Splendour In The Grass went back to Byron, and we were there. These are the sets our reviewers can’t stop raving about…

DZ Deathrays set up their own equipment before taking the stage, usually the music industry's tell that the band is yet to make it big. Ironic really, seeing as opening track ‘Cops/Capacity’ had the thousands of punters present behaving like they'd been listening to DZ since their mothers stopped breastfeeding them. The entirety of debut album 'Bloodstreams' pelted from Shane Parson's tormented respiratory system harder than the torrential rain that fell throughout the set. Kind of like Richard Kingsmill's tears.

James Mercer brings The Shins on stage and you realise that every other band you've seen was merely a sound check. It was the band's first opportunity to road test new album 'Port of Morrow', and to Mercer's delight the market testing delivered some pleasing results. The polish that we have come to expect from this outfit was duly applied to renditions of 'Simple Song' and 'The Rifle's Spiral', with 'Australia' also getting a healthy dosage of Mr Sheen.

A question on everyone's lips had been whether Jack White could match the hype that had followed him on the road to Splendour - even for someone like Jack White, tall tales had been told. Yet as his band emerged to play 'Dead Leaves On The Dirty Ground', those lucky enough to have spines immediately felt chills creeping up them. Regardless of your opinion of White's solo album 'Blunderbus', seeing the man perform over a decade's worth of material from a music empire spanning The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather is the equivalent of an auditory pilgrimage. Jack White concluded the set with 'Seven Nation Army', a song that 15,000 people continued to chant long after he'd left the premises.
James Pearson

Playing the penultimate slot on Friday, At the Drive-In were perhaps worthy of closing the night – given how many people seemed to have come solely to see them perform their reunion show. Although the reasons behind why they reformed after so many years may be varied (from re-patching their friendship to money), the band nonetheless put on a searing performance once they hit the stage. Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Jim Ward were especially animated from their opening rendition of ‘Arc Arsenal’ right through to their closing track and success ‘One Armed Scissor’.

Also on a reunion tour of sorts (having gone on a break while Kele Okereke dabbled with electronica), Bloc Party looked to be having a great time on stage. Mixing old crowd favourites and moving through their subsequent albums to include the opening cuts from their new album, ‘Four’, it felt like a celebration for both the crowd and the band.
Colleen Edwards

Even in the midst of winter, The Beautiful Girls warmed the crowd with their smooth, laidback sounds of summer. Favourites on the festival circuit, they were well within their element at Splendour. The tent packed to the brim with love as front man Mat McHugh introduced his fellow band mates through song. “This is our third Splendour and by far the best,” he announced to the crowd. For many, it will be the last gig they see the band perform under The Beautiful Girls name.

As the end of another Splendour bender crept closer it was time to prolong the sadness once more and bring on a third wind as headline act The Smashing Pumpkins took the stage. Five years on since their reformation, and with another album under their belt, the band was in fine form to say the least. They covered a range of older favourites, B-sides, and tracks off their latest offering ‘Oceania’.

Corgan performed a customarily epic guitar solo during ‘Ava Adore’; even during slower songs, they stayed engaged with the audience and maintained a gripping intensity in classic Pumpkins style. Corgan asked the audience if they were feeling alright and after a cheered response he replied, “Don’t fucking lie to me, you’re tired!”

If Corgan is looking to usher in a new era of The Smashing Pumpkins then, judging by Sunday night’s Splendour performance, he’s doing just that. Brace yourselves as the revolution may just be starting all over again.
Liesl D’Rozario

At an open mic night back in 2002, an audience member watched a group of guys from Sydney's northern beaches play songs about surfing, music and girls.

Enjoying their refreshing, low key, acoustic sound, he got a hold of one of their demo tapes and from there their music found its way to Triple J and the ears of Aussies all over the country. That was just the beginning of what has been a crazy and unbelievable ten year ride for The Beautiful Girls.

“It just turned into this thing,” Mat. McHugh, the band’s frontman and chief songwriter, says. “The shows started selling out pretty quickly and it wasn't ever really a plan. The Beautiful Girls as a name was kind of a joke and it all took off without much thought put in place and we just held on the best we could.”

Had you told McHugh he'd be where he is today, playing his music to thousands of fans around the world who know every word to the songs he's written in his bedroom, he wouldn't have believed you. He hasn't let the success change him and says he's still the same person who grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney.

