a scurry.

As the cubs grew tired and ready to nestle themselves in bed, Future Music drew to a close for another year. The safari, although grubby, hot and pricey for a day, was an escape to a jungle party of beats like no other.