And here it is: a full interview (including video) with Tkay Maidza.
We’re going to wrap the blog up for tonight, but look out for reviews of Death Cab For Cutie and tonight’s headliner, Mark Ronson, later – plus more pictures, videos and interviews.
If you’re on the site, come and have a drink in the Guardian Lounge at some point, and we’ll be back with more coverage tomorrow.
Thanks for reading, and have a good night!
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Everybody’s talking about Tkay Maidza, so Bill Code went to see what the fuss was about.
Struggling to find the right stage while navigating muddy trenches is par for the festival course. And so this reviewer found himself observing a large, up-for-it, well-lubricated crowd going nuts for Adelaide’s party rap queen Tkay Maidza.
There she was, bouncing across the stage demanding the crowd stomp their feet “like a brontosaurus.” There’s more than a bit of Azealia Banks in Maidza’s performance, but this was very much her own thing, not taking herself too seriously and looking like she was having a riot of a time on stage.
She might not be the greatest hip-hop lyricist in the country, but with beats like this – wobbly bass, four-to-the-floor party fodder – I’m not sure anyone here gives two stuffs about that.
Expect a full interview and video with Tkay on site shortly.
Some more images from our photographer on the ground
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Alex Spring’s been chatting to the stars.
"I like the album being an event but idea of putting out a couple of EPs first" Johnny Marr to @alexspring #sitg2015 pic.twitter.com/YtCMmLRqZt
— Guardian Aus Culture (@GdnAusCulture) July 24, 2015
So, are you working on @flumemusic's new album, @Georgemaplemusi? "We'll see." #SITG2015 pic.twitter.com/oFw3n0HClH
— Guardian Aus Culture (@GdnAusCulture) July 24, 2015
Full interviews to follow on Guardian Culture...
Never watch a movie with Tkay Maidza, the 19-year-old rapper from Adelaide – or, if you do, be prepared for her to over-think it.
During our chat earlier this afternoon, we got to talking about the communications teacher who introduced her to Azealia Banks (who she’s sharing the Splendour bill with: “It’s surreal”) a couple of years ago, setting her musical direction in motion.
He must’ve been a pretty cool teacher, I suggested, thinking back to one of mine who insisted on Creedence Clearwater Revival for three hours a week. “He was a really cool teacher ... it was one of those classes where you could do whatever you wanted – as long as you did your work, he didn’t really care. ... We watched a lot of movies, actually.”
In the unlikely event Maidza’s old teacher is reading this blog, he’ll be pleased to hear that his teachings sunk in – part of our interview was spent discussing symbolism in Furious 7.
Hey @TKAYMAIDZA. Hey @mlle_elle ... (Captions please readers....) pic.twitter.com/tEV8PKXSez
— Guardian Aus Culture (@GdnAusCulture) July 24, 2015
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San Cisco have kicked off on the main stage and the crown can’t seem to clap enough for their twee indiepop full of “do-do-dos” and alternating male-female vocals.
The profile of the Fremantle band has been rising for the last few years – and no wonder when they make songs as charming as this.
Alan Evans has been to see Jenny Lewis (his all-time musical crush).
Jenny Lewis is probably playing a little earlier in the day than would be ideal, but she manages to get the crowd dancing – as far as is possible on the boggy ground – by sticking mostly to songs from her latest album, The Voyager, with a few from her old Rilo Kiley days thrown in.
Midway through the set the energy levels rise during a stretch including solo singles She’s Not Me and Just One of the Guys, but it’s Rilo Kiley’s almost-hit Portions For Foxes that gets the biggest response and singalong.
The highlight, though, is the finale. Squalling Sonic Youth-style guitars collapse into Lewis’s delicate depression anthem A Better Son/Daughter, which builds gradually back into a mesmerising musical maelstrom of feedback.
