Since the other thread is eating posts, I thought it would be good to start a new one.
Got there about 2:00, in time to see Block on the gate. It made sense that he was there at the start. It was also just in time to see the rain start up.
We camped where we usually do. RIGHT AT THE BACK. Fuck Bush Camp! Lots of space and green grass. We were in a camper trailer, I'll have to learn how to balance it properly the next time.
Lou Barlow was great with his solo show. The vista was great, but it was almost impossible to see him. Also, why the fuck do people go out of their way to find a small ''secret'' show then talk all the way through it is beyond me. Good to hear people shushing them. You've got an enormous farm to talk in, why talk around a QUIET musician?
We then went back to the camp. The value of a porch is pretty good.
We missed all of the bands until Pavement. They were fucking excellent. Everything I wanted it to be. It was great being at the front with dj bollocks and BillyBackhouseFromBarooga. Like every positive youthful music memory brought to life. The band looked VERY fit too. They've all been laying off the ham big time.
Dinosaur Jr was great too. I got to the barrier with dj bollocks much to his consternation. It was an almost exact copy of the first indie gig I ever went to in 1995. That gig was Dinosaur Jr at the ANU bar. I was deaf for four days after that. I wasn't deaf at all after seeing them this time. Those dudes look like they were having the best time ever too.
Walked back to the site with bjbollocks laughing maniacally. I pissed off mrs outerspace and was angrily told ''shut the fuck up!'' by another person in our camp. The response was to get topless with three other guys in our campsite and sit in a car singing / shouting along to Guided By Voice Bee Thousand. Guess who was popular the next day?
I felt seedy on Sunday, but managed to see Jeffrey Lewis who was fantastic. I was surprised at how energetic they all were on stage. Really good fun.
We decided to drive back on Sunday, the threat of more rain and tired campers led us to that decision. Wooden Shjips = the band most likely to get the shoe, and they did.
Watched Dirty Projectors. Supremely talented, but supremely soulless.
Left after them as the rain was coming down and there was the public service announcement about the possible hail. A beautiful drive, through the spooky grey rain. Although bolloocks and I had to drop BillyBackhouseFromBarooga at Hoppers Crossing, or ''death'' as a local street sign said. He amusingly scattered a dozen cans from his lap as he got out.
Home at 9:30 and asleep in our own beds by 11:00.
Considering it's probably the last Golden Plains I'll be going to it was a good way to end. It was quite sad, but is life, must let go of past.
Chat Sightings = Block, Modi, Anonymous, Louis, Fastcanoe, Kuroneko, MountainMan, Tabula Rasa, JudyDickslap, Anne Helena, Redlips, Judy Dickslap, Hyperfuzz, devilwillride
I forgot! As we were leaving a guy was running next to us. Dj Bollocks wound down the window and quotes some Mad Max lines at him. Without missing a beat, the guy started quoting appropriate Toecutter lines back to us. It was like this thread come to life.
Oops. Looks like I posted in the wrong thread.
POSITIVES
PAVEMENT - What a fucking amazing set? I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven.
DINOSAUR JR - Getting up the front and in the moshpit for their set. Talk about a 90's nostalgia fest.
LOU BARLOW SOLO SET - Brand New Love and Soul & Fire. Lou you spoil us so.
JEFFREY LEWIS & THE JUNKYARD - Especially the mosquito song.
WOODEN SHJIPS - They may only have the one song, but it's a good song.
NEGATIVES
PEOPLE TALKING DURING LOU BARLOW'S SOLO ACOUSTIC SET - Why go to all the trouble of finding where Lou is playing his solo set just to talk through it, Coolsie scum fucks!
THE DJ BEFORE DIRTY PROJECTORS - You don't rest your beer on the turntable, you just don't do it.
JULIEN WU - That should've been me goddamit!!
WOWSERS - If you want a good night's sleep, stay at home.
Also, I had a strange moment during Dinosaur Jr, I turned around and looked behind me. A woman slapped me in the face, twice. For no reason at all. Dj bollocks also joined in the fun as well.
how was the weather throughout?
Highlight: Wally Meanie getting thrown out of the Pink Flamingo bar by a bunch of security guys.
pretty fucking extreme weekend.
first day: left at 8, swung by avalon and made it around 10:30. had the bi-state chat gang set up in ringwood with duel-gazebo power. weather was nice around then. watched royal headache play a 25 minute set in a 40 minute allotment, they were alright. avoided crayon fields. started my four hour shift of walking around at 4. finished around 8:15. checked out some antibalas. that was okay. enjoyed pavement but didn't love it. watched dino jr with TransientRandom on the hill in the rain drinking jameson, which was ace. 'out there' was my highlight. got back to find a window open on the tent and all my clothes, bedding and belongings soaked. got up and sooked to the gazebo chat gang. slept in the car in a t-shirt and undies covered by a couple of hoodies as they were the only dry clothes i had.
