Music
10 years on: Cut Copy look back on touring with Daft Punk
In December 2007, Daft Punk arrived in Australia for what would be their last ever tour (for now).
The timing was perfect. Electronic music in Australia was on the brink of exploding, with landmark releases from Cut Copy (In Ghost Colours) and The Presets (Apocalypso) on the horizon, and Midnight Juggernauts having released Dystopia. It signalled a new era for music in the country, following on from Australia's fertile burst of global nu-rock success.
French titans Daft Punk appeared at Coachella in 2006, kicking off what would be their first full-scale tour since 1997. The set-piece was mind-blowing: The robot duo performing their set in a spectacular pyramid, replete with extravagant LED displays.
The scale of the tour quelled Australian fans' hopes of it being transported to their part of the world. But in 2007, their long-shot wishes were answered. In August of that year, soon after Daft Punk announced the live album Alive 2007, it was revealed that the pyramid would be visiting Australia as the headline spectacle of Modular's new Never Ever Land event.
A selection of local and international talent would be joining Daft Punk on the bill: SebastiAn, Kavinsky, Cut Copy, The Presets, Van She, Muscles, and Bang Gang Deejays. The travelling roadshow visited Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney in December 2007. 10 years on, you're either bragging about being there, still dealing with latent regret of not attending, or a new generation looking back at the bill in wonder.
The Sydney iteration of the event marks Daft Punk's final proper live appearance to date (save for guest award show cameos). They chose not to tour their well-received 2013 comeback album Random Access Memories.
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the tour, Cut Copy's Tim Hoey looks back on a special time in Australian electronic music.
Cut Copy, 2017
© Jimmy Fontaine
Take us back to Cut Copy's mindset around the time of the tour, in the lead-up to the release In Ghost Colours.
Tim Hoey: It was interesting, we had finished In Ghost Colours and been sitting on it for nearly a year before it actually came out. We were putting singles out, so there was a lot kind of going on behind the scenes about what we should have and where it should be released. We were probably quite anxious at that point about, waiting for the release of this record. And it was, seemed to be like a nice kind of groundswell of people who were into Hearts On Fire. We didn't even release that as a single. Initially we put that up on MySpace – which makes me feel very old – and a white label vinyl.
It felt like we were just starting to grow a little bit. And then obviously once the offer came through for the Daft Punk shows. Those Daft Punk records, especially Homework and Discovery, were such a massive influence on us. The idea of kind of sharing a stage with them, we kind of thought, 'Well if we do that than we're cool. We don't have to do anything else after that. We've kind of achieved that goal, and now we're cool.' We were really excited, and also really anxious about the release of In Ghost Colours.
When were you first approached about joining the lineup?
We heard a rumour from Pav [Steve Pavlovic] at Modular that he was going to do these Daft Punk shows in December. I think that was probably around mid-year so we kinda didn't think it would happen. We would say, "Oh yeah sure, yeah that would be amazing if it came up," but we weren't sure that would happen. Then the confirmation came through: Instead of it just being a Daft Punk headline show, it was actually an event. Almost like a mini-festival.
The cool thing about it was it almost pre-meditated what was going to happen the following year. Especially with us and The Presets, from the verge of releasing those records. It was just like this kind of perfect moment in time where it felt like the whole scene in Australia was just shifting towards more electronic music. It was an exciting time, but I don't think we were aware that was happening. We just like, 'Wow, we get to play with the guys that made Homework.' And they have this insane show with a pyramid.
Was there camaraderie built across the acts on the tour, being that it was like a mini-festival?
Definitely. There was already a strong family unit there with the Modular acts. The Daft Punk guys, they were so lovely. I think Dan [Whitford, vocalist] had met Thomas [Bangalter] in Paris. The first show at the Sidney Myer Music Ball, like straight after their show they invited everyone into their room and we all hung out. It was just like from that show on, it was just like a family. And we were all kind of in it together, and it was just so exciting to seeing that show every night. And then hanging out and listening to friends' records after the show and kind of dancing. It was a pretty, pretty wild time.
What were the crowd reactions like during your sets?
The fans were crazy. It was so big and we weren't used to playing shows that size at that point. We'd done a stadium kind of tour with Franz Ferdinand in America, but we were the first of three bands so the audiences were quite small. Coming back home and doing those shows, and playing, almost basically kind of arenas at that point in our career was just crazy. I look back on videos and seeing the reaction to songs like My People by The Presets, and we had Hearts On Fire out at that stage and just seeing that crowd going. That was really unexpected. Obviously everyone was there to see Daft Punk, but seeing these euphoric kind of crowds from the opening act til the end at every show was pretty mind-blowing to us.
Was there any indication that it would be Daft Punk's last ever tour?
I think they did say that this was it. They loved the idea of coming down to Australia. They have a kind of holiday at the end of quite a long touring period. But we kind of knew that was the end of the Pyramid tour. I don't know if they had announced then that it was the end. But I remember at this time, there was so many rumours going around. Meredith Music Festival was on at the same time and then there was a rumour going around that they were actually going to do a surprise set at Meredith the day after the Sidney Myer Music Bowl show. We played Meredith that day as well. We got down to Meredith and people are talking, 'Man, have you heard Daft Punk is going to play here tonight at 2AM?'. We're like, really? I don't know, that show takes a lot of set up.
I think at the show there was a rumour going around that pyramid was actually going to raise from the stage and take off like a rocket ship. It adds to the mystery of Daft Punk. You know there's so much mystery around them, and who they are, and their music, like whenever a rumour would start, it would just be this ground-swell of things like 'They're turning up at this club to do a DJ set.' It was insane. We didn't know if any of these rumours were true either, but we did know was that was going to be the end of the pyramid tour.
Cut Copy are touring Australia in January 2018. Full tour dates here.