On the weekend I and many other of the youths around Melbourne attended Fuzzy and Future Entertainment’s Parklife at Birrarung Marr on the Yarra, signalling the coming of summer and the festival season.

It was a stellar Melbourne day with the sun coming out to shine and many youngsters coming out to show some post-winter fake tan and party. I kicked off the day with a raucous performance by Sydneysiders and Triple J favourites, Art Vs Science. It was very well received by an enthusiastic crowd, with the band even getting some mime-costumed lads to come dance up on stage with them, and an excellent way to kick off an epic day.

Next, I headed off to the Water stage to catch the up and coming superstar of Australian dance, Shazam. He played a pumping set despite the roadie for Little Boots deciding that it would be a nice idea to start their sound check right bang in the middle of Shazam’s set, the nerve! Boy, oh, Boy was I angry! But the adorably dweebish Shazam persisted and finished off a set of future indie hits without complaint. After they hurried Shazam off stage at the end of his set, we were regretfully informed that not only was her roadie obnoxious but that British export Little Boots was running late and would be a few more minutes before she came on. Luckily, when she finally did arrive, sporting some cool Saiyan armour and some not so little heels, she busted out a rapid fire of hits without fault.

I then battled through a overwhelming crowd at MSTRKRFT to catch some club hits from the remix masters. From there I rushed over to the Fire stage to enjoy a tight and rich performance by quirk-pop darlings Metronomy, with a recently new line up and wearing some rad lights. As night approached we got our party on to Yacht Club DJs, spinning a barrage of hits spanning all genres and pumping up the crowd with some rock star antics including multiple journeys into the crowd on top of an inflatable boat… or yacht? We then retreated back up the hill to watch Metric play a subdued 45 minute set with more of a rock and roll flavour, leaving early to secure a good spot for Empire Of The Sun’s debut Melbourne performance.

The people flocked to the Water stage to catch Luke Steele’s extravagant performance featuring multiple costume changes, an accompanying acid-trip lightshow and dancers dressed as swordfish. People sang along and the crowd swayed but in comparison the set was rather lack lustre and was missing that Nick Littlemore charm. At the end of the Empire Of The Sun journey through time and space, I popped back over to the Fire stage to catch The Rapture channel some Sting and do some sweet justice to the dance rock genre. A fantastic way to cap off an evening!

And if my experience of the day is anything to go by, I think they got it wrong…

…at Parklife, people still dance.