As Friday reared its ambitious head from all the previous nights “pre-parties going round”, the Mecca for muddy hipsters opened its gates and in flooded twenty thousand splendourites. With ambition low but moral high, we attacked the festival head on. Tops fives moments from the day as follows:
Anyone that expects to wear their Yeezy Boosts around the Parkland should strongly reconsider. This year, like many before it, has proved to be one of the muddiest yet. Gumboots and Doc Martens in full swing swaths of people have happily embraced the filth. If you try to avoid it, you’ll probably just end up deeper in. Our pro tip, stop stressing and just enjoy yourself, your gonna get dirty anyway, you might aswell be dancing when you do.
If mud really isn’t your thing (weird) hit up the GW McLennan tent – All of the best acoustic and instrumental acts gathered under one tent, – what more could you want. Dustin Tebbutt layed down some beautiful riffs and undoubtably stole multiple girls hearts whilst doing so.
Man oh man, are they both so good live – San Cisco brought everyone down a level in the best way possible. Controlling a crowd is hard, but as soon as SC got going, everyone was swaying to the same beat. If you don’t know who they are, we suggest you educate yourself thoroughly. The Rubens, who played straight after, complimented San Cisco’s softer sounds with more established, familiar tunes. These guys are a proper band, you listen to their sound live, and the finished product sounds exactly like their Album, brilliant.
On the other side of the festival is the Mix Up Stage, the best place to go when the it’s raining but you don’t want to ease off the throttle just yet. Mansionair were gorgeous, and later on Porter Robinson and Peking Duk kept it going until a sensible hour, The Carlton Dry shipping containers are just across the way too providing the perfect place to rendezvous with the gang or sink cold frothies between sets.
Late in the evening we were treated to Iceland’s best. These orchestral Vikings garnered a bigger and muddier crowd than we’ve ever witnessed. Captivating twenty thousand people was too easy for these Nordic festival veterans, even with such inclement weather. Directly following – Mark Ronson did his best to sustain the vibes even after a small patch of rain sent home all but the more diehard of us. On the walk home flocks of mud slick goons had gone in on the Tepee Forest. Which, by now is definitely more of a muddy rabbit hole, than a psychedelic, Tepee doof.
Day 1 is over unfortunately, but we’re just getting warmed up, Saturday has large gumboots to fill, and with the weather forecast supposedly fine… We’re itching to get involved. So until then, stay dry…
