Live Music - 2022 Welcomes You Back

The last live music event we remember going to together was Joe Jackson at the State Theatre in September 1993… roll forward a quarter century to 2017 with a phone call out of the blue from Fatpap suggesting Lyndall come along to the Spilt Milk Music Festival in Canberra.

Held on the naturally hilly grounds of Commonwealth Park Canberra, we arrived to see the start of Dean Lewis’ set and Lyndall was immediately hooked…Like a kid in a candy store, the grin on her face remained until well after the last haunting note of Lorde’s finale, Greenlight, in the closing set of the night.

What a blast!

To that point she’d been dallying with Blues Music for over a decade - even playing percussion and backing vocals on a multitude of small stages, and one very big stage with a local blues band - but never at this magitude. Fun? Most certainly, but the joyful experience of standing among the crowd letting the plethora of music genres wash over, and into her, had sorely been missed.

It was a drug that saw 2018 and 2019 quickly filled with a multitude of festivals - Groovin the Moo, Spilt Milk, Yours & Owls, Splendour in the Grass - and headline gigs at Luna Park’s Big top, Sydneys Enmore and Metro theatres, and many Sydney pubs in between. In all we saw 79 sets from various artists spanning Alice Ivy to Ziggy Alberts, and genres as diverse as Alternative Rock, Hiphop, Stoner Synth and Norwegian Death Metal. We travelled to Maitland, Wollongong, Canberra and Byron Bay - where we hired our first camper van setting us off on another tangent of obsession.

2020 dawned with another fistful of festival tickets - Drop Festival, Big Pineapple Festival and Splendour in the Grass had all gone on sale. But on the very eve of our first festival of the year, Covid-19 scared the shit out of everyone and the Drop Festival was promptly, dropped, stranding us in Manly with a paid hotel room but thankfully two accommodating bar stools. Panic ensued and all remaining festivals were affected - one by one they fell like dominoes - some were cancelled, others rescheduled. Either way, like everyone else, we were screwed and stuck hoping for the best.

May 2021 saw the Qld government temporarily open its doors again allowing the rescheduling of the Big Pineapple Festival in Palmwoods. You didn’t need to ask us twice, after all we’d been sitting on those tickets for over a year, so we boarded our Virgin flight hopeful of the return to normality. We had a great four days on the Sunshine Coast, but boy, it was a bloody strange festival!

Covid check ins and social distancing were enforced to the point that viewing areas for the various stages were segregated, corralled out and over policed to reduce the number of people gathering in the one spot. But the port-a-loos, potentially the greatest spreader of Covid, were up to their usual festival standards where if a bolt of lighting were to hit the bodily fluids contained within the little blue boxes, life itself could have been spawned.

Food stalls were few and far between and even the music wasn’t really up to scratch. Some of the solo performers, such as Thelma Plum and G-Flip were superb…but it seemed the bands had understandably been dulled by 18 months of lockdowns with their normal energy in front of a live audience visibly lacking. The expected vibe was just missing?

Society’s gates were shut as quickly as they reopened, and our cancelled 2020 Splendour tickets were moved to July, then November 2021, before eventually being rescheduled to July 2022. We were debating the idea of selling said tickets and investing the (quite significant) funds into a Vanlife trip to yet another unexplored state of Australia. Wisely at the time, we put a pin in that.

So early March 2022 saw another Fatpap out of the blue phone call. “Lock in 23rd April - you’re off to Maitland for Groovin the Moo baby!!!”

So here we arrive at the point of this blog. Music Festivals are back! And for some, the love of music, especially new music, never goes away. We are those people.

So in an effort to explain why two (ahem) middle aged people are attending as many music festivals as they can possibly slot in, or perhaps to just share the joy with you all, here’s Groovin The Moo, Maitland 2022.

As Australia’s only touring festival, Groovin purposely hits the regional centres so we hightailed it up the highway to Maitland on Saturday morning. After checking into our nice little B&B within drunk stumbling distance from the showgrounds, we pranced through the gates armed with Udder Mayhem (VIP) tickets and promptly perched ourselves, you know where, at the bar!

In our experience, the minimal extra coin shelled out for the VIP tickets is a no brainer. Private bar, elevated viewing platform, regularly maintained posh toilets together with rain shelter and overhead heaters is a must for two old farts like us. So we quickly flicked on the alcoholic defibrillator and staked out our territory on the front row balcony.

One of Fatpaps’ favourite tricks is to drink his way through the menu selection, starting from the top, then working his way down. The only acceptable exception to this rule is of course light beer, which is duly skipped and never spoken of again. This technique has two benefits - firstly it’s extremely fun to do, and secondly you only need take your empty drink back to the bar and ask the staff “what ever is next please”. After a while they get the idea and grow eager to assist in the campaign. Groovin also conducts a $1 returned empties incentive to reduce waste and cleaning, so it makes even more sense in our learned opinions.

Within minutes we were rolling into sets from Sycco, Middle Kids, Hockey Dad, Montaigne, Polaris, Spiderbait, Broods, Lime Cordiale, Wolf Alice, Hilltop Hoods and Peking Duk. 11 bands back to back accompanied by double matching beverages was a great way to get our festival groove back. And this one well and truly had the vibe again. Open spaces, tens of thousands of people, fancy dress, carnival rides, exuberant youth and the smell of weed on the winds. With the music industry boxed for too long, everyone showed their appreciation and joy in opening this present for the first time in 2 years by partying their arses off.

The bands were tight, no doubt spending extra time in rehearsal, bringing back the level of energy Australian crowds have come to expect. There was as much enthusiasm on the stage as there was in the mosh pit for every act, with the Hilltops Hoods particularly - admitting this was only their 4th live gig in over 2 years - demonstrating their love, and talent of performing live. Overall the event was flawless and slapped Covid in the face as it rightly should. If Groovin is indicative of things to come, then the music industry will be back on top in no time.

We were additionally relieved to discover we were still relatively festival fit - but was there ever any doubt?

The last confetti canon exploded and the constabulary politely ushered us all to the front gates. Amidst a chorus of “hey baby, oh-ah, I wanna knooooooooooooow, will you be my girl”, the staple festival walking out favourite, we outsmarted the pretty young millennials by playing frogger across the New England Highway to secure an Uber heading in the opposite direction within minutes. They may have tighter skin, but we definitely have more cunning.

Andre saw us home safely where we should have scraped the dried mud from our legs and gone to bed without further thought. Alas we didn’t, we ate snacks and opened more grog…will we ever learn fair reader?

So let’s now circle back to Splendour 2022 and the pin we placed in our previous paragraph. The very slightest of hangovers and an extraordinary bacon and egg roll will inevitably clear any previously clouded thoughts one may have. Needless to say we unquestionably committed to Splendour in the Grass 2022, at the North Byron Parklands in late July. 4 days of exceptional music, exceptional drinking, exceptional scenery and exceptional company. We’re making a week of it and have booked our flights and our van, and of course will bring you all along for the ride.

But again, was there ever any doubt?

Thanks for reading this out of genre blog. We hope you’ve enjoyed the change of pace.

Peter & Lyndall