The Vaccine’s backdrop
Jinja Safari
someone’s bag @ British Sea Power. how rad is that?
James Blake
The Hives bathing in their own awesomeness!
dananananaykroyd!
dananananaykroyd! This is my favourite picture! Pretty sure that guy in the checkered shirt high-fived me…?
Foster The People.
The Grates. Patience is fierce.
The Mars Volta. mind. is. blown.
Regina Specktor. She’s sweet.
Hannah from Group Love. Another victim of my over zooming.
Ulrich from Cloud Control. I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot take a picture of this dude without something obscuring his face one way or another. I even made a bet with a friend.
Oh Mercy. I want to make out with his voice.
I predict a riot! Kaiser Chiefs.
Now this is truly amazing. I took this photo from the top of hill at the amphitheatre of Jarvis Crocker from Pulp. Look at that zoom power. It’s like I was standing in the pit.
How it really looks from where I was standing. Actually, this might have been zoomed in as well…
I think the opening picture to this post is most appropriate. What on earth were you expecting when I said I’ll be back with photos? I hope it wasn’t too much because I come bearing nothing but shitty photographs taken with my Lumix because I forgot to buy film for my Pentax K1000. Sadly I only learnt how to use the ‘zoom’ function on my Lumix two days into the festival and abused the hell out of it by zooming in REAL close to the musicians. So close you can almost see the boogers up their noses. Hawt. I won’t be posting those disturbing photos though, I feel sorry for my victims the musicians.
Splendour In the Grass (which I have now dubbed ‘spend all in the grass’ because it’s so costly to go to/stay at/survive) is one of Australia’s biggest annual musical festival. Born in 2001 (haha) the festival has seen many great bands take it’s stages. OMG what the fuck am I writing? A wiki page? Let’s talk about the 2011 version. Right, so I admit the lineup this year wasn’t as ‘ah-maz-ing’ as it was last year but how can I say no to Kanye West? HAHA. Not. I think James Blake, The Hives, Friendly Fires and Coldplay was really why I decided to go. I was not disappointed. The only thing I was disappointed in was the cost of public transport in Queensland. Who told your Premier that it’s okay to charge us $5 to travel between domestic and international terminals and who in their right mind would want to pay $20 just to get to the city from the airport? Well clearly we weren’t, cos thats what we paid. Not only that, it cost us close to $100 to get to and from Splendour’s site which was in Woodford – a little ole town in god knows where. At least they had Woolworths.
Since we were flying to Queensland we hired a tent with Tent City because we’re lazy bastards who can’t be bothered to carry/put up our own tent. Tent City promised us a clean, comfortable tent with a ‘bed’ and ‘light’ upon our arrival. I think we have a different definition of bed and light to Tent City. They seem to think a 80cm wide metal fold out bed-like apparatus with a very thin mattress on top can be classified as a bed. I think it should be called a seating device. Oh well, at least we didn’t have to use the showers/toilets that ‘normal’ campers were using. Ours came on the back of a truck and we got a place to charge our phones/cameras and cook our meals. Which is a lot better than trying to cook outside your tents in the freezing cold (I like to eat late at night – better described as early morning actually).
The weather wasn’t bad – didn’t rain or anything. Daytime was nice and warm but nights were a killer. It was so cold that I felt like my face was going to fall off because of frostbite…or something. That would have been interesting.
We always started our days early, rising at about 7:30-8 o’clock every morning, just so we could shower and not have to wait in line for too long. We also liked to cook our own breakfast. Simple things like oats, toast and scrambled eggs. Delicious. People stared because they were jealous of my friend’s cooking skills. I stare back with my ‘i-hope-this-looks-like-i’m-giving-you-dirties-and-not-like-i’m-mentally-retarded’ face. I’m sure it just looked like I was squinting or mentally incompetent or something. I blame my asian parents for giving me small eyes.
On the first day we saw World End’s Press play one of the first sets at the Mix Up tent. They were good. Much dancing was done by the band members as I watch on in awe. Then off to see British Sea Power and Jinja Safari at the Amphitheatre. We saw the second half of Kimbra’s set at the M.G tent and there we spot two guys from Last Dinosaurs (quickly ran away, long story about that…). After Kimbra we wait around for Wild Beasts where we witness one of the band members groping himself…what? Then its back to the Mix Up tent for some James Blake and his infamous silences. Then we run to see Glasvegas at the Amphitheatre and after that its a little bit of relaxing time as we eat hot chips and watch The Black Seeds at the Mix Up tent. We then head to the Jager Lodge to see James Blake’s DJ set. It was embarrassing, as everyone just stands there looking at him/taking photos instead of dancing. We leave, it’s too weird for us. We wait a horribly long time for Does It Offend You Yeah? whilst watching a scary, slightly larger DJ dancing to his tunes with no shirt on. We then get abused by some Newcastle…or was it Wollongong dudes who tell us to cheer up and dance. My friend tells them to fuck off. HAHA. Then its off to see The Hives. We arrive and the Amphitheatre is packed, we try to get closer. No luck. They were great though! We leave to shower as everyone is looking at us like we’re from outer space because Kanye West is due to come on next and we’re leaving. Comments like “why would you leave?” were being thrown around. Why would you complain? I’m giving you more space. Dumbass. That’s right people, I did not see Kanye West. Apparently it was amazing. My shower was more amazing I think. 
I could go on, but WordPress is telling me I’m 900 words in. Thats a looooong post. I can’t be bothered. Maybe next time…right now, I gotta clean my room and learn how to make Hollandaise sauce. Cos I really like eggs benedict.
filed under: gigs, photography, trips | tagged with: photography · splendour in the grass
