Big Adventures, Little World

It was an early morning wakeup at 8.30am with the sun beaming into the tent and the noise from neighboring tents, and the many security and staff on megaphones directing the crowds. After having some breakfast, we headed down for what would turn out to be a huge day.

First stop was the Green Stage, which was the main stage and could cater for 40000 people, to catch some of Rodrigo Y Gabriela, a guitar duo. It was amazing, the speed they played and the movements of their hands and fingers was great to watch. I highly recommend seeing them if you ever have a chance.

Next we headed for the Red Marquee, which was called a marquee but was more like a giant shed. We were there to see one of the Australian acts, the Midnight Juggernauts, who didn’t disappoint. As usual they were great, but was more on the rock side playing here and to a much larger audience.

Next up was an old favourite, The Presidents of the United States of America, which turned out to be even better than expected. They played some new songs, but best of all they played their old songs which we all knew and sung along too. They even spoke in Japanese and exchanged some words in songs with Japanese words which was good fun.

We grabbed some food and headed back to the tent for a half hour nap before making the long trek out to the Orange Court, which took close to an hour from the campsite! We were there to see Ozomatli, which all I can say is ‘sugoi’ (or ‘wow’ for those of you playing at home). Belinda and I got close to the front and danced away, with the music playing, and for half of the show, rain coming down, which was a nice relief.

Next we started back to the Red Marquee to catch the end of The Vines, then on to Green Stage to see the first half of Kasabian before heading to the White Stage, halfway between Green & Orange, to see the end of Galactic. After this it was back to Red Marquee to see Feeder, who blew us away, then back to White Stage to see some of Bootsy Collins – A Tribute to the Godfather of Soul, which turned out to be a bit to mellow after seeing what we had already seen through the day, so we headed back to ‘The Hilton’ to get some sleep before All Night Fuji!

We woke at 2 in the morning and started our way down to the Red Marquee, as many other people were making their way back to their tents to sleep. We caught some of Grand Master Flash, which was a lot of fun, and mixed up different kinds of music, then headed out to Orange again, down the boardwalk. The boardwalk had some amazing lighting throughout it, with disco balls and giant light up stars hanging from trees. We got to Orange in time to see the second half of Paul Van Dyk, who unlike last time I saw him, didn’t disappoint. Once he had finished, we started our long and tired walk to the tent in the wee hours of the morning as the sun was just coming up.

The first day was over but the festival had just begun, we had much more music to see. There was no doubt this was the most amazing music festival I had ever been to, and nothing in Australia even came close in comparison.