Kiwi ex-pat GUY BLACKMAN was one of about 25 acts from Australia who journeyed across the Tasman for this year’s Camp A Low Hum festival. In this three-part tour diary, he tells of festival epiphanies, musical camaraderie and the obligatory tribal hippy percussion jam. PHOTOGRAPHY by Ben Butcher.

Day One: Friday, February 6

I was already happy as I pulled into Camp Wainui around 6pm. On the plane ride over I’d managed to win myself a return flight to New Zealand by playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on the computer screen in front of me. And stopping at a second-hand record store along the way, I’d scored an original copy of Arthur Russell’s World Of Echo for $12NZD. It was a good start to the weekend.

Camp A Low Hum is held at a different location every year, but it’s hard to imagine a more picturesque spot than Camp Wainui at Wainuiomata, a 40-minute drive out of Wellington. Nestled in a valley between lush fern-covered hills, it has all of the stillness and the eerie beauty that NZ is famous for – stands of tall pines, a trickling brook winding down to a cool lagoon and cicadas chanting everywhere. I kept expecting to see King Kong come stomping over a hill.

What I saw instead reinforced the dreamlike eeriness of the whole experience. I saw Australians – hundreds of them. There were something like 25 Australian bands playing this year’s Camp, most of them from Melbourne and most of them friends, or at least people I could comfortably wave to on my way past. Yet here we all were in another, spookily different country, a place where our music was largely unknown and unheralded by everyone except Blink, the Camp festival organiser.

From the start, it felt like a weird social experiment with the results yet to be determined. It also felt like an invasion although a friendly one. New Zealanders have always had a fairly justifiable chip on their shoulder about Australia, accusing us of claiming all their best exports (having no real musical sophistication of our own), all the while adopting a patronising attitude and, of course, making fun of their accents.

Still, it was all pretty exciting. Getting out of my car I ran into members of The Stabs, The Twerps, Pikelet, Aleks & The Ramps and others, all milling around beer in hand. These were friends of mine, bands I would see playing in small venues to moderate crowds around Melbourne. I dropped my gear off at my dorm, poured myself a vodka soda and headed out to meet the evening.

A brief glimpse of Baseball sounded more Cleveland ’79 and less Ukraine ’87 than I remembered (in a good way) although afterwards they seemed to think the show was a disaster. Then Actor/Model played in a little weatherboard room called, appropriately, the Noisy Stage, and were catchy, loose and fun.

My first “New Zealand” band was really a little Swiss guy in a wolf mask hat with a NZ backing band. After some initial resistance, Bonaparte became my guilty pleasure at Camp A Low Hum. Describing them as like a wackier, punkier Elvis Costello would be enough to put most people off their lunch, but Bonaparte’s songs were so catchy that you couldn’t help nodding along. They rolled on the floor, jumped up and down, the bass player was really a keytarist and really handsome. Mark from The Stabs preferred the girl in a nurse’s outfit who sang, danced and did yoga moves on stage.

Up a little gentle hill there was the Nice Stage, nestled among pine trees and almost deafened by cicadas. The Ruby Suns were up next, and with a mild vodka rush I had perhaps my favourite Camp moment, jumping up and down, the golden sun slowly setting, to the Suns’ winsome party afro-tropicalia. There was a big crowd of kids going wild, and when the Suns’ Ryan PcPhun (who sings like an angel) said it was the best gig he’d ever played, I think he meant it.

Pikelet in the Noisy Room continued the headrush, playing the best show I’d seen since they became a prog-rock four-piece. The packed room roared with amazed approval and I could practically hear the uninitiated’s minds expanding song by song. Evelyn Morris was one of the few Australian Camp veterans, having raved about her 2008 experience, and the Kiwis really welcomed a familiar face.

