Future of Festivals

The word “Festival” means different things to different people.

For me it means getting away from the garish grinder of Sydney, and spending a beautiful weekend appreciating great bands, great art and having a marvelous time with good friends.

Evidently, the organisers of Future Music Festival have a different idea, and that’s to cram as many cashed up kids into one fenced off park, make a shitload of money, and give zero thought to, well… anything.

‘Fuck the kids, they’ll just get high and have a good time anyway won’t they?’

Well yeah, I suppose we will (I definitely tried my hardest), but that doesn’t make it cool.

So ignoring the clusterfuck that waqs getting transport to Randwick, and after being herded in to Randwick racecourse’s inner paddock through a tunnel usually occupied by livestock and excrement; we were greeted by a scorching sun, and 35 thousand cunts.

A sea of drunk, high, shirtless, angry Bogans stretched out before us as far as the eye could see. All trying to get as drunk, high, shirtless and angry as possible in the hope of being crowned “The Future of Cunt.” Oh deary me, this wasn’t good.

‘What the hell is this?’ I stammered to my photographer in stunned disbelief.
‘Bless this public space’ he cried with glee at the seeming mass of photogenic boganism in front of him, and scurried off into the crowd, firing off a few shots of some idiot in a blue lycra bodysuit on his way.

We wandered aimlessly through the tight throng of seedy individuals, and after queuing for booze for an era; Franz Ferdinand were due at the main stage so we headed that way. Though it wasn’t long before the sets rolled in and we were swept along by a torrent of drunk, shirtless Bogans – the air reeking of BO, Bourbon and Davindorf. However, impeding this undercurrent of human traffic was a D-barrier.

I once read a quote that said: “why bother with a solution when there’s money to be made prolonging the problem”
Enter litigious festival promotion and their champion of safety; D-barriers. These fucking things have been a plague on Australian festivals since Jessica Michalik died at the Big Day Out in 2001. At first, this knee jerk reaction seemed to be a sensible one, and I’ll be the first to admit that thanks to the D-Barrier, the front of the stage was comfortably spaced and relatively safe. However, just outside the D, where we were being pressure cooked, was something similar to a scene from the Nanking Massacre.

Thousands of sunburned, South-Western stupids were pushing, cramming, surging and fighting their way in. Security were pulling little girls out as they were being crushed, and men were hurling abuse as the sea of bodies locked together like it was a game of flesh Tetris. I’ve queued for a D-barrier before, but this was otherworldly awful…with lashings of extra hate.

After battling against the grain of angry, coastal types telling my battling companions and I to “caaaarm dowwwn braaa,” we stumbled out and onto clearer ground. We were soaked, exhausted and pissed off for all the wrong reasons; there were just way, way too many people at that fucking festival.

About this time, the sun was going down and my snapper materialised out of the crowd with a handful of cats and a wry grin.
In an effort to cheer ourselves up from a thus far horrific day, we took the cats and went out to a satellite stage to check out bag-raiders. They were just what we needed, and the crowd at the outer stages was a far less congested mess – a much cooler place to be.

Luke Steel’s retirement plan, aka Empire Of the sun, graced the not-quite-main stage & put on a not-quite-headline-worthy show.
A little too reliant on pre-recorded backing tracks, flashing lights, silly head wear and scantily clad dancers for distraction, but it could have been worse – as least there was no D-barrier. Plus the crowd was getting very high at this point, particularly the attention-seeking faux-lesbians nearby who were pashing like long lost lovers, much to the delight of our dear friends the bogans, who were cheering them on and taking photos (I’m assuming these were for RALPH or PICTURE submissions). Thankfully, the Rage wasn’t present in this crowd.

Then prodigy started.
Then all the lights broke and the prodigy went off stage.
Then the crowd got angry(er).
Then the organizers, sensing a Woodstock ‘99 rape riot, did the only sensible thing all day & sent the prodigy back out on stage sans lights.

They finished their set, I was left feeling a little empty, and in a poetic summary of the festival; a guy next to me vomited, splashing the ankles of those around him with Smirnoff double black and half digested pizza.

The resulting exit strategy and public transport fiasco isn’t worth going into, as I’m currently in legal talks with the festival organizers and the STA for 7 hours of my life that I would like back. No substance available could quell the repulsive failure stamped on this one.

The word “Future” means different things to different people – but I hope to god that this isn’t it.

Jack

EDITORS NOTE: You can check out the photos here.