Nick Argyriou

The sixth annual Golden Plains Festival rolls out psychedelic, big-time dance, boogie blues, punk and folk-rock to showcase yet another transcendent Amphitheatre happening.

Performing tracks appropriated chiefly from the man’s latest self-titled record, Bon Iver, Justin Vernon steps into an extended sunset slot with nine-piece band in tow. Drawing on major folk, electro and falsetto rock, even the irritating Auto-Tune/vocoder choral distorter on the Vernon vocal is tolerable enough with the Wisconsin native shining in a set peppered with both timeworn and new material. With a gleam in his eyes, the godfather of psychedelic-rock, Roky Erickson, channels wonderfully warped material from his ’60s Texan cult band, The 13th Floor Elevators-era and other assorted musical pearls during his searing Sunday night session. Nile Rodgers out front of disco-heavy act CHIC delivered hit-after-hit with a back-catalogue of tracks: Le Freak, Everybody Dance and Good Times balancing out Rodgers’ penned/produced classics, Let’s Dance (David Bowie), Upside Down (Diana Ross), We Are Family (Sister Sledge), Like a Virgin (Madonna) and INXS’ Original Sin. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy aka Will Oldham, along with his Cairo Gang ensemble, toured his latest record Wolfroy Goes To Town. Sporting blue-tinged shades, busy beard and musings about acid, Oldham draws on his inimitable blend of gloomy, meditative folk parables to a crowd happily on the nod.

Where Black Lips offered up a disparate musical spread, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti puts out its typically elusive routine with Master Rosenberg wandering about in a daze and occasionally reciting from a lyrics sheet. Charles Bradley’s James Brown-esque collapsible, high-tempo funk, soul and R&B, meanwhile, included a cover of the Neil Young classic, Heart of Gold and Nirvana’s Stay Away. London beats veteran Roots Manuva and Chicago pop-rockers Urge Overkill both provided passable nostalgia-based shows, Swedish harmony queens First Aid Kit nailed pastoral grandeur and Australia’s ‘Hottest Kiss Tribute Band’ Kisstroyer were strangely flat and performed a set more suited to a local RSL than a celestial outdoor music celebration. Oz surf-rock icons The Celibate Rifles fashioned an inspired performance to once again confirm they still retain one of this land’s preeminent punk sounds. Potential Rifles partisans Total Control blasted open their own mix of feverish tuneage on the opening morning and Lanie Lane again exposed her rockabilly and maroon-coloured short-shorts. Psych-blues dudes Endless Boogie brought forward the weed references and protracted guitar jams, whereas local enigma Lost Animal and the Avalanches’ DJ Dexter were other significant Australian representation at a festival that continues to grow in prominence, unpredictability and wonderment with each year that passes.