“I had no intention to ever make it my career,” he says. “I've always played music since I was a little kid and I just love it. I almost didn't want to do it as a career 'cause often if you're not careful if you make a career out of the things you really love you can end up hating them.”

There wouldn't be many bands in the past ten years that have toured as much as The Beautiful Girls. However, the decade long road trip is set to end where it all began, and the band will play their last ever tour at 26 stops around Australia.

While it may be the end of The Beautiful Girls as you know them, McHugh is on the same road he's always been on. Now he's just doing it under his own name.

“It's going to be really enjoyable, we're all in a good headspace and we're all positive, there's no animosity in the band. I'm sure we're all going to keep continuing to play music together in some shape or form ... we're all great mates and we'll all keep playing, and that's the thing we want everyone to know. It's just time to move forward into the present day.”

The band’s Facebook page has been inundated with fans posting stories about parts of their lives and adventures they've had that have involved The Beautiful Girls, and while McHugh thinks all these memories are cool, he has a different slant on it.

“I'm flattered that we're able to be involved in people's lives and all be in this crazy journey over the last ten years together, but at the same time I'm not entirely a nostalgic person. I want to celebrate ten years of amazing fun and opportunity and the gift of a life that I've been given. I'm sure there's nostalgia in there, but I'm looking more forward to the future than sad about the past. The past is done, it's gone.”

As McHugh evolved so too did his music and under the guise of The Beautiful Girls he touched on many genres. Their final shows will embody this and will be split into two parts, beginning with an acoustic set and returning plugged in and electric. Whatever the song, McHugh hopes you'll sing along with him.

“The songs really come to life when people are in the crowd and they're getting involved and they're singing and they're dancing. Our whole approach is that it needs to be a communal thing and the stage doesn't make any huge difference … it's just a room and we're all in here together. Historically our crowds have been amazing in that respect and it's been a blessing to be in a room with everyone.”

To all The Beautiful Girls fans out there, this isn't the end of the music, just the end of a name, and McHugh has this to say to everyone who has supported The Beautiful Girls over the past ten years: “Firstly, thank you, it can't be expressed how much gratitude all of us have for everybody that's enabled this to happen...

"We're as happy and amazed by the whole thing as anyone. Secondly, the main thing that people know is it's not the end of anything; it's just changing to my name. The name ‘The Beautiful Girls’... I feel like I've outgrown it and that's all. So the relationships between all of us that play the music are not ending, the music's not ending, nothing. It's just the next step in the journey and I for one am excited to see what happens.”

The Beautiful Girls play the Coolum Civic Centre Friday August 10, The Tivoli Saturday August 11, The Great Northern Thursday September 27 and Saturday September 29 and Coolangatta Hotel Friday September 28.

Finding Home

He’s the backbone of The Beautiful Girls with a humility that many in the music biz no longer possess. Refusing to let his life slip by on a tour bus, he spent a year in solitude composing the band’s latest record ‘Spooks’, finding inspiration and comfort in the small things in life – a sense of family and home. Ladies and gents, I give you Mat McHugh.

“Being at home you kind of look inward, it’s a deeper level than just touring around and giving your viewpoint on the world as you see it through the window of a tour van. ‘Spooks’ was a bit more centred around a sense of family and home which I always knew were important, but the more time you spend around it the more important you realise they are.”

The Beautiful Girls - now consisting of Mat, Paulie Bromley and Bruce Braybrooke – formed in 2000, appearing at a handful of open mic nights in their hometown Sydney before releasing their first EP in 2002.

It was what Mat calls an “accidental beginning”. He had studied design after leaving school, spending a year in India and New York where he could be seen busking on the streets. His plans to return to NYC after recording the demo were sidelined by its instant success.

“The demo cost $300 to make and sold 100,000 copies. I’m prepared at every second for it to end, I just wanna do stuff that comes from my heart so I’ve never gotten back to New York apart from the odd tour.”

Since those humble beginnings, The Beautiful Girls have gone from strength to strength, releasing four stellar records and establishing a loyal following both in Australia and around the world.

The band’s fans are always a consideration for Mat during the songwriting process. While he sees no point in churning out the same old sound, he tries to avoid alienating his fans by creating something too different.

