Sydney Festival is an iconic part of summer in Sydney – the lineup is always highly anticipated, annually delivering a variety of free and ticketed shows that prove to be extremely popular. Sydney Festival First Night is always raved about – it’s free and starts off the festival with a bang. This year was the fifth First Night and it might just have been the best one yet.

It was certainly the most perfect weather for the event. I was stationed in the Domain for the day, where the Main Stage was and the sun was beating down on everyone (which hasn’t happened too much in Sydney this summer!). Even at as early as 2pm, there were people who had already set up camp with picnic rugs, beers and plenty of food to pull them through to the evening performances. The standing area around the main stage was cordoned off, so people were sitting near the gates in the grass and relaxing.

When Manu Chao was doing his sound check, there were already fans of his dancing, cheering wildly and singing along with all his songs, which was most certainly a sign of things to come! As Gurrumul started his sound check, more people began to trickle into the Domain, but it wasn’t a large crowd yet by any sense of the phrase.

The Daily Telegraph’s Joe Hildebrand came onto the stage soon after Gurrumul’s sound check, to basically warm up the crowd as they opened the gates to the main standing area. People rushed right up near the stage and placed their picnic mats down there, claiming the prime spots for the musical acts. This was around 4pm, and until 6pm there were random chats with the bewildered crowd and awkward jokes a plenty with Hildebrand being broadcast around the Domain.

Finally, The Chaser’s Julian Morrow came out onto the stage to thank Hildebrand and welcome everyone to the festival. He then introduced DJ Russ Dewbury, a UK jazz club DJ who provided some nice background music as everyone began to get excited for the impending triple bill.

The Welcome to Country ceremony brought a tear to many people’s eyes I’m sure as the fact that we were standing on Aboriginal land was acknowledged, and this was followed by Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. Gurrumul and his band played a truly beautiful set and I was captivated, never having seen him live before. The respect that the crowd had for him was immense, and he was just so inspirational. His double bassist did the in between song banter and although he insisted that Melbourne was the best city in Australia when he was playing at Sydney Festival, he was pleasant and it was a really lovely set and a great start to the night.

After Gurrumul, there was some more music from Russ Dewbury, and then Washington graced the stage with some pretty spectacular purple hair. What can I say? She played a ridiculously incredible set, starting with one of her softer songs from her new EP Insomnia “Sentimental Education” and playing a variety of her tracks from I Believe You Liar and other EPs. By the time Washington was playing, the Domain had reached capacity so it must have been the biggest crowd she’d played to. To make things even cuter, it was her birthday and when she mentioned this the crowd roared/sang a very enthusiastic but off key “Happy Birthday” to her, and it was obvious that she appreciated it hugely.

A highlight of the set was when she played solo guitar and sang her song “Underground” – in her words, ‘in case playing here with a band wasn’t terrifying enough’. And if she was really terrified, she certainly didn’t show it at all – she seemed totally in her element on the stage. It was such a well thought out set list and she really blew the crowd away.

As soon as Washington had finished, Julian Morrow came out to thank her, and already people were chanting “Manu! Manu! Manu!”. The Domain was brimming with people and buzzing with energy and excitement. There were certainly some die-hard fans in the crowd, and it was easy to see even then that Manu Chao would have the audience totally under his command. Having not heard much of his music before (just his sound check, really) I didn’t really know what to expect. I did notice however that where I was the crowd was mostly made up of people speaking Spanish and French, which made sense as I did know that Manu Chao sings in those two languages among others, and is really big internationally.

When Manu Chao hit the stage, shit got real. I’ve never seen such a big crowd respond so enthusiastically. Everyone was dancing, and in the moshpit there was intense pushing and shoving to attempt to get to the front. Most punters were just there to enjoy the music, but some my friends and I came across were insufferably rude and violent and that really dampened the mood. I don’t really understand why people are so intent on pushing people around at concerts, when they can just enjoy the music and have a good dance and everyone would have a good time. People at the front were crying and getting pulled out of the mosh pit by security – it was truly crazy. However for the most part, the crowd was going off and had so much love for Manu Chao and his band. There was singing, chanting and constant dancing and everyone was clearly enjoying it – including Manu and his band who were lapping up the excited response to their music.

I personally found all the songs in Manu Chao’s set quite repetitive and was hoping for some variety. Everything sounded kind of the same to me. However, as mentioned before I hadn’t heard him before so I think if I was more familiar with his material I could have differentiated between each track more easily. Even though I didn’t enjoy Chao’s set as much as I had enjoyed the rest of the music, it was really something amazing witnessing his hold on the crowd and how much they loved it. The audience was most definitely pleased and impressed and having the best time and that was the main thing!

All in all, Sydney Festival First Night 2012 was a huge success and I imagine that the rest of the festival will be just as wonderful, if not moreso. I’d definitely recommend going to see at least one event part of Sydney Festival - it’s a truly great lineup and I can’t wait to see what they come up with in 2013!

Additional comments by Larry Heath:

I, too, spent a good deal of the day in the Domain and had an amazing time watching all three performers. But there was so much else going on! Electric Empire were phenomenal on the Elizabeth Street Stage, the kids went WILD for Norman Jay over at his bus in Hyde Park, and the ACTUAL kids had a party of their own with performances from Holly Throsby and Caspar Babypants, the alter-ego of Chris Ballew from Presidents in the USA!! Though he didn't play "Lump" or "Peaches", he did play songs about bears and dancing spiders... oh and "Sliver" by that 'other' children's band from Seattle, Nirvana. Seeing 5 year olds sing along "Grandma Take Me Home" was certainly a unique experience. I even made it into the Art Gallery of NSW to catch a bit of Monsieur Camembert, who were definitely getting the party started!

What an amazing night (and day) out! And we get to do it all over again next weekend in Parramatta, for their Opening Party. Should you live in that part of Sydney and are not going to see Mike Patton in the Domain (also free!), I hope to see you out there! Looking forward to catching As The World Tipped, which I missed at Festival First Night!