Love of Diagrams were great on the main stage, anthemic and powerful, but I didn’t enjoy Friday’s “headliners” So So Modern as much. Their ironic Devo electro thing left me cold. Justice Yeldham, aka Lucas Abela, the boss of Sydney exploratory record label Dual Plover, did his glass plate act to great effect. Blowing and chewing on a small plate of glass, mic’d up and put through pedals, he made amazing visceral sounds and grossed people out before smashing the glass on his face.

Along with Evelyn Morris, who I swear played in 75 bands over Camp’s three days, Shags Chamberlain was a real star of this year’s Australian contingent. The Pikelet synth wizard also led his own exotica ensemble the Kokonuts, who usually chant and hit things over the ambient bits from Martin Denny records. They were scheduled to play late up in the forest next to the Nice Stage, but after Darren Cross’ E.L.F mashup DJ and yelling set, the power went out and Kokonuts descended into that staple of any bush festival, the tribal hippy percussion jam.

Still, dancing among the pine trees with cicadas chirping and lights flashing between the foliage, it was a genuinely surreal experience as well as being a bit embarrassing and silly. I was pretty drunk by then too. After an hour or so, Blink, a large bearded man, had to manhandle drums away from revellers still keen to channel their prehistoric ancestors. As the pounding died away, I staggered back down the hill into my dorm. A comatose Darren Hanlon was the only other occupant at that stage, with the Crayon Fields expected the next day, so there was no-one to distract me from passing out fully clothed on my bunk.

Day Two: Saturday, February 7

Thin walls, noisy neighbours and a mild hangover woke me around 10am, and I had a little muesli and a cheese scone at the cafeteria next door. The whole school camp vibe was very pronounced there. There were lines of people waiting for comfort food, then sitting around trestle tables making jokes and smelling each other’s socks. It was just like high school, except with more alcohol and probably drugs for the lucky ones.

Darren Hanlon (with Evelyn on drums, of course) was sweet and charming, his song about squash making New Zealanders chortle despite themselves. Then The Twerps played a set of transfixing dewy-eyed strum-alongs, and were of course great, with drums more pounding than usual giving them a hypnotic power. I love The Twerps, they are my current favourite Melbourne band.

After that I began to get edgy, thinking about my own upcoming show. Still, I went along to the far distant Renegade Room, a small hut set well away from the rest of Camp, where impromptu bands were playing in greatly reduced circumstances. And there I saw my first real discovery for the weekend. A couple of young hippy stoners from Perth. With help from Shags and Evelyn (again), they busted out a short set of blistering psychedelic wizardry that really blew me away. In Perth, their band is called Pond and they live with two of the Tame Impala guys, so I guess there’s some kind of thing going on with pot-addled Perth rock genius at the moment. Pond had the same natural easy bond; a loose, intuitive interplay that was really exciting to watch. It reminded me of the early ’90s in Perth, when everyone wore tie-dye and came barefoot to university and Fremantle bands played funky jam psychedelia in bands with names like Prawns With Horns. I hated it all at the time, but now I wonder if I missed out on something amazing.

From the Renegade room I stole Shags away to play bass with me and also roped in My Disco drummer Rohan Rebeiro. Shags had done a few shows with me in the past, but it had been a while, and Rohan had never played with me before, although he seemed happy to oblige. So around 3pm we set up on the Nice Stage while everyone was splashing around at the lagoon for a Baywatch Lagoon Party.

Crayon Fields had turned up from Auckland a little earlier, so my guitarist of choice, Geoff O’Connor, was also on hand. We ran through a few songs, “working out” five of them to play all together. A few minutes later it was time to get started, so Geoff and I wobbled through a few songs as a sensitive duo to a fairly select audience. Most people were still swimming while we played, and the Camp attendance had been capped at 800 tickets, so across five stages over the whole weekend it seemed like there were only a couple of hundred people watching live music at any one time.

Then Shags and Rohan got up, and it was fun, a suitably loose performance befitting the A Low Hum vibe. Rohan did incredibly well despite only learning the songs 10 minutes before. I was pleased, but still stricken by my usual hypercritical self-consciousness, which is mostly paranoia about my singing. Realistically, the band were great and it was a good start to my Camp itinerary.

