Stoney at Splendour: House Heads in the Grass

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Stoney at Splendour: House Heads in the Grass

With a crazy fucking lineup, stellar new stage designs and a sell-out faster than you can yell ‘Outkast!’, Splendour in the Grass 2014 has been toted by many as the best Splendour yet.

Here at Stoney, however, we like to look a little bit deeper. And with our dance-lovers very much in mind, we’d like to take a deeper look into the Splendour that was. From the troubles with munting to malfunctioning sound systems to awkward campsite relations – welcome to the Stoney Splendour revue.

Starting on the Thursday (yep, we’re enthusiastic), my comrades and I pulled up to the Splendour on-ground campsite at around 3pm after an all day drive from Sydney – as horrific as it sounds. After small deliberation about what alcohols we’d try our luck through the car search with, we hid three flasks of Smirnoff, a bottle of Tanqueray and a bottle of Pinot Gris in nondescript places – including my pants. Unfortunately this year organisers had decided to forgo car searches and instead do checks at the campsite entrance. You win this time, authorities.

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Setting up camp conveniently near the Paella stand, we were soon out in the festival and went almost direct to the Red Bull Music Academy stage. I gotta say, for this festival and (especially for house-head like myself) the Red Bull Music Academy stage was where it was at, so many ridiculously good acts – local and international rocked it out (I’m not sponsored by Red Bull – although if you’re reading this Mr. Bull, I’m open for discussion). That night we caught L W K Y and Wordlife, before needing to pee and being unable to return – instead going for a grove to Levins and Mike Who/Shantan Wantan Ichiban.

Friday had some more fun in store, as we woke up fresh and early to go for a grove. That’s a freakin’ awesome thing about festivals, ain’t it? You can have a breakfast beer and a breakfast boogie – round the clock jives. On Friday we had our breakfast bevvies in the Mix Up tent with the always smooth Charles Murdoch, who played a fan-bloody-tastic house set – focusing on deeper sounds and just generally putting us in the zone. Catching a bit of The Acid, we returned to the Mix Up tent for our boy Kilter – whom much to our dismay had a blown speaker during his set – which kind of gave his amazing mix the sound of listening through a broken earphone. Organisers fixed this about 40 minutes in – but we were sad to miss a second.

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After taking a break to catch The Preatures (bit of Aussie rock n’ roll, mate), the Mix Up tent had us again with the babes that be Indian Summer. As per usual, Gabe and Chevy suited up and boogie’d down – with an awesome mix of mostly upcoming Australian artists with some foreign formula’s in there as well. Peking Duk did their usual mash of all audience dance-juice and Wordlife delighted with dialled-back vibes (plus we are obsessed with Kato and he can do no wrong). Yacht Club DJs made their appearance on the Friday also, but were a little lacklustre. Awesome dudes but they kind of seemed to not really give a fuck, disappointing considering they were on either side of the mind-blowingly amazing Kelis, who gave me (milk)shakes as she pushed through her classics and new tracks with nothing short of goddess poise and attitude.

Then there was Childish Gambino and  Outkast. What can I even say? Mate. Mate. Mate. We had to run and splooge to some Peanut Butter Wolf afterwards just to calm down.

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It might be worth digressing at this point. Drugs were hella tricky this year. Not that I was trying to munt, or smuggle capsicums in, or desperately seeking pingers…officer. But for those that would have been trying, it would have proved very difficult. The age old question has been answered, the NSW Police Force let the dogs out, puppies were everywhere. The amount of times I witnessed dogs sniff a pocket and do the normally-adorable-but-in-this-context-terrifying-sit was relatively off-putting. There were a total of 159 drug arrests at Splendour this year, with a kilo of juice seized (according to The Guardian). Co-founder of the festival Jessica Ducrou stated at the festival Q&A on Saturday that organisers had no say in police involvement with the festival and that they brought dogs and other security as they pleased. It certainly felt invasive, to say the least.

Racking up or racking down – Saturday was the day that the festival-itus truly sunk in, as my comrades and I started to blow black shit out of our nose. Yep, it was hella dusty. Next year I advise taking one of those weird watering can-y things you use to wash your nose out because it was pretty chat. Dranks were well and truly in order and we set off early to catch our faves the Fishing DJs, who smashed out a sweeeeeeet jungle and tribal inspired set. After they were finished up Wave Racer took to the decks, playing an amazing but oddly timed set – we thought that festival organisers would have given him a better time than 1.45? He’s fucking rad.

