Dear Diary: On Location at Dark Mofo (Day One)

Dark Mofo 2025
Hobart, Tasmania
Diary Entry: Day One

The Arrival

Arriving into Hobart airport around 9pm is an experience like no other. There is an unsettling darkness that this writer has only experienced in the cold and breathtaking (literally) lands of Tasmania; it goes beyond blindness, it actually eradicates all human senses to a degree.

However, a red illuminous sign atop the airport building almost instantly calms these moments and feelings of peril; it simply reads: “Return To Me”.

For this scribe, this was to be the sixth visit to Hobart for the one-of-a-kind fantastic festival entitled Dark Mofo. “Return To Me” is not just a message of protection from the harsh elements of a Tasmanian winter, it harbours an anticipation and thrill for the astonishing artistic endeavours that lay ahead.

The Atmosphere

The first official day begun the following morning; suitably yet strangely the city was illuminated by out-of-season yet sensational sunshine. The path to follow though was not one brightened by the sun, it was one irradiated by the fluorescent red crosses and glistening lighting fixtures. Explorations around the harbour and CBD were not at the point of Dark Mofo immersion, but that energy was unquestionably vibrant.
As the day wore on and that darkness fast approached, the fire cannons of the Winter Feast blasted into the blackened sky. Spectators were left aghast and in awe at the gloomy radiance of this citywide (to become multiple town) event; the liveliness was immeasurable.

A stroll through Winter Feast to experience the food and drink delights of all cuisines and liquors imaginable provoke an addiction in indulgence. It cannot be properly described, it just needs to be seen, heard, tasted and enraptured by.

The First Show

Onto the first musical journey to undertake, the soulful trip-hop enchantress known as Beth Gibbons. Her bewitching artistry and ethereal charisma has kept devotees dazzled for decades, and performing on this night in support of her debut album will assuredly be just as Tasmania is alluringly at night, ‘Beyond The Sun’.

“Just ask yourself: would you choose love like me?”– ‘For Sale’, Lives Outgrown, Beth Gibbons 2024.

It is nearly too perfectly poignant that the scintillating songstress Beth Gibbons released her debut solo album Lives Outgrown practically 30 years after Portishead unleashed their first full-length, and essential trip-hop masterpiece Dummy. The trio’s first LP was awarded the 1995 Mercury Music prize, achieve critical acclaim as well as chart the world over, qualifying the pièce de resistance as a commercial success; the reality is though, the revolutionary record is a paramount listening experience for virtually any music enthusiast. It’s delightfully diverse fusion of gothic hip-hop, blues, soulful-jazz and retro groove-pop over truly haunting heart-rendering poetry is beyond spine-chilling, it is musical enchantment.

Portishead would go on to release two more albums, their self-titled effort in1997 and Third in 2008. Besides a one-off festival appearance in Bristol for HELP! A War Child Benefit Show, the three-piece had been absent from the live music circuit for nearing a decade. Similar to the timeline between their second and third album, and in that same duration of defection, which Ms. Gibbons also essentially hid from the stage, Beth sensationally sculpted what would become the ten captivatingly charming chapters on her musical odyssey Lives Outgrown.

November 2011 was the last time Beth Gibbons performed in Australia as the bewitching voice of Portishead. The timespans affiliated with her artistic journey are elongated to say the least, approaching the terrifying thought that the Exonian enchantress may have hung up her microphone for the last time.

Needles to say, and thankfully, this was not to be.

Beth barely takes part in interviews ever since her career soared to unexpected and immeasurable heights, but it is known that her first solo outing is one driven by loss, motherhood, anxiety, menopause, and mortality. Arguably the most important theme that shines through is the varying aspects of love, which is perhaps why after such a long sabbatical, she has returned. It is conceivably her love for poetic expression, to work through her pain, her maturation and her life stages that brings her back.

This is what she has chosen, love, as per her quoted lyrics from ‘For Sale’ in the opening of this review, and on this chilled-to-the-bone evening as part of the distinguished Dark Mofo festival, Beth Gibbons was to share her love with two successive sold-out audiences.

The Odeon Theatre was nearing a level of disorder in anticipation, the aura wasnot of one for a progressive folk meets trip-hop showcase, it was bordering onan adrenaline-fuelled hard rock exhibition. Once the lights dimmed though, acrowd-members’ breath was almost deafening.

