Laneway Festival (NB: Not actually in a lane.)

Clock-tower, stage adjacent

Ah Laneway festival. Such wonderful wonders, even despite your mis-leading title - this year, Laneway moved out of the original Melbourne and Sydney “lanes” after the crowd sizes increased, and people started complaining that they couldn’t a) see the bands in the lanes and b) were getting crushed against the walls of said lanes, lanes probably used for dirty late night sex. Despite my (non dirty late night sex) penchant for the funky lanes of Melbourne and Sydney, I’m forced to admit that Sydney Laneway’s new home amongst the old sandstone buildings of the Sydney College of the Arts is pretty damn fine. I mean, who doesn’t like their stages wedged between grand Victorian buildings that once were part of a psychiatric hospital?

The grounds

Compared with Big Day Out a week or so earlier, the atmosphere at Laneway was groovy and vintage. No shirtlessness anywhere. Lots more 80s sundresses. Stacks more Doc Martin boots. And, a whole tonne of chilled out indie popster punters. And then there was the line up: The Middle East! The XX!! (Though unfortunately they were on at the same time as…) Mumford and Sons!!! And finally, the ludicrous number of exclamation mark warranting Florence and the Machine!!!!!

Even if the promoters had promised to throw puppies and chocolate mint biscuits (or at least puppie-shaped biscuits) I couldn’t have been anymore excited for Laneway...

So how did it all turn out?

The morning began with Hockey, a band out of Portland, Oregon, who, like so many before them, have proved that good music comes out of places where it rains a lot. Their set was enthusiastic and energetic, and I especially liked their lead singer’s habit of busting out epic drum solos mid-song. I really think Triple J need to play more than just one single of Hockey’s – the catchy, intelligent "Too Fake". Also, Hockey are tops for having three band members who all look like they come from distinct musical genres: lead guitar from Australian 80s pub rock, lead singer a 70s punk rocker and a beard sporting bassist who looked like “Alan” from The Hangover (ok, so that’s not a musical genre, but that film is so awesome it can be whatever it wants).

Hockey

After paying a brief and intense visit to the acid-hungover Whitely (who first ragged on Lisa Mitchell – hilarious – and then freely admitted his acid use before yelling “Sniffer dogs!” and diving off side-of stage), we moseyed on over to the Car Park Stage for The Middle East. The Middle East, while musically very talented, played a couple of long, spoken-narrative songs, which kind of broke the crowds’ enthusiasm a little. But other than that, they, and all their instrument swapping, were lovely.

Bridezilla, and we made a push to the front of the stage in order to secure a prime position for Mumford and Sons. A pretty good position we scored, and, in order to hold it and indeed improve upon it for Florence and the Machine, for the next 6 hours, we stood our sweaty, well-packed ground. (Eventually, we got right up against the barricades!)

Bridezilla

Mumford and Sons. Were awesome. They harmonised, they wielded a multitude of cool instruments (including their iconic banjo) and played all their well-loved songs, full of folky goodness. And every folky song of theirs was sung with the gracious amazement that this crowd, thousands of kilometres from their hometown, knew every single word. Then the band announced to the crowd that it was lead singer, Marcus Mumford’s birthday. So then we got right into the celebratory spirit and sang him happy birthday. I think he was a little embarrassed.

Mumford and Sons

Several hours and Sarah Blasko and Echo and the Bunnymen later, Florence and the Machine were on. Well, actually, Florence took her time, so the impatient crowd had to start chanting “Flor-ence, Flor-ence” (don’t think this ever helps, personally). Anyway. Florence and the Machine… Were. So. Completely. Amazing.

Florence

I do love every note of “Lungs”, and so was perhaps slightly primed to be biased towards this set, but, honestly, this was the best gig I have ever seen. Ever. Really. (And I promise, I generally try to avoid hyperbole [believing it to be the domain of hack car-salesmen and squealing 16-year-old-girls]) BUT, Florence’s incredible lung capacity – amazing. Her vocal range – amazing. The fact that she performed in an electric-blue (best colour ever), bat-wing body suit – amazing. Her stage-wide dancing, aerobics and speaker climbing and jumping in giant gold high-heels – amazing. The Machines’ continual friendly, smiley natures – amazing. Florence encouraging the entire crowd to sing and dance and clap and jump in time together – amazing. As my friend said to me after the set finished: “When I grow up, I want to be Florence.” So do I (and not just so I had have her amazing super-model legs) (though they would be a bonus).

I should probably stop now. I think I’m a little over excited.

xx Esther

Burnt, Dehydrated, Overtired (But Definitely Out-there!)

As my cunning acronym inspired title may have alerted you, this is a post about Big Day Out – specifically mine and my lovely lady friends’ adventures at this years’ first Sydney show (22^nd of January).

