The sun beams down onto the palm fronds of St Kilda beach on one of the warmest days of the new season as thousands of already wasted partygoers descend upon Catani Gardens, Listen Out’s new festival site in 2015. It’s obvious why these grounds were chosen, the grass is green and the ocean is 50 meters away, nuff said.

The Aussie contingent on the lineup impress early in the day as business-casuals Client Liaison put their synth pop on the company card at the main Atari stage and late announcement basenji (filling in for cancellation Lido) was a worthy savior over at the secondary 909 stage.

Hip Hop duo/brothers Rae Sremmurd were a frenzy of trap energy on the Atari stage as their hits ‘No Flex Zone’ and ‘No Type’ pummel the audience into submission. In stark contrast to this, Sydney’s Hayden James’ sweet melodies and tight dance production gave something for dance fans to sway to over at the 909 stage.

Odesza impressed with their visually engaging mixture of live drums, mpc and laptop programming while Ryan Hemsworth was an unexpected highlight of the day with his chilled beats, slick production and jilted future sounds.

Alison Wonderland continued the party on the main stage as she worked her way through a set of no frills club bangers, even building somewhat of a rapport with the locals as she introduced one track with “This song’s about the last time I fucked my ex boyfriend….IN MELBOURNE!!!”

Something that had been lurking behind every act of the day so far had finally made itself painfully obvious during this set. The music simply wasn’t loud enough. Wonderland’s drops just couldn’t hit as she tried her best to really ramp it up to a crowd that grew disinterested by the halfway point.

Music aside, part of the draw of Listen Out is the crowd itself. Yes there are a couple of aggressive, shirtless ‘stereo-bros’ dragging women around, poor young girls defecating on themselves (actually) and the largest pupils this side of a Pixar film, but (relatively) few people were getting hurt and most were largely having the time of their lives, embracing strangers violently and soaking in the sun and sound, when they could hear it under everybody else talking.

As the day went on, the punters were given more to engage with as the sun went down and the girls got chilly because partial nudity is so on point rn.

Pro Era’s Joey Bada$$ was up next and not a single person in attendance missed it. Punters ran full pelt into the pit as the Brooklyn native tore into his back catalogue, taking cuts from his breakthrough mixtape 1999, Summer Knights, and B4.DA.A$$. Part way through the set he even invited a throng of women onto the stage to dance, but was promptly disappointed when those on stage proved more interested in taking selfies than enjoying the experience.

One of Australia’s most exciting new dance producers, Golden Features, had the hardest slot of the day, going up against Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, aka Bino, aka Troy from ‘Troy and Abed in the morning’. Golden features drew an impressive crowd but it was clear that the night belonged to Bino.

Glover’s charisma hit the stage before he did, that’s how much star power this guy’s got. Appearing in front of lighting panels that projected his silhouette, Bino stalks the stage announcing ‘I’m really happy to be here Australia, it’s my birthday yesterday’ (sic).

30 seconds into his dark opener ‘I. Crawl’, Glover ripped his shirt off to roaring applause from female festival goers, and from that moment he was on fire. A seriously impressive full live band appeared as the lighting panels split open to reveal each member behind.

Bino had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand as he worked his way through classics like Worldstar, V.3005, Telegraph Avenue and I. The Worst Guys. The crowd was even treated to some long awaited new material, which didn’t fail to impress.

As good as Glover was, his set was marred by the same lack of volume as every other artist on the day. Festival goers were getting vocal about it by this point, declaring that they couldn’t take it anymore, wondering if they should check out the other stage, crying for their money back, many even leaving early to take the party elsewhere.

Listen Out was basically the Nicolas Cage of Australian music festivals on Saturday. When it was good, it was great, when it was bad, it was so bad that it was actually kind of great, but not for the reasons that it wanted to be. And no matter how it was going, it always felt like it was about to implode. Let’s hope the organisers can make sure punters at the other legs of the festival don’t have to listen so hard to Listen Out.

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