Crayon Fields followed on the Nice Stage and played an awesome set with my label boss Tim Piccone ably standing in for usual cherub bassist Brett Hudson. People started dancing, but as it was a Crayon Fields show they danced politely to the side of stage so as not to get in anyone else’s way. I joined the dancers and marvelled at Geoff’s new songs, the slinky mystery of All the Pleasures Of The World and the dynamic, practically rock’n’roll Graceless.

Other people raved about Sharpie Crows, kinda like a NZ Stabs, but I was somehow unmoved. I then headed back to see old Neddy Collette, who has been away in Europe where the time has done him good. His live guitar and loops thing has tightened into a work of constantly shifting wonder, never losing your interest as he adds and shapes layers, ending up with a somewhat more melodic but still enveloping Branca-style guitar symphony. Normally loop pedals bore the shit out of me these days, but in the hands of a few they can still create the desired effect, enlarging and enhancing one person’s particular vision.

Then it was time for the Stabs themselves. I’ve known Mark Nelson since he was little and innocent so I have some trouble listening to him sing tough songs about burying dead people, but I still think the Stabs are real and raw and great. Their lyrics could do with some judicious editing or reconfiguration. I want to hear heartbreak and crushing emotion to go with the bone-crushing music. But maybe that’s just me.

Rand & Holland are generally acknowledged as Sydney’s one good band (or just about), and so represented their hometown with suitably dry self-deprecation. Stuart Olsen thumps a desultory kick drum while pulling amazing glittering peals from his 12-string guitar. Singer Brett is like a character in a Patrick White novel; blank and ancient and somehow totally Australian.

After Rand I went on a wilderness trek with the Twerps, the world’s sweetest people. It began as a picnic next to a babbling brook, but the brook was too enticing in the heat and alcohol so we decided to follow flat slippery stones through the bracken and see where we would end up. The brook was overhung with thorny branches and every one of us ended up with our shoes or our asses in the shallow water, but it felt like a noble adventure and we loved the cool water around our ankles. Eventually the brook flowed into the lagoon and we arrived like conquering explorers, a little scratched and itchy but very satisfied with ourselves.

We could hear the sounds of Melbourne band Mother & Father from the nearby Noisy Room, and it sounded like Nirvana, which was intriguing but not enough to drag us away from the lagoon. In fact not much happened for an hour or two except cigarettes and vodka and a plate of Asian noodle salad, until the sun had well and truly set and My Disco took to the Main Stage.

I’ve always loved My Disco as amazing people but had trouble penetrating their wall of sound, so monolithic and minimal and so loud. But this time I totally submerged myself and was completely converted, realising how intensely groove-based they are, how joyous and sensory their music is, rather than stripped back or repressed. With a packed crowd going wild, the show was completely ecstatic and life affirming and I don’t know how I could have been so wrong before.

A short while later at the Nice Stage, one of the weekend’s most unusual and confronting experiences occurred. A large pickup band lead by the ubiquitous Shags, under the name Nintendo KiWii, ran through a set of Oz rock classics from the likes of Australian Crawl, Midnight Oil and Kylie Minogue. They gave a tip of their hats to NZ with I Got You by Split Enz, but the whole thing weirded me out. It was so many things all at once – another musical incursion from Australian bands who were already overrunning the festival, a good natured but heavy handed assertion of cultural pride and a drunken, chaotic performance that sounded amazing from start to finish. I wondered what the New Zealand audience members thought of it all.

Perhaps it was really a sign of international tolerance and understanding, and when Camp co-ordinator Blink got up to sing ‘Reckless’ (he had an impressively strong voice) it did seem like New Zealand and Australia were bridging the waters, raising their voices together in harmony. I was totally out of it by then and vaguely remember jumping on stage to sing something, and commandeering one of Shags’ keyboards to play along. He had to lean over and yell, “It’s C and E minor”, cause I was totally getting it wrong, but a few minutes later I was back in my dorm and dead to the world, so the embarrassment was short lived.