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Bill Code writes:
Well, that was a mellow set from young 18-year-old upstart Japanese Wallpaper. No hands in the air jump-around malarkey here, but one thing to note; more girls than boys. Not sure how many electronic producers can put that on their resume. And it’s a bold festival act that waits twenty minutes before they drop their first significant beat.
Just as well we’ve got Jonny snapping the performance for us.
Search Japanese Wallpaper on Twitter for pics and you see all kinds of things you really don’t need on a Friday afternoon.
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Pictures please
We’ve been tantalising you with some choice shots from our resident snapper, Guardian Australia’s picture editor Jonny Weeks, and now we’ve got a gallery of them for you ... we’ll be keeping this topped up all day so come back for more later.
You can also send us your pics, via Guardian Witness. Here’s the handy link.
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So tonight’s headliner is Mr Mark “Uptown Funk” Ronson, fresh off his five star festival performance at Glastonbury and a cheery interview with Guardian Australia’s Monica Tan earlier this year where he waxed rhapsodic about Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker and the Aussie music scene in general. Fitting then that he should be playing Splendour when it’s fronting its finest local lineup in years.
Parker is just one of the all-star supergroup joining Ronson on stage later tonight ... also touted: Daniel Merriweather, Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow, Keyone Starr, Kirin J Callinan and, just announced, Ella Thompson. Not to mention a bit of brass.
Here’s our UK colleague Rebecca Nicholson’s verdict of the Glasto finale
It was, frankly, ridiculously good, an imaginary dinner party band lineup, the stuff of music dreams: Grandmaster Flash, George Clinton and Mary J Blige combined to hit your hallelujah. That’s only the inventor of hip-hop, the prime minister of funk, and one of the finest soul vocalists of all time. Mark Ronson looked overwhelmed to have pulled it off, but he did, outstandingly. What a show.
Let’s hope for some repeat action in the park tonight.
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No festival stylewatch would be complete without a “cultural appropriation” bonus round. I’d thought this would be a harder spot at any music festival in 2015, not just Splendour, given celebrities’ recent and widely criticised missteps – for example, Pharrell Williams was forced to apologise for wearing an elaborate Native American headdress in an Elle photoshoot.
As it turns out, there’s an entire stall that sells them. So, if you’ve left yours at home, not only can you pick one up here, but you can kit out all your mates and get a dreamcatcher for your tent too. The lads are loving it!
Forget your Native American headdress? Don't worry! You can get one on site! #SITG2015 pic.twitter.com/4ZXPa3wyEh
— Elle Hunt (@mlle_elle) July 24, 2015
Catfish and the Bottlemen were forced to cancel a couple of days ago due to illness, so Brisbane sort-of-locals DZ Deathrays have been called up as a last-minute replacement and will fill their slot at 3.15pm on the main stage.
Here’s the video for their song Gina Works at Hearts, in which the duo are just too rock’n’roll to keep still at the barber, leading to pretty gruesome results.
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I am wearing a hat. I have been on a plane. Where am I? pic.twitter.com/FVQGSU3pYm
— Van Badham (@vanbadham) July 24, 2015
A behatted Van Badham has arrived and already acquired herself a hashtag: #vanvssplendour. We’ve just caught up with her to ask her what ails.
“Well I’m finding it challenging and I’ve only been here an hour,” she reports. “It’s the toilets. I’m not a Portaloo person. Did you know that one of the first acts of Gough Whitlam’s government was to bring adequate sewaging to every Australian home. That’s the sign of a reforming government. They know that shit is on everyone’s minds.”
I can report the loos are for now, at least, surprisingly fragrant. At least the ones near the press tent. Surely the toilet situation isn’t usually great on the protests Van’s usually at?
“Good lord, I only go to protests if there’s adequate plumbing! I am developing a steady aversion to everyone here. The 90s fashion! Only it’s sub-90s really. I haven’t seen this much black crepe since 1994.”
Life and times of a guardian girl. #vanvssplendour @ Guardian Forum, Splendour in the Grass https://t.co/I7VQmVc3s0
— Van Badham (@vanbadham) July 24, 2015
Perhaps the crepe is a protest about the current welfare situation?
