The Reworked King Street Carnival Came Out Bandaged, Bruised, But Never Beat
It wasn't what we were promised - but it was better.
Putting it gently, and with a sense of perspective in mind, it’s been a weird time for live music in Sydney.
It was bad enough to go through the endless games of Simon Says when it comes to regulations for post-lockdown gigs — sit down, stand up, wear a mask, don’t wear a mask, stand but don’t dance, stand and dance but don’t drink. And what happened as soon as restrictions lifted? The fucking Enmore Theatre floor broke for the first time in 15 years and floods washed away the first post-restrictions festival planned for the inner west, the King Street Carnival.
Yes, this would-be expansion of what was established in the mid-2010s as the King Street Crawl was born under a bad sign — originally scheduled for September 2021, the three-day festivities were then relocated to January and again to March. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another — making the outlook for the second weekend of March to feel particularly grim.
That was, of course, before the Carnival was reworked as an expanded mega-sized Crawl of sorts and sent out as a last-minute hail-Mary for the area. What ensues over the weekend is more than just making lemonade out of lemons, or chicken salad out of chicken shit — this is a thirst-quenching, hunger-busting testament to the all-encompassing excitement and camaraderie that comes with a great pub gig.
Learning How To Crawl Again
Arguably the weekend’s most exciting aspect is the chance to see festival-tier artists in some of their most intimate settings for quite awhile. While many who were set to play across Camperdown Memorial Rest Park and the Sydney Park Ampitheatre are out of the picture, several have found their way onto lineups across the weekend to play quote-unquote “secret” sets – making for an Amazing Race-style pursuit to get to the pub before they hit capacity.
Horrorshow is the worst-kept secret of Friday night, with Kelly’s getting a decidedly-sweaty pop-up set from the duo. Over at the Vanguard, many begin their Saturday by having a warm, giggly catch-up with indie-folk darlings All Our Exes Live In Texas — who regale the packed venue with tales of gastro and inter-ginger relationships, plus some dreamy four-part harmonies for good measure.
Johnny Hunter and Barkaa, elsewhere, offer up different sides of the same coin later that day by proving they’re ready for the big-time via sharp, confident performances at The Duke and The Vic respectively. We’d mention Andy Golledge’s set here, but reports from on-ground say folks have lined up outside upwards of two hours to get a glimpse of the inner-west cowboy. That’s commitment.
Bowling over into Sunday, The Marly sees Melbourne punks Private Function rile up both long-time mic-grabbing devotees and gobsmacked spectators. How exactly do you explain a band whose bread and butter is two-minute songs about irresponsible dog ownership, even more irresponsible gun ownership and the NSW/VIC border?
That’s not even mentioning the grand finale of frontman Chris Penney sticking his thumb directly up his arse, putting it in his mouth and performing the 30-second ‘Grabbing My Butt’. Was this done for attention? Absolutely. Is he getting it? Absolutely.
That’s not even mentioning the grand finale of frontman Chris Penney sticking his thumb directly up his arse, putting it in his mouth and performing the 30-second ‘Grabbing My Butt’.
The action continues down the road, with The Vanguard once again filling up for Arnhem Land’s prodigal sons King Stingray. The self-described “Yolngu surf rock” band may have been forged in the midst of the worst time to be a live band in human history, but they’ve quickly risen to the top of the food-chain within the Australian music scene almost entirely on the back of a fiery on-stage reputation. Frontman Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu may be a bashful, shy type, but his voice rings out through the venue with utmost clarity.
Upon punching humble Newtown pub The Union into Google Maps, the app helpfully informs that it’s “a little busier than usual”. This, upon arrival, stands as the front-runner for understatement of the year. By the time Tropical Fuck Storm are tuning up, just shy of 7pm, every last square metre of carpet is taken up by a wash of punters and a bunch of sad-eyed folks that missed out, peering in through every last pane of glass surrounding it — and even standing across the street.
To be fair, everywhere within a 500-metre radius will soon be able to hear the band’s sneering, nihilistic noise-rock — delivered with the kind of conviction that can only come from having cut your teeth playing in this exact brand of sticky-floored pub. It’s an exhilarating set that no-one really wants to end, which is made incarnate by a howling insistence for an encore — one that they deliver via a stomping, angular rendition of the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’. Talk about a disco inferno.
From The Bottom To The Top
Another positive trait of the Carnival’s 11th-hour recalibration was the fact that — like Crawls of old — there was a level playing field for all of the artists.
With nowhere sectioned off for paying customers only, lots of smaller artists are granted audiences that would might not have encountered them otherwise. Case in point: fittingly-titled indie outfit Gloomie, apparently playing only their third-ever show, who are on prior to Tropical Fuck Storm at the Union. While the group would be acutely aware that they’re not the draw-card of the bill, they use this opportunity to peddle their melancholic wares to great effect – reeling in attendees with shimmering minor-key slow-dances and lyrics that tug and tear at the heartstrings.