First, I’ll get my weather rant out of the way – it was bloody hot. Really. Very, very, very hot. It was like the sun noticed that there were 50,000 semi-clothed people dancing and singing away in Homebush and decided it would be a good time to turn up the UV and blast out some sunburns and some solid cases of heat-stroke. Which is exactly what happened.

Second, I need to get off my chest my feelings about the other festival goers’ attire (I know I should ignore them and just listen to the music, but I’m snarky and cynical and can’t help myself). Anyway, once at Olympic park, my friends and I quickly noticed that this season’s must-have fashion item was bare skin. Lots of it – shirtless, bikinis – it didn’t matter. You just had to have the skin out there. And preferably have it tanned to a nice burnt roast chicken colour. (Seriously, I thought most of Australia had caught onto the fact that tanning increases your chance of skin cancer? Apparently not.) However, the skin-cancer hunting hoards were not BDO’s oddest dressed (also, we didn’t spot any fabled high-heel wearing girls) – instead, the oddest dressed prize goes to the multitudes of bikini girls who wore tight, unzipped short-shorts. That’s right. Deliberately unzipped. This we couldn’t get over. Their plan seemed to be: find the smallest pair of shorts possible, making sure they were tight enough not to fall down, and then unzip them, exposing your swimmer bottoms or underpants. Am I missing something here? Are the girls in Sydney so much further ahead in the fashion stakes than me? Anyway. On to the music.

Travelling with three friends, we had an eclectic line-up of acts to see. I ended up catching Lisa Mitchell, Tame Impala, Kasabian, the end of Temper Trap, all of Passion Pit and Muse, most of Girl Talk and Calvin Harris, the beginning of Dizzee Rascal, most of Midnight Juggernaughts, all of Ladyhawke (she’s so cool!) and most of Peaches (who wins major hilarious awesome points for encouraging the last clothed 20% of the crowd to strip by saying she was having a competition between all the BDOs to see who could follow her instructions best: she chanted “shirts come off. Shirts, shirts come off.” Then everyone span their shirts round in the air. If a pop-star told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?)

The day started well when the little, red-lipped folky Lisa Mitchell went nuts at the beach-ball touting crowd after they tossed one-dollar coins on stage during her hit song “Coin Laundry”. This, apparently, is a major problem for her (my friends tell me a similar thing happened during her set at the Falls Festival). Anyway, Lisa Mitchell stopped the song at the beginning of the first chorus, swore at the crowd, and instructed them to punch anyone out who threw anymore coins. The crowd stopped throwing coins, she began the song again and the rest of her set went well, her scowling and close-to-tears look aside.

Lisa Mitchell swears at the crowd for their coin throwing tendencies

By three pm when Passion Pit started, the day was at its hottest. The ground was dry, t-shirts and bare backs were sweat drenched and those who tossed their water bottles into the air were hailed as heroes. Passion Pit’s set was energetic and full of enthusiastic electro-pop goodness. I was surprised at how well their high-pitched, synth-layered voices worked in a live setting. They played all their big singles from “Manners” and the crowd lapped it up and then sweated it out again (yuck. I just realised what an appalling analogy that was). But seriously, this was sweat-city.

Moving onwards through the Big Day and one of the big headliners, Dizzee Rascal was on. He jumped up on stage. And promptly took off his shirt. And started dancing. I was up the back for this set so the sound quality was rubbish, and admittedly, I didn’t hear Dizzee sing the hit “Bonkers” but I wasn’t that impressed. The best part of his set was, as one of my 30 Rock loving friends pointed out, the fact that Dizzee was probably channelling the character Tracy Morgan – a similarly shirt-shy dude known for crazy antics and self-promotion.

The crowd for Dizzee Rascal. I think all they did was yell "sing Bonkers!!!"

Even later in the day... I’ve never really listened to that much Calvin Harris but his set in the (mercifully shady) Boiler Room was outrageously great. The well-dressed, sexy-British accented Harris played fun, happy pop music that made you want to party. And party we did. Playing his major hit “Ready for the Weekend” on a Friday was perfect and the crowd danced around like the cast of Footloose crossed with the dancers from So You Think You Can Dance? (or at least that’s how we felt like we were dancing). He also really made an effort to engage with the crowd between songs and said the best possible things to us - “Sydney, you are fucking sexy!”

The indoor ferris-wheel in the Boiler Room. Points for awesomeness.

Very late in the day and people were flaking. However, I had friends who were keen as mustard to catch the epic-ness that is Muse. Though I’m not really a Muse fan, they certainly knew how to put on a good show. Their method? One: get lasers. Get lots of lasers. Screw it, get even more lasers. Lasers are so fucking awesome that we should have as many as possible, right? Two: write some epic songs. Preferably about not being over thrown, or about uniting the world or about black holes (they’re pretty epic, right?). Three: add 50,000 partying punters and shake. And that was Muse.

