Meredith Festival in Review

My uncle once told me “you’ll never forget your 21st” and then proceeded to tell his 21st birthday tale of waking up in a bathtub filled with beer cans still wearing his powder blue suit. Now there wasn’t a bathtub or a powder blue suit in sight at Meredith’s 21st Music Festival but if you replace ‘bathtub’ with ‘couch’ or ‘patch of grass’ and ‘powder blue suit’ with ‘safari suit’ or ‘animal costume’ you have a fair idea how all of Meredith’s friends celebrated her special weekend. In all seriousness it did feel like being at one helluva 21st birthday party. Every second person I stepped over in the amphitheatre was somehow a friend of an old roommate or the sister of a girl from high school. And there were even the token family members: the young families with prams and tricycles, the aunts handing out sunscreen and the uncles cooking the BBQ at the Tucker Tent. Top that off with a confetti cannon, a total lack of thunderstorms and the surprise end of Grinderman and you really have one memorable festival.

Before sending me off to Meredith my Mum gave me some sage words of advice: “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”. Now while I like to imagine that when she goes to the Port Fairy Folk Festival every year she runs amok, the truth is she is quite a sensible woman. She wouldn’t, for example, down a bottle of water, a coffee and a cider right before queuing up in a car for over an hour on a 13km stretch of road that is very sans toilet. Eventually, miraculously, we made it in and found a campsite without wetting ourselves or having to squat behind a tree (shame on all you who honked at the girls that did!). 

3pm was ‘glitter time’ and not a girl or boy within a 100m radius was spared. By the time 4pm rolled around we were more than ready to hear some music, and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard were the perfect high-energy band to kick off the proceedings. Whoever said that you have to start off slow and build upwards was full of crap, because by the time the Melbourne lads finished with a cover of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” the whole amphitheatre was a mess of bobbing heads and shaking limbs.

Despite some sound issues, Kurt Vile & the Violators brought a calm to the crowd that only continued with instrumental act Explosions in the Sky who hypnotised everyone within reach with their sprawling, enthralling layers upon layers of sound. Once my trance state was broken, I went back to camp to revive and relocate all the friends who had fallen by the wayside. Apparently this was a mistake, as while I was doing that, Barbarian were setting the stage on fire, literally. Even bigger mistake, going back to see Ladyhawke and discovering that I know all the words to ‘My Delirium’ which is really not something I should admit to. Something else I should probably not admit to: falling asleep around the time Gang Gang Dance took to the stage. Lucky for me, my scouts tell me they were disappointing at best. Maybe it was the time slot, or maybe it was the very early morning that most punters had endured, but I was definitely not alone in taking to bed a few hours shy of the 4am Silence Wedge. For those who stayed, Harmonic 313 were reward enough, and have picked up some new fans on strength of word of mouth alone.

Day Two was one beautiful cloudless morning that saw a lovely laid-back vibe take hold in the amphitheatre, fed by the awfully endearing Ballarat Municipal Brass Band and the infectious rhythms of Oscar + Martin. Adalita took to the stage with a "How the fuck are ya?" and could be heard all over the camping ground with her pitch-perfect rock and roll ballads. She even stepped up the ‘family fun’ vibe by getting Dean Turners’ kids on stage. Another highlight was Graveyard Train, who with their jangly guitars were the perfect pep-up after a lazy afternoon and I was glad to see so many of the crowd giving them ‘The Boot’ — which is essentially where you hold one of your shoes in the air as a way of nominating the act as ‘the best, chuck out the rest’.

Icehouse were unfortunately not as entertaining as I’d hoped, and were only a source of amusement for their backing visuals — which consisted of a Windows Media Player Visualiser being stuck on ‘random’. Cut/Copy more than made up for it and were definitely one of the best acts of the weekend. The rains that came were even somewhat refreshing when accompanied by old favourites ‘Lights and Music’ and ‘Hearts on Fire’. Even better was the trippy-ness of seeing the fat raindrops caught by the strobe lights before splashing down on our heads.

My real highlight was finding myself mere metres from a growling, writhing Nick Cave as he threw himself into the crowd for most of Grinderman’s epic last stand. The man has some serious sex appeal, even for the male heterosexual amongst my contingent, who adamantly stated he would “definitely” go for him. The announcement that Grinderman was ‘over’ was such a shock that barely anyone reacted, and I’m only just now starting to realise what a lucky duck I am for being there. Unfortunately, the whole thing was not followed with ooh-ing and aah-ing over the lunar eclipse, as those refreshing rains during Cut/Copy had not taken their clouds and pissed off like everyone had hoped. Instead people turned their attention once more to The Rumour that The Juan Pablo Family Hour was really a pseudonym for The Avalanches. Of course it was wishful thinking and the JP Family Hour turned out to be the Yacht Club DJs. Or one of the Cut/Copy boys and a Midnight Juggernaut. Have not really heard an affirmative on that one as everyone I knew bolted for the campsite after we realised there really was not going to be any Avalanches.

The next day was fickle weather-wise and kept switching from bitter winds to boiling sun. The sun won in the end and it was a perfect day for a snag in bread from the Tucker Tent and a sit on the hill while being serenaded by Abbe May and then toe tapping to Eagle & the Worm. The real fun came with the Meredith Gift though, which was commentated by a rambling but nonetheless amusing Dennis Cometti. Some bloke named Jarrod won the golden jocks for the third year in a row and just like that it was all over. Two showers down and there’s still glitter everywhere though…