groovin' the moo

no, we weren't dancing with the cows. although... no. really not. "groovin' the moo" is a music festival that tours australia and only shows in non-capital cities, hence "moo". it was held in bunbury this year, which is about 1h30 south of perth. john and i snapped tickets up as soon as we could, cause the lineup was pretty awesome and the cost was (somewhat) reasonable.

we arrived in australind (small town outside of bunbury) around mid-day. we met up with our friends at a campsite, got our stuff set up and prepared ourselves for the day ahead. my friend gill was incredibly savvy and booked a bus to take us to and fro. we were concerned that camping would be a bit cold (it was 5 degrees the night before) but it was actually quite comfortable, possibly because we arrived well-prepared with proper canadian sleeping bags, extra blankets and fleecy pjs.

the bus dropped us off around 2pm and we promptly lost all the people we arrived with. which is a feat in itself, given how small the festival grounds were. the 2 main stages were set-up side by side so you didn't have to wait more then 5 minutes for the transition between shows. a great idea, i thought! or, if the "conventional" acts weren't your style, you could also saunter over to the tent, which was showing more dj's and that style of music.

we camped out near the main stages for the better part of the day, but checked out the dj tent a few times as well (grinspoon isn't really my style anyhow). our favourite act of the day was "empire of the sun"- they had ridiculous outfits, dancers and great stage presence. they also have awesome music. "spoon" also had a good set, as did canadian indie-darlings "tegan and sarah". the act that disappointed us the most was "kid koala", one of john's favourite canadian dj's. he changed his style and brought some mainstream guitarists in- it was all wrong.

silverchair finished off the night as the main headliners (right after vampire weekend, whom i don't particularly love). yes, that silverchair. you may know them as one-hit-wonders from about 15 years ago. but they have been rocking out in australia ever since, and are similar in grandeur to the hip. i have yet to find an aussie who doesn't like at least one of their albums (yes, there are many). we were reintroduced to them when we first moved here and they release the albm "straight lines" (great album btw). they played a lot of their older stuff. and whilst we didn't know any of it, the crowd sure as heck did. the atmosphere was awesome and the very light drizzle just added to it.

the festival ended with us finding our group and hopping back onto a bus, while thousands of other punters (aussie term for festival goers) waited around!

another of my festival highlights was riding the swing. yes, the swing. they had one of the big swings that you find at amusement parks. it was bloody expensive but oh so worth it! and like i said, i don't much care for grinspoon anyhow, so it was a good time waster.

this festival rates highly on my list, but not the highest. a few of the bands were pretty lackluster, food and drinks were astronomically priced and lineups were outrageous (toilets, food, etc).

would i go back to a groovin' festival? yes. but mostly because of the swing... :)

xo