July was a big month for a little Ian.
Firstly there was Splendour In The Grass…. which… yes it was wet…but it was damn fun and great to see the business of music happening on that scale in amidst such adversity. It’s BACK.
It was a shame to cancel day one…. and although i did feel sorry for the punters missing out on seeing some awesome stuff, I mainly felt sorry for the artists that missed out on performing. It had been such a huge build up over three years….. and then at the last minute the carpet is ripped out. Anyway…it was the right decision to be safe…and to attempt to preserve the amphitheatre for the two days to follow.
There was a whole lot of chatter on social media and in the press which was quite clearly often made by people that were not on site at the event at all because the facts were completely wrong. A lot of negative and inaccurate stuff. One tangent was saying that the organisers should have cancelled the whole thing…. because they would have got insurance anyway. This doesn’t take into account that the attendees would not have gotten insurance for their travel expenses. That the stallholders would be left with stock… that performers would not be compensated for their travel, rehearsal etc. So I think that the right decision was made to proceed. Congratulations to everyone involved for making sure that most people had a great time.
Yes it was muddy. Around half of all of the Splendour’s over 20 years have been pretty wet. You would be mad to not come prepared for that. I saw reports that the mud smelled awful. It did not. It smelled like tea tree multch. Yes there were some huge wait times to get out of there and that sux. There is always going to be dramas if you are moving 50000 people around. Next year I’m sure that everyone will have learned from the problems. The vibe on field was pretty awesome in general. I guess its like YELP reviews of restaurants. There aren’t many good ones. It’s only the complainers that comment. It’s pretty disgraceful of the media to latch onto the negative aspects when everyone has been struggling for so long. Bad news sells papers unfortunately. If you were there and had a great time - let people know. It certainly wasn’t the Fyre Festival or Woodstock 99!!!!!
Anyway…. there were so many great acts over the weekend….. but my best in show picks were POND, King Stingray, Violent Soho, Grinspoon, Jungle Giants, and Tyler. Most of my faves were Australian. And I wasn’t alone in thinking that. Thats pretty cool to be able to say.
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