second day: woke up not sick, so, it could be worse. got up and sooked to the gazebo chat gang again. went and bought a blanket and saw jack ladder do his ''nick cave singing a bruce springsteen song'' thing and didn't hang around. went down and watched jeffrey lewis with FrankieTeardrop. good set. got up the front for the shjips. excellent set. FT went nuts when they pulled out the cover of snapper's buddy. their vampire blues cover got the shoe. good choice of covers which broke up these nicely from too much flange/phase guitar. avoided space invadaz. walked down when we thought nashville pussy was on, but it turned out they were just playing mountain. NP were great, the obvious highlight being ''i'm so high'' (i look down to see the sky), which the immortal line ''I'm gonna get wasted in the stratosphere and take a shit on the moon''. dirty projectors vocals were amazing. calexico were great. i got more drunk than usual and became ''that guy'' up the front for the cruel sea. got bored half way through and went back to tent city where there was a cross-camp gathering going on. good times were had, good people were there and i had a dry place to sleep, and so it was pretty fucking great.
It gets harder every year to get your money's worth cause the price of a ticket is a financial hardship. All previous years I have left feeling like I'd got the better of the deal. Not in 2010 however.
Highlights were non existent on Saturday. Monotonix were kind of entntertaining. Pavement & Dinosaur Jnr were boring.
Sunday was a reasonable day - Jefferey Lewis was awesome, Ships were good. But Nashville Pussy get my boot in the air by a mile.
I have been to Meredith every year since 1994 and have now called it a day. Have loved it but it's time to say goodbye before we get shitty with each other.
that review makes me feel better about not having gone. cheers, youbeenskunkd.
Fixed
Have to agree with youbeenskunkd - didn't feel like I got my money's worth. There was some good stuff but it seemed like I had to wait ages to get to it.
i reckon folks who bailed on it made a good call, but i still enjoyed it. only really saw crayon fields, pavement, swh & dirty projectors. had varying levels of love for them all. special props for brain children djs too.
as always, hanging with friends is the best bit. the weather was tough, but we did ok.
The weather didn't bother me too much to be honest. I was just worried the camper trailer would get bogged if it rained too much.
c'mon people. it's 2010. multimedia. pictures and youtube vids please.
Dinosaur Jr Rockin' it out! LIVE!
use your imagination: it's often much closer to what happened than youtube vids and phone camera pix.
unless you're a dog in which case it's either;
1) a string of sausages, stolen from the butcher, or
2) the breeze of a head stuck out a car window.
maybe a cat chase.
but i wanna see you and your girlfriend jumping and shouting in the middle of the crowd and pointing the phone camera down at yourself and posing and making gang signs in the middle of the acousitc Lou Barlow set.
Was a good one. Not much really excited me musically though, thought DPs and Tame Impala were the highlights. Hadn't seen Tame Impala before and they impressed. Pavement were good, but not amazing. Of course it was great to hear those songs live though. Could get into Antibalas and was a little disappointed by Wooden Shjips. I'm sure they played the same song four times.
Drank way too much in a short period of time last night and got a bit rowdy. Apologies to anyone watching Midnight Juggernauts who had to put up with me doing whatever I was doing.
Rain didn't bother me. Just glad we didn't get that huge storm which hit Melbs.
*couldn't get into Antibalas
Dinosaur Jr were awesome. So much better than their Thurs corner show.. and for my money won the festival... If it wasnt raining so much I wouldda given them the boot.
Pavement were greta to see... and seeing Julian Wu get up and sing along, was pretty ace
Nashville Pussy were awesome in so many ways
Wooden Sjips were ok... but not awesome enough for me
Jefferey Lewis was awesome.
Calexico were great
Cruel Sea kinda sucked. Pretty sure Tex started singing one song in the wrong key, and it took about half way though the chorus until he found it. Also the band seemed underrehearsed... for a headlining type act they were very dissapointing.
Sadly I missed Monotonix and Lou solo and Royal Headache due to my work duties.
View Comments 20 to 158
We've limited the amount of comments shown in these larger topics to allow for faster viewing, simply click here to load all the missing comments ...
Pretty interesting to see the range of opinions that flood out from Golden Plains. There seems to be a lot of hate for Dirty Projectors - I thought they were one of the best bands I've seen in ages.
And as for Pavement being boring - I just could not disagree with that statement more, they were explosive. But hey, that's the beauty of opinions right.
Pavement were cool, but really, they never re-captured the energy of the Gary Young era, or the 'Crooked Rain' era. Dino Jr on the other hand surpassed their early years. I still preferred Pavement though. Go figure.
Did you see Pavement with Gary Young Frankie?
I did. Prince Of Wales Hotel, 1993. He was doing handstands and handing out plastic straws to people at the door. Oh, and he also drummed like a maniac.
Tis a shame about the jeff lewis evening thing getting canned. Everyone should write to MezzaDeath asking for some rain cover at the moovies I think. It would be a great alternate dry spot like the cover they put up on top of the hill near the stage.
Anyone figured out what you're supposed to do with pads and tampons in those loos? I wrote to them but haven't had a response.
