No Comments Written by Adrian Mancuso on December 23, 2009 – 11:25 am

In the word’s of Chubby Checker, “come-on let’s twist again like we did last summer, let’s twist again like we did last yeeear! Do you remember when, things were really hummin’, come-on let’s twist again, coz twistin’ time is here!!!”

As the festival season sweeps us across the country to experience music, people and life as it should be. We ring around for tents, tickets, gumboots and that next hit of go-go.  In the midst of the summer frenzy the WMSG crew take a minute to remember how it was last year, what we’ve forgotten, and to relive those amazing moments that deserve to be flowing through the cerebal pipes again…

This time last year we were comparing the european white clad doof fest that was Sensation, Nick Cave’s superlative All Tomorrow’s Parties, The gloriously muddy Meredith, and that friggen Laneway Fest that has spurred on a promising new improved version this year.  Come along with us, and feel free to leave a comment, as we take a trip through the city, down to the bush and upto Mt. Buller to look back over the festival scape of Summer 2008.

Meredith 2008 (Ed Stuff):

‘Tis been a long while since Meredith I’m glad for the reprieve, allowing me to gather my thoughts from that tumultuous time of leaking tents, kaleidoscope images of ponchos, faint tingles of trenchfoot across my toes…

But with that of course comes the glorious and elusive tingle down the spine, the simple euphoria of sticking through it all to see those bastards you came out there for, in ‘unique’ atmospheric conditions. And boy it is beautiful. A mudfest? Yes. Debuached? Of course. A trial to all involved? Undoubtedly. But grooving in the pouring rain and mud with the relative faithful who stuck it out to see Holy Fuck (who exhibited an insane amount of energy with their intuitive jams) at midnight, Friday night? Jesus that was priceless. I’m getting those shivers chills just thinking about it now. It’s for moments like that I attend festivals. Meredith music festival was a fucking blast; all the beauty of a music festival combined with the feeling of accomplishment after completing a 3 day trek.

Saul Williams was huge highlight of the festival, resembling like a blacker, ballsier Ziggy Stardust, delivering his political poetry in brash, direct yet incredibly eloquent fashion over grimey-electro-hip hop beats. Man Man booted energy into Friday, their gypsy/punk/pirate music executed with fervor whipping the crowd into a bouncing frenzy, a very impressive live show.

MGMT, the apparent headliners, seemed to struggle for identity at the headline slot on Saturday night. The band settled for a mix between too-tentative-psychedelic jams and those electo-pop anthems they’re so famous for (evident by the girl behind me repeatably screeching “play electric eel!!!! electric eeeelllllll!!!!”), never committing confidently nor fully enough into either which resulted in a somewhat fractured, inconsistent show, delivered to an unforgiving crowd.

Not many negative comments, just that I definitely like Regurgitator’s old stuff better than their new stuff and that Muscles comes off as a pretentious self promoting wank…but hey, that’s just my opinion! Rad, rad times I’ll tell ya, get a bunch of amped up (and drugged up) kids, play them some crazy ass new music, pour rain on them for 48 hours straight and some crazy ass  shit goes down…Heaps fun!

Sensation 2009 (handsup5):

Sensation is a dance event boasting crazy light shows, cirque du soleil-like-acrobatics, and performances. The festival has traveled  around Europe and the rest of the world. Look up these events and you’ll find no shortage of hype, it’s one of those things that you can’t escape when its in your town on your door step, with people in white walking every street.

Well once a year I seem to stumble out my comfort zone and do what every other muzz seems to be doing. Yes I was one of these douches walking the streets, looking out for sniffer dogs on their way to one of Melbourne’s biggest dance events. Whilst it was advertised not as a rave but more an entertainment extravaganza, I’m sorry to say but it was more like an extravGAYnza. It seemed to me that all the hype of acrobats and water features were just a smoke screen to make a bunch of corporate fat cats some money from a generation that gets off on eating their faces - Sensation was not all it was meant to be.

Whilst Sensation’s house beats isn’t my music of preference, I do have a soft spot for talented DJs who can mix the best of all genres into their own twist of beats and melodies. Unfortunately most of these guys couldn’t seem to find the tempo knob and it’s frustrating as hell when there are 40,000 people ready to explode Travolta style and the DJs are playing the same beat for 3 hours each. That aside I will end on a positive note and say that much to my surprise the crowd was actually fairly inviting and easy going, all that was missing? Good music.

Laneway Festival 2009 (1up):

Laneway Festival is a funny thing. On paper, it’s a multi-stage, open-air festival in the heart of the city; a celebration of Melbourne’s culture. In practice it’s a poorly-organised, overly-ambitious mess. There may have been over 50 bands from around the world spread across six stages but it doesn’t really matter when only a quarter of the audience will fit into any one stage-area. You could have John Lennon’s rotting corpse flopping about to Toni Basil’s Mickey à la Weekend at Bernies and 75% of the audience is still going to go home disappointed.

That’s the thing about Melbourne’s laneway culture: it’s typified by tiny bars that are impossible to find and even harder to get into. Not exactly what you want from a festival. More stages means an increase in overall capacity and an increase in frustration as six-times the people attempt to enter the same, small areas. Just ask anyone who lined up for the lounge and redbull stages, or the little lonsdale st stage. Oh, hi, yeah it was shit. How was My Disco? Dunno, but the line was boring. Girl Talk? I was at home asleep in front of TV already after being told by security to give up. Halfway through the day I vowed never to attend another Festival and I was only more determined by the (premature) end. But I do hope they continue; I’ll just go to the sideshows.

All Tommorrow’s Parties 2009 (theadrianclub):