Day Three: Sunday, February 8

It was lot harder to bounce back on day three. Crayon Fields were on the Main Stage at 11am, so I dragged myself out of bed and got some scrambled eggs from the cafeteria. I broke a Berocca into my water bottle and found a shady spot. The sun was blisteringly hot and Geoff sounded a little worse for wear, but still they played well. Some of the same fans danced at the side of stage, and a couple of cute dancing dudes even took their shirts off in the sunshine.

Teacups at the Nice Stage were winsome and a little cloying, three pretty young Auckland girls playing double bass, recorder and acoustic guitar. Their songs came from a world of secrets and in-jokes that was engaging at first, but soon became a little forced.

Collette did his epic prog-folk one-man jam on the main stage next, and then I had to set up with Geoff to play a Sly Hats show. We stood beside each other on a tiny stage and tried to do hungover justice to Geoff’s crystalline melodies. Halfway through the set I had to pack up and leave to play my own show on the Main Stage with Geoff joining me once he was done. It was a funny relay race and I felt very industrious as I carried my heavy keyboard back down the hill to the next gig.

For this second show I wanted to move people. I wanted to shock and awe them with my sexually explicit piano ballads. I’d felt like the show the day before had been too nice, too in the closet, and I wanted to ruffle the complacency of the Camp crowd. It’s a weird motivation to play a show, but that was how I felt, and so I wrote a set-list of mostly solo songs, focusing on the ones that I have to sometimes muster my own courage to perform.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really achieve what I was hoping for. It was 2pm and the sun was harsh, without a spot of shade to be found, so just a mere handful of people huddled under bushes or along the sides of buildings. They were tired and dehydrated, and despite my best efforts to emote, their response was decidedly muted. Evelyn and Geoff helped me for a few songs, and I played ‘I Love Myself For You’ and ‘Gayle’ with Shags and Rohan, but I didn’t see anyone crying, breaking down or coming out to their neighbours on the spot. It was my last Camp show and I felt strange about it, but at least it was over and I didn’t have to worry about anything anymore.

I got hungry and drove into town with a couple of Crayon Fields to get hot chips, returning just in time to see Pikelet again on the Main Stage. I think they suffered from a similar heat-stricken audience malaise, although they played a great show. Then I felt a familiar urge and got back into my car to return to the chaotic and sprawling record store where I’d found the Arthur Russell album. I passed my fellow record nerd Shags on the way and considered offering him a lift, but then realised we’d be competing for the same records and selfishly went off alone.

I’d only been in there a few minutes when Shags himself walked in, obviously driven by the same urge. He didn’t seem particularly pleased to see me there either. This time I picked up a handful of weird disco 12”s, most of which turned out to have skips in them, and Shags found a couple of prog rarities. Not an amazing haul, but at least I didn’t have to spend the rest of the weekend wondering “what if?”.

Aleks & the Ramps were fun back at Camp, dressed up silly and doing choreographed routines, although I can’t profess to being a huge fan of wacky, and the Ramps do fall into that category a lot of the time. Next up, Bachelorette played a poignant non-synthesized set (with help from Ned Collette and, of course, Evelyn) and was one of my only other New Zealand pleasures of the weekend, which was a strange feeling in and of itself. Was I just being parochial or prejudiced, or were the NZ bands not up to the same standards as the Aussie acts on the line-up? Most of them fit into the category of shouty punk, high on daredevil showmanship and attitude but low on musical value. Maybe I was just too old to appreciate their merits, but everyone else around me (ie. the other Australians) seemed to agree: the Kiwis weren’t holding their own.

I liked Ruby Suns and Bachelorette, but I already knew I liked them before I got there. I liked Bonaparte, but they were really a European band with NZ fill-ins. Maybe I chose to get lunch or dinner or go record shopping when I could have been watching NZ bands I hadn’t heard of, and missed out on some amazing music, but I did watch a bunch of bands that didn’t do much for me. These and other quandaries left me with a nagging, uncertain feeling that didn’t go away the whole weekend.