Other bands found themselves on the side of silver-lining circumstance, such as jangly indie quartet Sweetie. Much of the audience at Enmore’s HiWay are those that can’t get into the Duke for Johnny Hunter — but if their set proves anything, they’re no one’s consolation prize. This is a band with its star on the rise, that exude confidence and suffer no fools in their path. It might be a quieter riot than Sydney rock is used to, but it’s abundantly clear that Sweetie are riot grrrls at heart.
While we’re on the subject of HiWay, it’s running live music the latest for Saturday night’s schedule — which leads many back to catch both Murmurmur and Joseph Liddy & The Skeleton Horse at the end of the night. The former are shaggy-mane psychedelia, dousing their reverb-heavy guitars with sturdy back-beats to create something simultaneously blissful and boisterous.
The latter, meanwhile, are borderline indescribable — even while they’re setting up, you’re compelled by just how many folks seem to be squeezing on-stage (ten in total). What ensues is a resplendent exercise in maximalism, encompassing neo-soul and future-rnb with a striking contrast of vintage grooves. Every last body in the room is absolutely exhausted from a full day of gigging, and yet every last body in the room can’t stop moving – that’s the power of Liddy and his show-ponies right there.
If any sets across the Carnival weekend are going to incite “I was there” claims, it’s got to be this one.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all comes in the form of the weekend’s best set — which is not performed by anyone that was booked for the outdoor stages of King Street Carnival. Ultimately, nothing can quite compare to the foundation-shaking, riot-inducing performance from Western Sydney hardcore crew Speed at The Vic.
Speed play burly, heavy hardcore with piercing guitars, slamming drums and authoritative dog-bark vocals. Plenty of it ensues, but none of it is needed to set the crowd alight. All that’s needed is frontman Jiem Sow to make one simple, succinct announcement: “This is a hardcore show now”. As soon as these six words escape his mouth, the bodies begin piling up and the surging crowd bowls itself over — and it somehow gets even wilder from there. Crowdsurfing, stage-diving, slam-dancing, moshing and throwing down is the order of the day for the pub’s front bar — and not even the six-foot-wide security guards can control this chaos. If any sets across the Carnival weekend are going to incite “I was there” claims, it’s got to be this one.
The Carnival Is Over
As the weekend unravels and the pubs fill up around the neighbourhood, an intriguing question arises: Is the version of the King Street Carnival that we’ve gotten here actually better than the one that was planned?
With all respect to the promoters for their grand vision in making this a jumbo, multifaceted music festival, the original concept was certainly not without its flaws. For one, it was stressfully over-egged — to have competing line-ups running simultaneously in completely different parts of the area, Sydney Park and Camperdown Memorial Park, was inevitably going to lead to a lot of Sophie’s Choice clashes for those that enjoy a diverse range of music. If you were heading along exclusively to reminisce over You Am I and Ratcat, more power to you — but for those that like to rock and get down to a little Confidence Man, the original scheduling ultimately had you shit out of luck.
Is the version of the King Street Carnival that we’ve gotten here actually better than the one that was planned?
If that wasn’t enough, having the regular venues still running on top of that would have meant a lot of incredibly special performances and deserving artists would have more than likely been playing to scattered crowds rather than packed ones. Whether it’s punk up-and-comers like Private Wives and Dick Dudley, alt-country troubadours like Lady Lyon and Dominic Breen, electro-indie types like Baby Beef and Moody Beach, hip-hop prodigies like 1300 and Nooky, out-and-out rockers like Lincoln’s Gold and Chimers… these are all artists that have earned themselves this platform.
They deserve a greater level of attention, on par with your Middle Kids and your Yothu Yindis. To have a bigger stage elsewhere would have certainly detracted from that, meaning that the original intentions of the initiative would have been lost in translation. Don’t get it twisted — a big outdoor festival in either Sydney Park or Camperdown Memorial is a great idea, and if it can be attempted again then it deserves every modicum of success that comes its way. Next time around, however, some degrees of separation are clearly needed.
Besides everything else, some acts just make way more sense in the confines of a Crawl pub than a Carnival stage. Half the inner-west has piled into the Botany View on Sunday night to celebrate Caitlin Harnett and The Pony Boys, one of the area’s great success stories whose cult following is quickly spilling over into something even bigger. This is an outfit that is wholly capable of taking on a festival crowd, and there will be time enough for that. In this instance, however, the sway of the South King stalwart pub is a pitch-perfect environment for Harnett’s victory lap — complete with her crowd-surfing at the completion of closer ‘All My Friends Are Dancers’.
Would-be Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer Dolly Parton once famously said that if you want the rainbow, you’re going to have to put up with the rain. Across three days of peace, love and music, the King Street Carnival — bandaged, bruised, but never beat — was the rainbow we all needed. May it shine again, when the time comes, across every pub in Newtown still supporting live music.
David James Young is a writer and podcaster. If you go to shows in Sydney, he was probably at that thing you were at too.
Photo Credits: Sam Brumby