“You have to stay faithful to what people know you for because they’re the people that at the end of the day are coming to shows and paying the bills. I feel like I owe our fans everything really because they’ve allowed me to have this life.”

His passion for music, particularly songwriting, was instilled in him by his late father.

“Dad was big into music and it was a bit of a pain in the arse really but he passed away when I was ten and I started getting more into it in a way because it was a connection between him and myself and I guess that was the reason I started connecting with it more.”

This year’s stint as a solo artist has seen Mat perform alongside the John Butler Trio at the historical Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, where the likes of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley have performed.  

“We were playing 2,000 to 3,000-seat venues and I was playing onstage just by myself with a loop pedal and a guitar and standing up there naked pretty much. I was freaking when I first started that tour because I’d never done that and so to do that and kinda get comfortable in doing that I feel very proud doing that.”

Mat fitted his first solo album in the months between tours with the band, describing it as “just a little breather” he had.

“I didn’t want any expectations; I didn’t want to push it out ... I didn’t want to do any of the hard work we always do with Beautiful Girls stuff. I just wanted to put it out and see if people liked it and just go on a really mellow tour with my friends.

“The process of making that solo record was probably the most fun I’ve ever had making a record just because it was super easy and fun, no pressure. It was the opposite of the last Beautiful Girls record which we slaved over; the solo record was done in about three days.”

On the rare occasions Mat’s not playing music, you’ll find him hanging out at his home in Sydney or catching a few sets at the beach (he’s been surfing since he could walk). He dreams of one day getting a dog but for the time being is content with a summer tour with The Beautiful Girls next year followed by a solo tour of America in February, and then perhaps another solo record.

“It’s an absolutely blessed life.”

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS PERFORM AT THE GREAT NORTHERN, BYRON, JAN. 12-13, COOLANGATTA HOTEL JAN. 14, THE HI-FI JAN. 15 AND KINGS BEACH TAVERN, CALOUNDRA, JAN. 16.

Not Really Girls At All

The Beautiful Girls have consistently delivered the goods for the past decade, and consequently are enjoyed around the world. With the release of their latest album, ‘Spooks’, comes a long-awaited national tour.

The fourth record from The Beautiful Girls was crafted differently from their past records. “It came about in a completely different way to how it would usually happen. Usually I’d write the demos and then I’d take them to the band and they’d just learn the demos and then record it in a certain timeframe, just put some mics on everything and go for it.

But this one was completely different. I kind of set up a little studio downstairs in the house, and every day I just went in there and built the album from the ground up. So we sampled our drummer’s individual drums and then made them into beats and then added some programmed stuff and did all of the bass and the keys.

Basically everything on this album was done at home except for a little bit of keyboard and horns at the end. So it was putting it together in the style of a hip hop record or a dub record or something, a studio kind of thing,” says Mat McHugh.

Mat, the frontman and brains behind The Beautiful Girls, has clear ideas of how the band should sound.

“I have pretty formed ideas of how I want stuff to sound in my head before it happens. It’s not like I write a guitar part and throw it to the guys to see what happens, it’s pretty much always been I’ll write the bass, the keys, the horns, everything. Usually I just demo them and they play them, but this time I went to the extra degree of playing them … I feel like I don’t really want to make radical left turns just for the sake of it, you know, I just feel like I want it to move in a direction of it just being completely its own thing.”

Having been around for the best part of ten years, the band is at a stage where they’ve grown into a sound that is truly their own.

“It’s finally getting to a place where we’re all pretty confident and proud of it, and we’re comfortable in people actually turning up and watching us. I think to begin with, it was just a learning process and we accidently got known and swept up in a bit of a scene. And our influences have always shown up, and I think now we’re finally at a point where it doesn’t actually sound like anyone else on Earth, which is great. I mean, the goal for it was to combine all the styles we love and just make it sound completely unique, you know. You can say it’s got a dub feel, or a this and that feel or whatever, but it certainly doesn’t sound like any particular artist, which is what we were aiming for.”

With such a complex record, Mat says it’s been hard to work out their live set but will be ready to impress crowds with their fresh sounds on the upcoming tour.

