FIrst impressions of the bowl

Stereosonic Festival Sydney @ Olympic Park Showgrounds
Assessment Time: 3:45PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM- 11:00PM
Lockout: None
Passouts: No pass-outs are allowed
Address: Olympic Park Showgrounds, Homebush Bay, Sydney.
Venue Website: www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au
Promoter Website: www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year since 2007, held early December / Late November, held in different capital cities.
Outside Line: Transport via train was no hassle, while lining up to get inside the stadium was pretty fast as well – I walked all the way to the right of the multiple gated entry where there was no lines.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much you can wear anything that is in good taste, but you can’t bring in alcohol, weapons, drugs etc. I was wearing a toothpaste costume.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $150 at the gate, while early bird ticket prices ranged from $110 to $135. The Sydney festival sold out a few weeks beforehand. A friend bought an e-ticket via a “promoter” and subsequently had his ticket invalidated at the gates – he was basically, conned and ripped off. he had to pay $150 at the gate for a brand new ticket. What luck. Always be careful when buying tickets not from Ticketek or Moshtix.
Inside: Think of the Easter show, and replace everything with music. Here is a map of the layout. In the stadium and some of the other smaller grassed stages, there are floorboards placed, so that you don’t stomp on the grass and get all muddy feet, in the event that it rained.
Cloak Room: There was one available but I didn’t use it today. Last year it was $3 per item.
Bar Prices / Line: I bought stuff but don’t remember prices – a can of Smirnoff red would be at least $10. These are typical for festivals.
Bathroom Facilities: At the stadium there were long lines for women, and not so long lines for the men. Outside there were plenty of port a loos for everyone (so as far as I am aware)
DJs / Artists: Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, LMFAO, Empire of the Sun, Afrojack, The Bloody Beetroots, Avicii, Benny Benassi, Ferry Corsten, Dirty South, Kaskade, Dash Berlin, and more.
Music Style: Artists primarily reflected on electronic dance / dance culture music.
Crowd: People of all ages are here from all backgrounds to see their favourite act or to enjoy the show.

Atmosphere: I was at the stadium most of the time and it was pretty much packed the whole time I was there. On arrival there at around 5pm the moshpit was full, and no longer people were allowed inside. The floor of the stadium was also full and people were only being allowed to trickle in as people left. I had friends who came here earlier at 2PM and were able to just get places within the moshpit area. The crowd steadily built up through Afrojack and Benny Benassi sets so that we could watch LMFAO. The LMFAO set was arguably the peak of the numbers in the stadium, as well as my personal favourite set – simply because people were singing along and the guys were really into it. Highlights include actually popping champagne (“Champagne Showers”) onto the crowd, and the cameraman zooming into all the crotches during “Sexy and I know it” – Total gross out but hilarious at the same time. It was pretty bad that they came late 30 minutes late on stage, at the expense of shorter sets from AvB and The Bloody Beetroots. We stood around for 30 minutes just thinking.. when *are* they going to come on? Thank god that they weren’t cancelled. After the LMFAO set, quite a few people left the stadium (probably to Dash Berlin, whose set I heard was bloody amazing) – the rest of the people here were sticking around for The last two acts, or just had no idea who they were, and wanted to experience. I missed the entire Bloody Beetroots set, but got to experience the Armin van Buuren set. It was pretty good, but it would have been better if I was in the moshpit.
Video: Music Sample / Timeline

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Timeline
Phone reception is simply atrocious
Pretty much from about 3PM onwards, I was unable to make ANY calls to ANY of my friends, just due to the amount of people here today. It totally sucked ass as I couldn’t meet up with my friends. So I just hung out with the friends I had already met earlier today. It was worse than new years eve, as new years eve call dropouts only last three to four hours – I was here for a good 5 or 6 hours! IT SUCKED HAIRY BALLSACKS.

Sydney is the biggest city, and so is this festival
Later in the evening, Stereosonic was declared Australia’s largest event in terms of attendance. I would say also probably the best overall line up in years for the general populace as well. I even had friends come out of festival “retirement” to come out for today. Never say never. You would be seriously missing out if you didn’t come out to see this line up. Like seriously. For the days upcoming beforehand, it was raining heaps, and lots of people sold their tickets, to the astonishment that today was a bright sunny day. A shame for them.

Packed to the rafters
All the main acts were at the main stadium, which was situated a few hundred metres away from the rest of the action. As mentioned earlier, this resulted in a lockout of the mosh pit area, the floor, and even a lockout of the stadium itself. I unfortunately got locked out of the stadium alongside some other folk. It was about a 30 minute wait of protesting and watching other people climb over the fence then we were finally allowed to be let in, under police supervision.

Video: The shitty side of Stereosonic (and other festivals): Lining up for ANYTHING. 

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On someone's shoulders

Now I’m sitting raised on this dude’s shoulders, on the phone, looking out back at the crowd – the crowd are are all staring, cheering at me or however people react to seeing a toothpaste bottle arising into the air. My friend spots me (I couldn’t spot her) and finds me a few minutes later. That was awesome.