A seven-piece band rushed the stage practically hiding Ms. Gibbons from her devotees; she was to take the centre of the platform, but distant from the front location. Her musicians were not performing to the audience, but to Beth herself, literally. Forming a semi-circle surrounding shape facing her, they were essentially providing the energy for this charismatic ethereal spellcaster to enrapture her onlookers. This wasn’t to be just a musical demonstration, this was to be divination; Australia had been waiting a long time.

The orchestral folk opener ‘Tell Me Who You Are Today’ initiated this ceremony, a tender composition that bizarrely yet brilliantly emitted a death ballad atmosphere, one which Nick Cave and Warren Ellis would be magnetised by. Beth did not open her eyes the entire song, grasping her microphone as if it were the gravity keeping her feet on the stage. Her observers however, were floating away in entranced adoration. ‘Burden Of Life’ was of the same remarkable radiance of Chelsea Wolfe, with fantastically more cinematic luminosity. Following this exhilarating essence, ‘Floating On A Moment’ would have flawlessly suited the Mulholland Drive film eerily well.

‍‘Rewind’ was introduced by multiple glowing whirly tubes before the evocative post-punk thunder overtook the entirety of the venue. Executed towards a soundscape of a traditional Pagan musical version of experimental rock royalty SWANS– the thunderous percussion that was soothed by Beth’s angelic croon became a sensational sensory overload that tingled the spines of everyone present to witness this. The surrounding musicians fed off each other’s energy so immensely that it almost appeared a challenge on who could portray the most intense performance.

‍‘For Sale’ captured the opening lyrical quotation wholeheartedly, yet intriguingly the spotlight never shone upon Beth Gibbons. Was this potentially a movement for her admirers to answer that very question, for themselves? More interestingly, what would their answer be? By the end of the exhibition, that became very obvious; read on.

A cover of ‘Mysteries’ changed the trajectory ever-so-slightly, but without doubt, there was no alteration of enthrallment. A passionate devotion swept over everyone when ‘Lost Changes’ was delivered that unveiled elements of David Bowie and Pink Floyd majestically. ‘Oceans’ then magically transported the spectators to that universe’s magnificent mystery –the ocean still remains to be quite unknown, try to imagine a soundtrack to that revelation. That’s what Beth Gibbons and her band spiritually conceptualised; the violinists unquestionably contributed a theatrical element of wonder.

Another cover of the ‘Tom The Model’ achieved a very similar vitality, except not of a mostly undiscovered part of our world; this time the composition would have worked flawlessly on the BBC’s criminally underrated TV series Dope Girls. ‘Beyond The Sun’ approached a big band dance-off motif with the fervency of experimental rock that was above thrilling. Ms. Gibbons truly shone serenading over the chaos, the whole production became an enigmatic extravaganza. To close, the sombre yet immaculately beautiful folk ballad ‘Whispering Love’, which provoked the “goosebump rising” effect in its splendour. This was to be one of the only instances of the stage being properly lit so the audience could bask in the illustriousness of Beth Gibbons.

A literal venue-shaking stomping occurred and resounding cheers for an encore emitted from the capacity crowd and to practically prevent the riot, the eight musicians returned to stage.

Portishead’s ‘Roads’ and ‘Glory Box’ were blazingly broadcasted and essentially failed to prevent a riot. The Odeon Theatre erupted into nearly a dance-driven mayhem; movement was unquestionably unavoidable as the anthems left the devotees present in a haze of trip-hop wondrous bliss. Even for this writer, during these two monumental singles, the ability to breathe was lost in a delectable daze.

The proper conclusion was to be ‘Reaching Out’, which returned to the Chelsea Wolfe ambiance. However, a more jazz orientated and even marching band lifeforce thwarted the spectators into bedazzlement, while the percussionists generated earth tremoring wallops on their instruments.

The audience were not given permission to take any pictures or footage of this amazingly arresting exhibition. Honestly, the attendees would have felt remorse over missing the smallest moment of Beth Gibbons’ Australian return.

On this night, Hobart joined Beth Gibbons and chose love.

What else will Dark Mofo have in store for us? Stay tuned...

Words by Will Oakeshott @teenwolfwill