Live Review & Gallery: Listen Out Brisbane 2018

With a morning full of rain and storms, it seemed like the festival gods opened up the skies as the gates opened at Victoria Park on Sunday, as eager punters arrived at the boutique festival that is Listen Out. Mud, music and a dash of sunlight set the scene for the day ahead.

The festival was headlined by the likes of electronic heavyweight Skrillex, rap lord A$AP Rocky, the world’s biggest boyband Brockhampton and Coca Cola fresh Camelphat. Here are some highlights from the day.

Entering the festival we caught the last few minutes of Haku Hands. Despite the rain just holding off, they had the early punters up front with hands high. Their biggest single, Not About You played in unison across the Listen Out fields.

A big highlight to the day was Kllo—beautiful electronica and dreamy vocals filled out the 909 Stage. Kllo, lead by Chloe Kaul and Simon Lam, backed with a full band, weaved in and out of tracks like Downfall, Virtue and a big mention for the track By My Side—the live version of this really pumped with the final moments of the track sending energy level high across the crowd.

The crowd was building at the Atari Stage for one of the most talked about acts for this year’s festival. Brockhampton took to the stage and it was easy to see why they call themselves the biggest boy band in the world. Opening with NEW ORLEANS, each member had their own entrance to the stage with each verse. J’OUVERT gets a special mention here being one of the best-performed tracks and with 1999 WILDFIRE missing off the setlist, they closed with BOOGIE, sending the crowd in a complete frenzy to finish.

Another act who has been the talk of the town is Fisher. Having the sunset slot, the 909 Stage was hanging off every track. Gold Coast’s Paul Fisher makes up the one man act, now basing himself in Los Angeles, once pro surfer now a producer and professional DJ, it was easy to see why the crowd was there to see the DJ take the stage. Despite some technical issues with what we assumed to be his laptops during certain parts of the set, Fisher still played hits such as Stop It, Crowd Control and, of course, Loosin’ It.

Camelphat followed Fisher, the duo taking to the stage. It was a perfect transition.

The setting at the Atari Stage was looking full, with crash test cars lining the stage. A few minutes late, A$AP Rocky launched into Distorted Records, the first track from his ‘Testing’ album. A$AP really wanted to get that mosh pit moving, as he told the crowd. A$AP Forever followed then into crowd favourite Praise The Lord with Skepta joining on stage. Harlem born Rakim Mayers, backed up by his band, gave the Brisbane crowd hits like LSD, Fucking Problems and finished the night with Wild For the Night.

Skrillex proved to the crowd he is still the biggest in the game. The set was packed with hits like his huge remix of Kendrick Lamar’s Humble, Breaking A Sweat and Bangarang, which erupted the final moments of the day.

Special mention to Poloshirt and Glades who put on an amazing performance—we see big things to come from these guys—and Sydney-based Made in Paris finishing the 3rd Base Stage with some solid techno.