Golden Plains 2024

Holly and I have been going to this incredible festival as often as possible since 2018. It's like no other festival: amazing people and vibe, single stage with a really diverse lineup of bands and some kooky traditions.

It's the best festival I've ever been to in Australia. Not the gravitas and lineup heft of Glastonbury but certainly captures a lot of the vibe, better in a lot of ways even. Not easy for us to make it from Sydney, involving finding hosts for our kids, flights, car hire and getting tents and the like all the way there.

This year we had to deal with serious heat. 37 degrees every day and on the Saturday night it was still 30 at 10pm. Seriously hot, so there was a lot of sitting around sipping drinks and hoping it'd cool down a bit.

Strange traditions

One of the funny traditions of Golden Plains is The Boot. To show their appreciation of a show, attendees hold a boot aloft above their heads. Charlotte Adigéry was very confused until some of the crowd explained what was going on. People also dress up in crazy stuff. And weirdest of all, you're allowed bring furniture to the festival, so there ends up being a whole array of couches at the back of the crowd area.

The sunsets from the hill beside the main stage are spectacular. A big crowd forms on the hill as the sun goes down with cheers, claps and hoots of appreciation. They're really stunning sunsets.

Bands

Musical highlights this year: Elsy Wamayo played a great afternoon set in the heat that forced me up onto my feet. King Stingray's recorded music hadn't set my heart alight but live they were great fun. And best of the fest was Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul. I've been following Adigéry's music since 2017 so I was super excited she was on the bill and they were amazing. Absolutely owned the crowd. Cymande were also a lot of fun, spotting those samples that you've heard everywhere.



A gig! EGOISM supported by Ultracrush

Last night Holly, Rachel and I managed to get out for some live music. Amazing after all this time.

The band we saw was local act EGOISM who we've been trying to see for a while. The earlier booking was for a December show that got cancelled with the Northern Beaches outbreak. Finally we got to see them at Mary's Underground, previously known as the famous Sydney venue The Basement.

It was weird going to a gig with all the checkin business for COVID. We were shown to a table and had to stay seated for the whole gig. Deeply weird. But rather civilised. Like a cabaret!

Better yet, Mary's stocks Heaps Normal, my favourite booze free beer.

EGOISM were great. Tightly performed their tracks, were fun with banter between songs. More polished than I'd expected. Their harmonies are really quite something.

Support act Ultracrush were good fun. Started off jingly jangly then went a bit shoegaze. Enjoyable show.


Hot damn this tune will get your toe tapping

John Peel famously took the needle off The Undertones' Teenage Kicks and immediately played it again, it was such a perfect pop song. He was, of course, absolutely right.


I had the same reaction hearing Eli Paperboy Reed's Cut Ya Down the other night on FIP. Theoretically it's a problematic piece of music: it's a take on a traditional gospel song and retains all its fire breathing god bothering ways. It's also a white guy (a Yankee no less!) doing his take on a juke joint jam. But holy crap is it an amazing piece of music. Have a listen.

The Cure: still going strong

I've been to four gigs by The Cure now:

The Cure remain one of the most amazing live bands. Incredible to see them again. Had a fantastic time.


Some upcoming gigs in Sydney

Some really interesting gigs coming up in Sydney. Who's in?

Russian Circles
Russian Circles are kind of The Necks with metal instrumentation.  Cinematic metal?  I think they're fucking awesome. Playing Hermann's on 11th September.

http://www.last.fm/event/1973836+Russian+Circles

Marnie Stern
Marnie Sterm, well she's just fucking indescribable. Amazing shredding guitar taps + bubblegum pop. Something genuinely unique.  All I can offer is some YouTube links, but her album "This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That" is one of the most strangely addictive musical treats in the last while.  Playing some venue called "Tone NIghtclub" on Wentworth Avenue on 6th October.

Top Hottest 100 Australian albums of all time

Just put my votes into Triple J's Hottest 100 Australian albums of all time.  I just hope Farnsey and Barnesy don't make the top 10!

Here's my top 10, not in any order:
  • INXS  -  Kick
  • Itch-E & Scratch-E  -  Itch-E Kitch-E Koo
  • AC/DC  -  Back in Black
  • Gotye  -  Like Drawing Blood
  • Midnight Oil  -  10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
  • Necks, The  -  Next
  • Pnau  -  Sambanova
  • PVT (aka Pivot)  -  O Soundtrack My Heart
  • Regurgitator  -  Tu-Plang
  • Severed Heads  -  Come Visit The Big Bigot

The Cure

An amazing gig in an amazing venue. The Cure playing their first three albums at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Brilliant. Over three hours of brilliance. After missing out on tickets when they sold out in about two minutes, we were lucky enough that a friend heard of some extra, last minute tickets turning up. And they were good tickets, off above the side of the stage.

Fishing, Jinja Safari and Cloud Control gig

Last night Holly and I had a grandmother looking after Louis and tickets to a gig. Date night! Lots of fun was had.

First, dinner at Arisun, the latest stop on our quest for the best Korean Fried Chicken. I have to say, this one is the goods! Crispy, spicy, unctuous. Mmmm.  Brilliant stuff.

Next up, the gig.  It's not often we want to see a band and both supports, but this gig had three bands we wanted to see.  I'd caught Fishing with Ben Askins late one night at the Peats Ridge Festival, randomly wandering into a tent and really digging them.  Holly had done the same with Jinja Safari while I was looking after Louis one night.  Holly got to see Cloud Control while I was looking after Louis, so I was keen to catch them at last.

All three bands were great.  Fishing are particularly awesome, with a wonky kinda live electronic vibe going on. You can check out their single here. I really like their sound and can't wait for some more releases!  Cloud Control were sensational, very polished, and the crowd were rapturous and singing along to every song, which I imagine is a bit novel now they're in London and nobody's ever heard of them.

Pretty exhausting though, given we're used to bed times closer to 21:30...

Yay for babysitters 2

Two gigs in one week! At Opera House for Blonde Redhead. Support were ghastly. Enjoying the view before main act.

To be honest, the gig was a bit disappointing. I shouldn't be too surprised given the band have one amazing album and not much else worth listening to. But it's such a great album! As it happens, they played only one song from the great album and the rest was pretty crap.

I dreaded it every time they put their guitars down to play their keyboards. Every one of these tracks seemed to consist of meandering FM synth pads pushed through cathedral reverb. Not helped by the sound in the Concert Hall seeming to kill any mid frequencies from the music.

Wish I'd gone to see Sufjan Stevens instead now, though we had a nice night out anyway.