Disappointingly having to pass of Basenji and Sky Ferreira for a trip to Red Bull to catch Black Vanilla and our girl Nicole Millar – both equally impressive acts. The dream team that is LDRU and Yahtzel party-boi’d us out before Touch Sensitive totally blew us away. I feel like I say this a lot but what a fucking stellar act. He smashes the tunes AND slaps the bass like a monster AND is a moustached super fox? It’s just too good.

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Speaking of super foxes, Motez was next up on the mix up to give a sweet house cushioning on either side of UK dance dreamers Metronomy. Rocking some new album artworks behind him ( boobies ) Motez pulled an amazing and party inspiring house set which ensured there was not an un-poppin’ booty to be seen in all the land. Poppin’ turned into droppin’ as Rüfüs took over, with lead singer Tyrone urging ‘If you have a joint, now’s probably the time to smoke it’ infront of their incredible light instillation.  Foals who?

If it’s even possible – Sunday brought to a head the amazing dance offerings of the fest – although not without it’s oddities. It’s was a serious mystery to me and my dance troupe why Chrome Sparks was put on the Splendour roster for 12.15. Like hello, that’s CHROME SPARKS! Similarly to Wave Racer on Saturday – these set times were way to early for acts of this calibre, the talent to time ratio was all out of whack. I mean, Hilltop Hoods got the 7.45… need I say more? Despite this Sparks drew an incredible crowd and delighted with a whole host of old, new and experimental tracks. Many, many talents.

This was followed by Paces (a bro who couldn’t be more Triple J Unearthed if he tried…), Broods and KLP, who played decent sets. Jungle followed – an act which had been highly anticipated and were kind of a let down. They had little stage presence and the unity between band members seemed disjointed as they essentially ignored their babe of a co-singer and did a little bit to much white boy flailing for us. Then came Golden Features. Man, we love you, but we cannot understand why you keep that mask on?! We all know who you are dude, it’s time to let you freak face fly – it seems a touch obnoxious to keep the masquerade goin’.

Fast forward a few acts and we’re back in the Red Bull Music Academy Stage, watching the seemingly unreal Banoffee play a beautiful, if not a little bit charmingly haphazard set. If you haven’t checked her out yet – catch her via the link above. Oscar Key Sung who followed was similarly impressive, and I was even caught having a little eyes-closed-mouth-open boogie schmooze mid-set… It was sexier than it sounds.

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Coming back down to earth to do some drinkin’ and smokin’ with Danny Brown, we caught Nina Las Vegas for some brief jives before storming the stage to catch Darkside.

Whoa. That shit is like delicious chocolatey hash brownies for your eardrums. Entrenched in smoke and the dull ache of blue and orange spotlights, Dave Harrington and Nicolas Jaar led us all into the darkness of throbbing bass and glowing instrumentals. Pushed up against the barrier, unfortunately the old mate next to me thought that fist pumping was an appropriate dance move for Paper Trails. Stay off the disco biscuits lad, it’s groovin’ time.

Shortly after, however, it was running time. My girlfriend and I thought that it would be a good idea to run from Darkside to the Red Bull Music Academy Stage, where Nicolas Jaar was playing a DJ set two hours later. We didn’t think that many other people would have the same idea, we were wrong. Never have I seen so many unfit people running from A to B(ass). Luckily we got there and were face first into pork rolls by the time a line was queuing up around the corner.

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There’s not much more I love in life than meat and grooving, and that’s just what we got to do, as Jaarzy played an hour and a half of the most rich, affecting and generally punk-ass beats and bass I’ve ever experienced. Seriously, I could feel it in my dirty gumboot scum, and, like, my heart.

FINAL THOUGHT:

If there’s one thing that could have made Splendour in the Grass 2014 better, it would have been better crowds. People having fun is one thing, but I often wonder if we are infact, brewing a country full of terrible music appreciators, otherwise known as douchebags. With half of the punters dick heading out – fist pumping in their chief headdresses (it’s racist man, don’t act like you don’t know), starting irrelevant and pointless moshing and all of that bloody shoulders stacking! Perhaps I sound like an old fart but holy hell, just calm down people, everyone think’s you’re a jerk. It’s not even munting attributable and makes you wonder just exactly why some people go to music festivals.

But apart from that. Was it the best Splendour ever? Hell, if it’s not, it comes pretty damn close.

 

 

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