SILENCE!

Wow. That was the most common phrase I heard leaving Elder Park at the end of the opening night of this mini-festival at the Fringe. And ‘wow’ is a great word to start with: there’s a slow build-up to the main event, with live music gracing the side stage, including an excellent performance from Melbourne group ‘Lastlings’ ,who got the all-ages crowd dancing. There are the usual overpriced food-trucks and bars, and the main attraction, the French performance artists ‘Les Commandos Percu’, keep us waiting a little. But boy, it’s well-worth the wait.

They arrive playing a cart that is wheeled slowly from the back of the crowd: six percussionists creating anything but silence as they hit drums and bounce cymbals on stalks, building an incredible rhythm that awes the crowd. They are covered in dark body-paint, wearing torches like necklaces, and find their spot in the mountain-shaped stage, where at least four weird and wonderful drumkits await their punishment.

But it’s not just superb percussion, perfect on every beat as a group, and even when individually riffing. It’s the light show that accompanies it. Sparks literally fly through every piece, creating arcs of light through movement. And then there’s fire. The mountain lights up red, smoke billows from everywhere, and a projection transforms the drummers into a live volcano. They cleverly simulate earthquakes with their beats, and the jets of sparks and flames are just the introduction to the fireworks. Oh my, the fireworks! Not just moments of light crackling the sky, not just the impressively timed lines of red that explode precisely with each drum crash, but the constant parade of coloured light and smoke from fireworks that just keep coming and coming.

The beautiful noise isn’t just from the stage – the whole audience is screaming along with it, ecstatic and euphoric until long after the group bow and we’re left in darkness with a lingering smell of sulphur.

Wow, wow, wow.

Mark Wickett

Photographer: Veronique Balege.

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