Also Bogan Name Weekend was a highlight for me. More of those please.
spose i'll add my 2c without trying to go into too much boring detail
was keen to see royal headache after some positive comments from friends etc. didn't really enjoy them as much as i'd hoped. others have commented that they weren't really on song and didn't put in their usual energetic performance so i guess i'll need to check them out in a pub or something where the vibe is more condusive to their brand of good time rock. but i dunno, they just didn't seem to have the songs...
retreated to the camp site to set up tent etc, got a bit too comfortable up there drinking beers, having a nap and staying out of the rain etc and missed many of the acts. altho i could here quite well and i thought the big pink sounded ok.
headed back down to see antibalas and thought they were pretty decent.
pavement were one of those bands that i never really got in to as a young whipper snapper, for whatever reason. however i thought their set was a definite highlight of the festival. loved the chunky guitar sounds and the chemistry on stage, and the songs really shone in a live setting.
dino jnr.. hmm. this was the second time i've seen these guys since they reformed and both times i've really wanted to love them, but have been left feeling a little underwhelmed. it just seems like they are going thru the motions and collecting a pay cheque these days.... still they were decent and J can really shred, altho his guitar sound is just too controlled and not crunchy enough for my liking . if you're gonna have that many amps on stage, i expect god like tones. pavement left them for dead in that regard, i reckon. lou was very energetic but they just lacked some chemistry i thought..
sleepy time then up to see super wild horses. really enjoyable stuff. the ''controversy'' about these guys, well geez, get over it. they're just a really neat band, nothing too complicated just energetic, fun, and they write really good tunes with nice melodies etc.
retreated back to camp to eat brekky and listened to jack ladder while eating and starting on the beers. i must say i found this set rather confusing and i'm not sure he fitted into the lineup in this slot, if at all. most people around me had nothing positive to say and in fact some were quite hostile about the performance... hmmm.
wandered back down to see jeffrey lewis. really enjoyed this one, as a total surprise packet as i'd never heard of the guy but he has some fun songs and is quite charming on stage.
wooden shjips , as has been said by others they were best in show. absolutley killer, great rhythm section grooving along together and nice guitar / electro / keys noise washing over the top.
space invadas were fucking horrible.
nashville pussy were kinda funny in their own way and i did enjoy it. what a throw back. saw them at the corner in about 2002 and they're still the same. funniest part of the set was when blain started another of his ''motherfucker'' rants about ''we been touring this country for.... '' and then trailed off while his brain was ticking over trying to remember when they'd been here before (8 years ago) ... he obviously couldn't remember, and then finished the sentence with ''... for several years now''. yeah i know, small thing amuse me. guess you had to be there.
the final band i saw was calexico and that was a great way to end my festival experience. just such a top band, really good musos and they do weave some nice textures and melodies and harmonies throughout their music. highly recommended, i'd love to see these guys again in a more intimate venue.
i'm such a lame fart for missing so many of the bands, but i dunno i guess i'm just getting old. i think my festival days are done with. it's just not as appealing as it used to be and i also think the line ups have been getting progressively weaker over the years. there was only a handful of bands i was excited about this year... not really worth the $300 in my opinion. yeah sure i know you don't just go there to see the bands but also to hang out and have fun with freinds, but hey i can do that at home.
too long, didn't read it.
JUST KIDDING
Ughhhhhhhh Calexico were so disappointing - until the last 2 songs that is, when I'd already walked away having given up! I didn't like the slower beat and the different style they put on their songs this time, give me Feast of Wire sound! Fuck ya! RAH!
and i thought i rambled. not that i can be bothered reading timey's post.
rude!
Jeez, that was when he was trying NOT to go into boring detail.
I'm really sorry, tokes. Really, I am.
Highlights: PAVEMENT
Lowlights: Rain. Oh, and friend passing out during Pavement.
i liked timey's rant. so true about space invadas. and i concur with the last paragraph.
Stew Farrell talking about Golden Plains on All Over the Shop. Nude mud wrestling?
JP's bubble machine
A bit of rain, be thankful it didn't turn out like this one in Mexico
To quote:
Just before Mr. Deacon began his refreshingly intimate and cathartic performance, Mr. Patrick took to the microphone to address a crowd frustrated but surprisingly unbowed by the festival’s myriad problems. “They all thought they were going to die,” Mr. Patrick proclaimed, talking about the no-shows. “Now, I don’t know, but I’m looking around: you all seem pretty alive.”
These were not light words. On Friday morning, trucks, buses and cars were commandeered by armed men and used as roadblocks on several highways here, some of them set ablaze. The same day, the Mexican Army announced that it had killed two gunmen outside the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, then later said that they were students who had been killed by accident.
If you were at Optimo you might be in this movie I made of people there. Only just got around to putting it up.
hah!
i don't remember them playing that song tho..
Yeah, silent movie piano music is grossly underrepresented at music festivals.
Shit, I was seriously considering going to that!