We Love Sounds Winter Festival Sydney 2009 @ Hordern Pavillion

Heavily promoted, we decide to buy tickets for the event! Last festival I dressed up on my own as an Indian, so this time I wanted to get as many others on board. A friend jokingly suggested a Pirate theme for ‘Arrrmin’! I took it seriously and went ahead with it.

About We Love Sounds Winter Festival
Music: House, trance, some other forms of house, etc. 6 or 7 areas of it!
Ticket Price: $110 first release, $118 second release? The event had sold out
2009 venue: Horden Pavillion. The pavillion itself had Armin van Buuren for a 4h 30 minute set !
Cloak room: $4
Drinks: $9 for a can of smirnoff.
DJs: Armin van Buuren, Armin van Helden, Armin Van Burren, James Zabiela, Laidback Luke, Kissy Sell Out, Guy Gerber, Dirty South, Popof, Bobmo, Danger, anja Schneider, In Flagranti Live, Guns N Bombs, Grafton Primary Live, Justin M, Pivot Live, Matthew Dekay, Hijack Passions,
Sascha Funke, Aston Shuffle, Ajax, Goodwill, Bang Gang, Emerson Todd
Time: 12pm-10pm

Dress Code: anything and everything goes
Atmosphere: Pretty much got pumping and really busy around 4pm onwards. Before then the venues, besides the Armin Arena (Horden) were not very packed.

Review:
On lining up:
We got there at 12am, and there already was a line. We were close to the front. Doors actually opened around 12.30. It was smooth sailing from there.

Lining up to get into We Love Sounds. We were at the front

A girl in line joins our group
We met a girl, Devo, whose friend had dogged her. She was pretty cut up about it, so we let her join our group. Aren’t we so nice 🙂

Checking out all the areas:
I can remember 7 areas where you could dance.. 6 main areas plus the soul bar. crazy.. that’s what festivals are for I suppose.

My favourite rooms to dance in:
Lost Baggage
For me probably my favourite room to dance to was the Lost Baggage room (I think thats what it was called!) There was never a dull moment for me to whip out my legs and dance a piratey dance. Unfortunately though, this was probably the least popular room for the general public, and the big room, was at best of times, only half capacity.

Bang Gang Room
Just generally good beats, and a good crowd. This was basically an open hangar like thing. anyway later in the night they even mixed some rnb with house, which was totally awesome.

Soul Bar:
My friends and I hung out here for a good hour or so, just dancing away at around 6 or 7pm. This was just a simple bar, but they were pumping out all the party tunes, in case you were getting sick of the house music. The atmosphere made it what it was – it could hold probably 20 or 30 people inside the floor, with a small area out back to relax. We actually had a chance here to talk to our fellow festival-goers, which is important!

The Armin Arena (Horden) (only during the armin set!):
Armin was to start playing at 5.30. I got into the Arena 4.30 and friends were resting from pure exhaustion – already!? anyway I leave and tell them I would come back in half an hour. BIG MISTAKE! Half an hour later, the line outside is massive. So massive they closed off one of the entry doors – i was not going to get in on time. So I went to Bang Gang to dance there a bit. I finally got in at around 8pm! The place was packed as just to see Armin play. Music, the sheer massive crowd and the lights made an amazing atmosphere.

Experiences as a pirate

Dressing up.. as a pirate
The plan – invite everybody to join me in dressing up as a pirate!!
Actuality – I turned up in a pirate suit, and the only other person who turned up was C, and she came halfway through the day.  Did my friends (except C) think I could really could have converted them to dress up with me? I suppose not. I was more than happy to be an attention whore.

Finally, some other pirate pics!

C also wore a pirate outfit, and SHE TOOK MY THUNDERR!! Whenever me and C went somewhere togther, everyone would ASK HER for a photo but not me!! NHEGH! I also saw another pirate! However I think was employed to dress up that day:

Me and my dance partner C, and some random guy in the middle

two pirates! arrrr.. I don't know why he was touching my chest.

Stealing of my facial hair
I had a goatee, sideburns, eye brows, and a moustache. By the end of the night I had lost all items. Eyebrows to sweat, but everything else was lost from people who kept ripping it off and putting it on themselves!! They basically lost their stick and I had to throw them away:

She stole my fake pirate goatee. Couldn't stick it back on after 🙁 arrr above is a prime example of people messing with my hair.

She broke my phone into 6 pieces. Lucky its a Nokia.
I was outside one of the rooms early in the evening. A girl from the goatee photo above sees me. She yells out ‘PIRATE MAN!!!!’. She JUMPS out of her chair and RUNS toward me. Then she JUMPS ON ME!! Umph!! I had my phone in one hand, and when she jumped on me, my phone FLEW across the sky and landed onto the ground into 6 pieces. EVERYBODY SAW and EVERYBODY LAUGHED at what just happened to my phone!! omg !! I stare at the carnage on the ground. She was so sorry, and I was still holding onto her, my face in shock. Her legs were wrapped around me and I was holding up her ass. So I accidentally fell forward on top of her. Hahaha.. anyway we had a good old pirate chat while reassembling my phone.

I get a huge pash from a girl who was off her face.
I was in the Armin room at the front looking for our friends. Theres a girl dancing with her mates, and she sees me. an ‘Arr’! later and after a photo – she plants a big wet kiss on the cheek. Her friend says ‘kiss him, hes a pirate!’. I just stood there as she absolutely tongued me – pwoar! Friends were in a bit of a shock – I don’t think they’ve seen me kiss a random girl before. We do the heavy grinding and more making out. Then just as quickly, she turns to the guy next to her, then sticks her tongue down his throat and makes out with him! Jesus christ!! What was she smoking and  how many other guys has she shared saliva with?? UGH! My playtime was over, and I left the Arena.

Girl who was off her chops

General Photowhoring
I just did a quick count, and I photo-whored myself with about 60 random people who asked for a photo of me. I really can’t be bothered putting them up, since they didn’t dress up like pirates, but most of them were hot hot chicks. Damnnnn, life sucks being a photo whore. Maybe once the gallery is up..

I get told pirate jokes!
People came up to tell me their pirate jokes for a larrrrrgh. Here they are

Pirate joke 1:
Right after we got in, a girl comes up and tells me this pirate joke:
Her: ‘Where does a pirate keep his jam?’
(I had no idea..)
Her: ‘IN A JARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!’

Pirate joke 2:
A guy comes up to me in the afternoon –
Him: “Why are pirates called pirates?”
(I had no idea..)
Him: “Because they ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
I should have seen that one coming.

Pirate joke 3:
In the evening, a guy comes up, and he’s intoxicated. He tells me he “has a pirate joke!”:
Him: ‘Why… why… .why are… ahh wait… I remember this one! .. WHY.. ARE .. pirates.. ‘

(This time I had an idea..)
Me: “Because they ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
Him: (shocked look, then a big smile) “HAHAHA you know that one! YEAH wooo!”
Of course I knew; It was the same guy from pirate joke 2!

Coda (I lost my phone, then I found it again)
I was in the other big room where armin van helden was playing. It was 9pm. I wasn’t a big fan of the music, but I don’t think I was going to make it back into the Armin Arena after leaving it. I walked around, and somehow I lost my phone. It was in my bag, then it was gone. Friends wanted to leave 9.30pm to beat the traffic, but I made them stay until the end. After everybody left the room, my phone was nowhere to be found. They called my phone, and suddenly my bag started vibrating!

Woohoo! I was so happy! My friends give out a collective groan and give me a collective cursing for holding them out. I was saying sorry for a good half hour as we walked all the way back to the city.

Bloody awesome 10 hours it was, for me anyway 🙂