Open’er 2013: Day Four

Photo: P. Tarasewicz
Discounting Rihanna, who demanded her own separate tag-on night, today is the final day of Open’er festival. Boo, hiss! Still, our bedraggled programme is packed with music to see, places to go, and it’s also covered with our ambitious biro scribblings. Tonight we plan on running round like Wile E. Coyote chasing Road Runner. We want to see absolutely everything on what we’ve dubbed Close’er night.

Everything Everything are an appropriate place to start, in that case, racing into their main stage set with ‘MY KZ UR BF’. It seems, to us, like the band peak far too early. Maybe that explains why for the rest of the time it all seems a bit mediocre, and try as we might we can’t get excited at all. Standing in the apathetic crowd kills our mood completely, so we opt to watch the rest of the set from the white bus. Before we run away to the next act, we leave ‘DIY’ immortalised in green paint-marker on one of the hubcaps. Amid a sea of sponsorship (Kinder Egg Tattoo Parlour, anyone?), getting some free advertising makes us feel all Robin Hood.

Next on the main stage is R&B crooner Miguel who doesn’t disappoint with his soulful vocals and saucy song lyrics. After a particularly naughty song, he shouts out “Do you all like drugs?!”, to a crowd that doesn’t really speak English. They woop with bemusement, and Miguel clearly takes this as a yes, playing a song with a chorus that appears to be largely “Do you like drugs” with increasing levels of vocal aerobatics. To our delight Rihanna flashes up on the big screens next, and we can just make her out sat in the photo pit, watching the set. Miguel gives her an enthusiastic shout-out, and in typical fashion her facial expression is about as unperturbed as Her Majesty the Queen when people sing the National Anthem. Our girl RiRi has got good taste, though, because Miguel’s set gets us busting some serious(ly bad) dance moves.

Mount Kimbie are on at the Tent Stage, though, so we race across the site with the pace of a less graceful chariot of fire with a wonky wheel axle. We want to get a good place at the front, but we needn’t have worried because the tent is eerily empty. Trying to rally surrounding crowd members we stand up on one of the raised platforms supporting the tent pole waving various objects including our prized ‘Share a Coke With Janek’ bottle. When ‘Carbonated’ comes on, we’re practically the only people who lose our minds. It’s a shame really, because having muscled our way into a rammed tent at Field Day, we know how much better Mount Kimbie could be with atmosphere to back up their stunning music.

Kings of Leon are ubiquitous with festivals, cropping up as frequently as portaloos with no toilet paper and a questionable whiff. And tonight we feel like behaving like total lads and screaming along to ‘Sex On Fire’. It’s totally out of character. Maybe it’s because we’re pumped full of Heineken. That said, after ‘Use Somebody’ we grow bored of what is a rather generic set, and we end up nerding out about Animal Collective with some other bored Polish people instead, and form a big gang bound for the Tent Stage.

We’re probably extremely biased here, because we could watch Animal Collective play a show amongst the Gareth Gates cassettes littering a derelict branch of Woolworths in a 1970s shopping precinct, and it would still be the best show we’d ever seen. This show tonight, in a now packed Tent Stage is something super-special though, and it all races by in a blur of psychedelic applesauce. The whole tent seems under some strange otherworldly spell as Panda Bear’s all-absorbing vocal power guides us through intensely complex jam sections, before morphing just as easily back into the likes of ‘My Girls’ and ‘Brothersport’. ‘Peacebone’ with flitting melodies and frenzied percussion, receives an insane crowd response. We’re beside ourselves and slightly hysterical – it’s the best Animal Collective show we’ve seen. With all our favourites present, as well as healthy dollops of jammy experimentation, it’s a serious contender for highlight of the entire festival, and a perfect early morning end to our Polish adventuring.