When a powerful witch wishes to summon a being from the otherworld, she uses one of the magician’s tools: the chalk circle. It calls the creature from places unseen to briefly inhabit this world while trapping it inside a safe boundary.
Future Music festival in Sydney was something like this: the track of Randwick racecourse calling some 50,000 punters to a day of sun and dancing. The startled looks on public transport and exclamations on social media – where are all these young people coming from? – backed up the view that for many Sydneysiders, the invasion of the city and its surrounds by Gen Y’s suburban throngs was more like the gates of hell opening than they’d have liked. Future really is hated by those outside its circle.
Randwick itself was totally transformed. From the pavilion, the lights and smoke from the main stages seemed so distant; the crowds were densely packed for hundreds of metres and totally oblivious, a solid mass of perfectly smooth, shredded dudebros dwarfing tiny, crop-topped partners, and thinning out to solitary, leathery-tanned old mates, dancing alone.
There was an inflatable stage blowing bubbles and foam onto blissful dancers, the “Cocoon”, a pit playing house music, and two main stages separated by the VIP area, where my mate reckons he spotted Redfoo getting stuck into a few beers.
The whole thing screamed of service. From the emoji branding to the perfectly-crafted lineup, the summoned crowds were not being told what to like, but having their own preferences masterfully catered to. And what catering: DJs Knife Party put on an absolutely blistering set, smoke and light show; South African rap group Die Antwoord led the crowd in chants of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!”, while flashing peeks under their hoodies; Avicii was Avicii – like drinking litres of Pepsi.
2 Chainz and Drake phoned it in even as they laid it on, Drake paying Future the same compliments he paid his sideshows, his wide ex-boyfriend’s eyes searching out over the crowd from the huge screens on either side of the stage. As those lines came out of his mouth – “Baby you’re my everything, you’re all I ever wanted / We could do it real big, bigger than you ever done it” – an essential demand of the festival was met.
The Prodigy, whose appearance on the bill was a fantastic 90s industrial throwback, were surprisingly off-brand. But they’re the masters, and put a bitter note into an otherwise saccharine, hi-NRG day. Darude knew why he was there and accordingly played for irony with a huge Sandstorm, bubbles drifting through the tent.
If you’re into it, it was fantastic: sunburn, comedown and all. There’s no feeling at all that it’s countercultural, or even transgressive, or trying to be interesting at the edges like the Big Day Out once was. Saturday’s other festival, Soundwave could be said to be a subcultural home for punks and metalheads. Future just is, like Anzac Day. It’s the summoning circle: a place where Gen Y’s existing preferences can be played out.
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Future Music festival visits Perth (1 March), Brisbane (7 March), Melbourne (8 March) and Adelaide (9 March)
