review: splendour in the grass, woodford by danielle le toullec

Posted by Danni Le Toullec on August 2, 2011 0 comments

 

For the second year running, Splendour in The Grass took over the humble town of Woodford, Queensland for a weekend of sun-soaked, dust-ingrained shenanigans against a stellar soundtrack of live music. 

Whether your outfit of choice was a full blown cow, penguin, panda or dog outfit or just a furry animal beanie, you would have fitted right in with this years' peculiar theme of animal dress.

If you wanted to be a bit more stylish, there were some awesome pop up stores dotted around including Aje, Maurie and Eve, General Pants Co. as well as the Mo'rockin Wine Bar, Strongbow booze boat and some delicious food from Grill'd, Govindas, Hungarian Langos, dumplings, German Bratwurst, obligatory festival Gozleme, corn and about twenty million more.

But we're not here to talk about food, are we? We are here for the tunes, so here goes...

Day One

After lining up for twenty minutes to get into the main gates from the campsite (daily festival-fail), we took in the massive festival site as we bee-lined to the Amphitheatre for Jinja Safari. The Sydney band’s playful folk pop was the perfect accompaniment for the sunny Friday afternoon. Marcus Azon closed the set by crowd surfing to the back, jumping to the ground and leading the audience in a run around the valley. More...

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review: peats ridge festival, glenworth valley by danielle le toullec

Posted by Danni Le Toullec on January 3, 2011 0 comments

Want to see more? Check out our festival gallery.

For some folk, NYE is all about glamour, champagne, high heels and fireworks. For others, it’s about spending quality time with the fam. Then there are the exceptional few (thousand) that wouldn’t call it New Years without tents, gozleme, heat and multiple days spent bowing down to the sweet, sweet sound of live music.

Now for the latter, the family friendly Peats Ridge not only delivered, it came through with great tunes, acrobatics, art, and a muted carbon footprint. It even won the ‘Best Achievement in Sustainability’ award at the 2010 Australian Event Awards. Held in the picturesque Glenworth Valley on the Central Coast of New South Wales, it was the perfect setting for riverside camping, not to mention those delicious potato spiral-on-a-stick! There were countless workshops on offer each day, including pilates, yoga, poi twirling, hula hooping, juggling, West African dancing and drumming.

As for on-site venues selection: guests could wind down on cushions and rugs in the Chai Temple, ponder among suspended bird cages in the Boudoir De La Fox, enjoy the sounds of music bouncing off the mountains at the Bellbird stage, stomp the ground in the Dub Shack or pass your time in The Land of Hopeless Utopians – a massive 13.5m diameter geodesic dome that used solar power to create a 360 degree kaleidoscope projection.

Day One

ARIA Award winner of Best Female, Washington pulled a large crowd at the Bellbird main stage; although her vocals were somewhat swallowed up by the valley. The Jezabels didn’t suffer the same problems. ‘Hurt Me’, ‘Easy to Love’ and ‘Disco Biscuit Love’ rang out loud and clear. Having supported the likes of Tegan & Sara and Josh Pyke, they have proved that they are more than capable of holding their own. We scampered off into the creek to cool off and then moved on to the natural slushee stall for an icy guava beverage before seeing Swedish exports, Shout Out Louds. They played great folk anthems filled with catchy lyrics and a perfect ratio of the town bicycle, also known as the synthesizer, mixed with some good old fashioned acoustic guitar. Angus and Julia Stone played against a beautiful background of wire-suspended clouds and hot air balloons that, combined with Julia’s tranquil voice, gave their performance a whimsical quality. Their cover of Grease's “You’re The One That I Want” went down a treat. More...

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