No known recording and a shortened festival set, if it wasn't for the sake of reviewing every show I have attended then perhaps this one wouldn't need mentioning.
I still had a good time, but my memory of this is dominated by a 15 minute delay at the start while they dealt with technical issues for the stage, with subsequent breaks between songs while the band members frantically tried to get things adjusted and fixed communicating through their in-ear monitors. This meant a very little crowd communication, and a basic setlist with nothing standing out from their previous show that I had seen the week prior.
The best thing about this was their ability at moments to still drum up a lot of high, fun energy in a crowd of mostly non-fans, outdoors, right in the middle of a very hot day. They weren't exactly at home in the festival lineup (
Lorde,
Vance Joy,
San Cisco,
Tash Sultana etc. headlining) but there must have been at least a decent contingent there to mosh for
Dune Rats,
Bad//Dreems and perhaps the DJ tent, and of course King Gizz. Because they really showed up for The Lord of Lightning and Rattlesnake in particular, which the band dished out nicely, even with an abrupt ending for time.
Other random thoughts from the day:
This festival was meant to host the first ever trial of legal pill testing in Australia, which was cancelled at the last minute. There was a palpable sense of dissapointment among attendees, and the police presence came with a strange new undertone of political influence. The trial went ahead the following year instead, and was a verified success in identifying dangerous adulterations in substances that attendees were planning to ingest. Years on, the city is now home to Australia's first permanent drug sample testing facility (showing similar positive outcomes), and it's territory also became the first (still only) place where cannabis is decriminalised in Australia.
Considering the outcome of this performance, and that it remains the only time they have played in Canberra; I suppose I am just lamenting a bit on the lagging drug harm reduction laws of this country, and the wasted potential of such a progressive city on a struggling arts industry and conflicted culture.