“The challenge was to get this record and fully replicate it live. It has a lot of weird sounds and third dimensions so we didn’t want to approach it like The Cat Empire or Blue King Brown, like a show band or something, we wanted to approach it from a futuristic standpoint, more like a dub show or dancehall show, and have these kind of electronic elements incorporated as well. There’s going to be four of us, and we’re going to have horn samples triggered as if they were like old school dub samples, and have all the big delays. We haven’t actually played the show live yet but we’ve been rehearsing really, really hard and it’s starting to sound great. We want to step it up from where we left off.”

The Beautiful Girls are pumped for their Tivoli shows, which will be high-energy from the very start, and to get out and play some new material.

“It’s been a while since we’ve done a full Australian tour, especially for an album, so we’re really excited. This one will be enjoyable from the get-go, because it’s just set up for dancing and everyone having a good time. And approaching the night like one big dance party, a dub dance party, which will be awesome. We’re going to change it, make it different for anyone who’s ever seen us. Pretty much we’ll play a bunch of new songs off the new record and then some of our old ones that we always play just because everyone knows them and it’s fun when everyone sings.”

CATCH THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, SUPPORTED BY WASHINGTON, VIDA-SUNSHYNE AND CHASM, AT THE TIVOLI ON FRIDAY JUNE 4 AND SATURDAY JUNE 5. THE GIRLS ALSO PLAY THE GREAT NORTHERN JUNE 3 AND 6. ‘SPOOKS’ IS OUT NOW ON DIE! BOREDOM RECORDS.

Christmas Break

Sweating away in the studio can be a chore for any recording artist, but it seems a particularly arduous task for a band as connected to their live performances as The Beautiful Girls. Now the trio is taking a break from finalising a new album to spend their summer break on the road, playing all along the east coast to dedicated fans.

Of course, the group is by this stage experienced at nutting out their art in a recording studio. But the pressure to nail the final version of each track can take its toll on even the most laidback band.

“We've gotten to that frustrating stage where you've done so much work on it and there's still a fair bit to go,” says Mat McHugh, The Beautiful Girls' vocalist and guitarist. “You know that it's going to work out pretty well, all the really hard conceptualising stuff is done, and the bunch of songs that's going to go on the album is finalised, but it's just a case of adding stuff and then you just look at it and think about how much left there is to do.

“But it's coming along and will just be a huge weight off everyone's shoulders when it's done. It's nerve-wracking - I don't know who it was who originally thought making an album was a good idea,” he laughs. “It's way more nerve-wracking than playing gigs - you feel like if you blow it you've blown it once and for all. It doesn't get any easier, but we're enjoying this one and it's sounding cool and we can't wait until we get it out.”

Part of the reason the recording process isn't getting any easier is because the band has chosen to switch up their approach from album to album.

“Yeah, we've changed our approach radically. From where we began this is completely different. The first album we did, 'Morning Sun', was pretty much two or three hours of setting up and then just playing it all at once. We probably did a minimum of one take and a maximum of three - there were no overdubs, no nothing. It was initially supposed to be a demo and then it just got released.

“The next one was a more expanded version of that process with more overdubs and then for the last LP we did up a matrix and just laid everything down onto that. With this album, there are programmed drums and loops, making it a very hip hop way of making an album. We're imagining we're making a Snoop Dog record, but actually playing the instruments rather than sampling them from somewhere else! You write a new song and you try and record it in new and different ways. It keeps us on our toes anyway.”

While the album isn't due out until May, the band has already released the first single, and it's in support of 'Don't Wait' that The Beautiful Girls are hitting the road.

“Well, for us it's just been a little summer holiday,” chuckles Mat. “In 2008 we did five months straight - a gig a night in America - and that's a really long haul. This is just a two-week tour at the beginning of January to be honest, and it's all on the coast. We've done quite a few festivals over the summer but just this past week we did our first two club shows in over a year and it was just unbelievable. It was so unusual to actually do a sound check. We're just looking forward to more of it in January.”

And a large part of the elation is simply down to getting out of the studio.

“It's just ridiculously good to get out and play. The studio is such a meticulous process and it gets really anal when you're just there trying to get it exactly right. Then you go and play live and it's almost like a party. The album isn't done and it's not an album tour. It's really just a gift to ourselves: we want to do it so we can hang at the beach and get out of that damned studio!”

The Beautiful Girls will be heading north on their ‘Don’t Wait’ tour in early January, playing the Great Northern in Byron Jan. 14-15 and the Coolangatta Hotel on Jan. 16.