Muse. Now with epic lasers.

Big Day Out certainly lived up to its name. It ticked “big” – stacks of bands, “day” – it was a whole day of live music fun and “out” – you definitely knew you were outside, and out amongst it all.

Next time, Laneway Festival!

xx Esther

(All photos courtesy of the lovely Cleo who, unlike me actually bothered to take photos with her camera. I’m going to have to remember to use mine at Laneway…)

An Errie Picton Adventure

'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is one of my favourite films. I first watched the 1975 Peter Weir classic when I was a teenager, in the midst of my obsession with Victorian era dress and literature. The supposedly true story of three young girls who wandered off into the rocks of Mount Macedon in Victoria in the early 20th century still captivates me. The Romantic in me can’t help admiring the adventure, mystery and elegant fashions featured in this film. Naturally, my nostalgia for the film, combines with a long-held wish to make a trek into a mysterious, rural area à la Miranda. However, I would like to be seen again after my Romantic explorations.

With this ethereal film and desires for adventure in mind, I set off with two friends for some regional exploration – floral dresses and sun hats in tow. Firstly, I really should clarify. When I say that I set off, it was more that I was kindly (but firmly) asked by my two car-less friends to drive them to the town of Picton. While the prospect of antique shops, country cakes and quaint houses was appealing, there was a much more serious impetuous for our leisurely excursion: ghosts. Picton is about an hour outside of Sydney, and is thought to be one of Australia’s most haunted towns. My two friends Jane and Tara have a passion for the ghosts that lurk around Australia’s old towns, and I have an interest in all things old and historical. Clearly, it was to be a day of hard work and research, with plenty of delicious treats to keep us on the go.

With this in mind, we set off on a Picton adventure throwing caution to the wind as Miranda and her friends did when they climbed Hanging Rock. After receiving some friendly and informative advice from the Wollondilly information centre we formed our ghost-hunting plan. Speaking of the information centre, it is housed in a beautiful Victorian post office with old-fashioned red post-boxes out the front, which I just could not help admiring. It was just the kind of building that was around during the time of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock,' a fact which I felt validated my connection between the two. However, my friends had ghost haunts to research.

Our first point of call was the Redbank Range Tunnel, also called the Mushroom Tunnel. It was used by the military during World War II, and was a railway tunnel in the late 19th century. Sadly, one young girl never made it to the safety alcoves and was killed by an oncoming train. Unfortunately, we did not hear the eerie strains of the ghost, nor see the flashing lights that visitors have reported. On reflection, we did notice a light chill after reading the guide book's eerie accounts of this phenomenon. However, we did meet with an unexpected visitor as we exited the tunnel – a discarded toy giraffe. Was this symbolic of the childhood the ghost of the young girl had left behind? We could but speculate.

After a pub lunch at the George IV Inn, we set our sights on another haunted area: the cemetery. I love going to cemeteries (don’t think I’m too weird). Particularly old ones like the cemetery my friends and I explored in Picton. Gravestones have, throughout history, been sites of elaboration decoration to commemorate fallen loved ones. I love looking at the ornate, sculptural forms and imagining what the people who reside in the graves they support were once like. This area naturally has a reputation for being home to a poltergeist or two that produce mysterious sounds and sights. However, once more the ghosts did not bother the three ladies who roamed their terrain. It was the same story at the local church, which also housed some intriguing gravestone, minus the presence of mysterious ghosts.

We made a final stop at the local stone quarry viaduct (it would be rather nice if my town had one). Here we channelled a Roman and Victorian atmosphere amidst alluring rock faces that were very eerily similar to the ones that Miranda disappeared amidst in 'Picnic at Hanging Rock.' Fear of the unknown amidst the picturesque rocks, and of dirtying our cotton dresses, prevented us from climbing into the thick foliage that surrounded the rock face. Rumours have stated that visitors have heard the splashes of ghosts that drowned in the creek, but all we heard were chirping birds. This idyllic stop off was my favourite part of Picton.

Of course there was much more to explore in Picton, but we three lady explorers decided to return to the safety of Canberra, rather than risk a night in haunted Picton. We did not want to suffer the fate of the young girls from 'Picnic at Hanging Rock,' who were never seen following their adventures. Perhaps our daylight departure explains why we did not come across any ghosts; thirty-degree weather and brilliant sunshine are not the conventional atmosphere for all things mysterious. A mid-winter, evening sojourn into the town may well provide more opportunity to see the ghosts of Picton in full force. However, this would be at our own risk.

You can find out more about the ghosts of Picton by going on a ghost tour. Check out the page about Picton on the Paranormal Australia website: http://paranormalaustralia.com/hauntings/picton.html

The Wollondilly Shire also has interesting information about the town, see:

http://www.visitwollondilly.com.au/

Happy ghost hunting!

Grace

xx