Show Is the Rainbow was an American one-man band, large and red-bearded, singing and taking his shirt off along to party punk backing tracks in the mould of Totally Michael or a mashup-less Girl Talk. Usually I hate that kind of thing, but Show was more inspiring and entertaining than most; a straight guy singing about marriage equality for gays (“If there’s a dick I want to suck/ I’ll suck the dick I want”), body image and how much he hates Bright Eyes. It was anthemic and very all-embracing and people went wild for him, while I relaxed my normal cynicism to admit that he was pretty fun.

Then there was a supposed talent show, which I had imagined as people getting up to do skits or sing jokey songs. Slowly, though, whispers about a mystery band started to circulate. People were saying Stereolab or Shellac or Guns’N’Roses, but meanwhile on the talent show stage the roadie looked suspiciously like Liam Finn.

I was in my dorm discussing these possibilities when I heard the unmistakeable strains of the Chills’ ‘Pink Frost’ being played, and the audience totally going wild. I rushed back out towards the stage in a frenzy, thinking it was Martin Phillips or some Chills reformation taking place, but the real story was something else. Neil Finn was on stage playing with his sons Liam and Elroy, and Jimmy Barnes’ daughter EJ. The young and supposedly select, hipster audience were losing their shit. The Finns ran through a bunch of Split Enz, Crowded House and Liam Finn numbers, in descending order of greatness, and it was a warm and unexpected highlight of the festival. Neil Finn seemed totally excited to be received so rapturously by an audience a third his age, and was ripping out great guitar solos and getting down on the floor like an only slightly self-conscious rock god.

I wasn’t drinking, cause I had to leave Camp for a 6.30am flight from Wellington back to Melbourne, so as the evening progressed I started to feel more and more detached from the revelry around me. Still, Disasterradio were another surprise Kiwi highlight, an energetic electro dance party lead by a big Wellington guy who had the Forest Stage crowd in the palm of his hand, drinking whole stubbies of beer at one gulp from some weird contraption and inciting people to go wild with his infectious vocodered tunes.

Bonaparte played their second set and were just as insidiously catchy as before. I marvelled at the bass player’s ability to throw himself around and still play intricate funky basslines on his keytar. One of the last bands on the last night, they played encore after encore because no-one wanted their Camp experience to finish.

I wandered out in the dark to the Renegade Room, where Pond were meant to be playing their second show with an expanded line-up. It was around 1am by this time and I had to be off at four. I’d decided that sleep was for losers and was going to stay up to see as much music as I could before heading off, but I was starting to flake. I lay on the grass outside the Renegade Room while Golden Axe played a great sounding set of chaotic electronic noise-pop not too far removed from Disasterradio. Then Lucas Abela led an impromptu band through a John Zorn-inspired set of “complaint music”, where they complained about various aspects of Camp and then made a lot of sludgy noise. It was entertaining for a few minutes, but I was impatient to see Pond. Sadly by the time they were getting ready to play it was almost 4am and I had to miss out, trudging back to the dorm to wake a groggy Geoff O’Connor and drive back to Wellington (Geoff was catching a later flight to Christchurch and scabbed a lift to the airport off me).

So that was the end of my Camp A Low Hum 2009, probably my favourite ever festival experience, both as a performer and a punter. The small crowd numbers made everything leisurely and serene, the setting was incredibly beautiful and a lot of the music was amazing. There was no yobbish behaviour, no flag kissing and no security – think there was one bouncer for the whole festival. I loved everyone around me and I felt my music had been, if not warmly embraced, then at least warmly tolerated by the NZ crowd. The merch stand had sold four out of the five copies of my album Adult Baby that I’d brought with me, and I was satisfied with that.

I didn’t want Camp to end, and I drove all the way back to Wellington looking wistfully in the rear view mirror.

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