Van: “Hmm. By Sunday, I will be at Labor’s national conference, and I wonder if I’ll see any difference.”
VIP band watching area at Splendour. Please tell me who the famous people are. # pic.twitter.com/wsqIR7GWrW
— Van Badham (@vanbadham) July 24, 2015
So, the all important weather post. As a Glastonbury veteran, obsessive weather-watching is one of my favourite festival sideshows. And this part of New South Wales seems to have a microclimate every bit as temperamental as Worthy Farm.
Our team’s various weather apps put the chance of rain today at between 30% and 60%, but the temperatures in the low twenties. Translated: muggy and sweaty. Our hasty Splendour packing erred on the side of chilly and windy. So, calm yourself, readers, but the jumpers are already coming off and this media tent is about to see some flesh.
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The media tent is playing LCD Soundsytem’s North American Scum which, while undeniably a hit, is now eight years old. Still, it does lend the very dark, humid tent the air of an indie disco during the height of the Hoxton basement music craze.
Nancy Whang, a former member of the band (and the Juan Maclean), will be closing the Tiny Dancer stage with a DJ set tomorrow night, so I suppose that’s the link.
Bill Code has been to see Ecca Vandal, South African-born Melbourne-based star in the making.
This is how you start a festival. Ecca comes out like some sort of rock’n’roll space gypsy, angry guitar riffs and wobbly synth bass blasting into the muddy fields in equal measure.
If you want big rock drums and guitars with someone channelling Gwen Stefani and Missy Elliott in equal measure, then go no further. She won’t be on at 1pm next year.
“Mate, she’s gonna be big, she’s gonna be big,” the guy next to me observes. Too bloody right.
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Earlier this week we all chose what we were most looking forward to about the festival. From Blur to “monk-led sand mandala dissolution”, whatever that is, read about our hopes and dreams here.
Whoever put together the programme for the festival had higher ambitions, and asked some of the artists to name something on their bucket lists. From the charmingly low bar set by Urban Cone to the less plausible aims of the Grates, here are 10 of the more interesting selections.
Seekae: do a trapeze course
Client Liaison: plastic surgery
Tim Powles from The Church: drive a train pulled by a steam engine
Dan Rutman from I’lls: build up the courage to speak to Damon Albarn
Urban Cone: play Splendour in the Grass and visit Australia
Jamie T: visit North Korea
Holy Holy: sail from Australia to Sweden
Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast: write a song with Stevie Nicks
Angus from the Babe Rainbow: shave off my beard
The Grates: live in a utopian dome community
Life is downhill from here for Urban Cone. It could be about to peak for Dan Rutman though. We’ll try to track him down on Sunday and see whether he has pulled it off.
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If you’re on the site this year, make sure you visit the Guardian Lounge, where there are iPads to catch up on the news, enjoy some drinks on special Guardian-branded cushions and buy a whisky for First Dog on the Moon.
Three Guardian contributors – Dog, Van Badham and MC Adam Brereton – will also be appearing on Saturday as part of a panel and Q&A discussing the lies, truths and half-truths the media like to tell.
We've landed at Splendour
G’day everyone. Team Guardian Australia reporting for duty on site at North Byron Parklands for three days of music, mud, bands and burgers at Splendour in the Grass festival, and the current mood is, well, pretty rock’n’roll really.
Picking up our hire car from Brisbane last night, the nice lady at Hertz asked how many times we’d played the festival before … the truth is, this is the Guardian’s first outing to Splendour. But we’re doing things in style as the official partner of the Forum, Splendour’s tent dedicated to comedy, politics and debate.
True to form for Splendour, it rained a bit yesterday here in northern New South Wales but the sun is out, our wellies are on and Mansionair have already started their set.
Also, for what it’s worth, Guardian Australia is a sponsor of Splendour in the Grass.
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