Condoms and other bad things
Here is a photo of one of the many condom balloons thrown around the place. Somewhere behind I could smell someone puffing on some sticky icky. A friend also got asked if he had pills. All in a typical day in a festival. LOL

Condom Balloon!

Life being a bottle of toothpaste
While a friend was being asked for drugs, people only were asking me if I had toothpaste. Then this was followed by people squeezing whatever part of my costume in order to excrete the wonderful, white, magic substance that is known as toothpaste. And the most common question I got was “where was the toothbrush?” – In my pants of course.

I didn’t get really hot until about after 3 hours, when I started to sweat profusely. It was quite disgusting, and I was glad that sunset finally arrived to cool me down.

Mixing it up with the crowd

Sticky, icky floor
Half of the time people are kicking cans away from themselves, to other people. So many people have spilled drinks in this heat, that the floor has become quite sticky. So sticky that beer cans are sticking to the bottom of the soles of my shoes. Yes, fucking BEER CANS ARE STUCK ON MY SHOE as I dance. It’s ridiculous.

Spotted by a fan?
Out of the thousands of people who came here today, surely one of them read this website. Well, someone did, and that someone found me. Haha! I was pretty amazed that I was spotted, but now that I think about it, I *was* in a Giant Toothpsate Costume

Arrivederci
Finished at 11PM. Transport out involved a long walk around the station, but we got on the first train right away, no waiting around. I was pretty exhausted and ready to go home. However, I got a call from a friend in the city….

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
A great lineup and as I said before one of the best I’ve seen that a festival pull. No idea how these guys will top it for next year, but I’m a shoe in for next year. Definitely a festival to go to.

Though I wish prices were cheaper as well as less of a requirement for people to have to be locked out of stadiums or be held up waiting for acts. I spent at least an hour of my time doing these things, when I could have listened to other acts.

Stereosonic Festival Sydney 2010 @ Sydney Showgrounds: Saturday 27th November
Assessment Time: 02:00PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM – 11:00PM
Lockout: Entry at anytime.
Passouts: No passouts at all.
Address: Sydney Showgrounds, Olympic Park. Basically walk out of Olympic Park station, walk down to the road and turn right.
Venue Website: http://www.sydneyshowground.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year.
Outside Line: It probably took longer to queue in the train station to get out rather than queuing to get scanned to get in – aka there was plenty of people to scan you in. There was only one person in front of me when I was going in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: There is no dresscode, you can pretty much wear anything. Most people wore causal gear and every person here also wears sunnies. It’s a necessity. Taking your shirt off is frowned upon especially in the moshpit areas. Police were ordered to refuse entry to anybody not wearing a shirt upon entry. It didn’t matter as heaps of guys were walking around inside with their shirts off, albeit they almost all had shirts tucked away somewhere just in case they were asked to put them back on. In terms of costumes – there were the Mario brothers, a dude in a a full body red spandex suit thing, a dude walking around with a twister board around his neck, and Lil Jon. It was either me or there wasn’t much creativity in terms of dressing up. I was forced to take my outfit off before entering the venue. See more for details below.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $120 1st release, $125/130 second, $135 3rd and final release.
Inside: Basically if you have been to the Easter show here at Homebush, its all the areas converted to DJ areas. There were 7 stages including the main Stereosonic stadium itself. 2 of the rooms were enclosed, and the other 5 were in open plan areas. Needless to say all had large capacities. Thank god the weather held up today. There was surprisingly no silent disco area, despite some other cities having it. Complete setup at the website PDF map
Cloak Room: $3. This is probably the only fairly priced thing here today

Bar Prices / Line: Bar lines went very quickly if you went to the right ones. Some bars had massive long lines eg the ones outside Creamm stage, but other ones barely had anybody lining up, and you could just walk straight to the bar eg the bar outside Carl Cox stage near the DJ Hero playing area. Pricing was $9 for a Middie of Smirnoff. A total blatant rip off!!! Previous festivals had them at $10.50 for full strength Smirnoff black and we are hit with Middies. Stupid angry alcoholics who ruin it for everyone. Even so, its still a rort and a half – I didn’t feel the effects at all from the drinks. 
DJs: Tiesto, Calvin harris, Sebastian Ingrosslo, Benny Benassi, Wiley, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Andy Murphy, Carl Cox, TV Rock and more. Complete line up found on the PDF map .. with about 50 acts listed
Music Style: Mostly Soft/Uplifting Trance, Dance, Electronic, various different House styles of music here. 
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Anglo-Saxon crowd. Pretty much an even ratio here all around. 
Entertainment: Besides the main stages, there was a DJ Hero play area, a riding bull, human ten pin bowling (you are strapped inside a huge inflatable bowling ball) a passion pop photography area, food stalls, water cool down areas. There were also some amusement rides. 
Atmosphere: Pretty good/vibrant everywhere. Early on before 6PM most stages were at about half capacity or less. Browntown, OneLove and Sneakerpeeps stages experienced it the worst, where no more than 30 or 40 people would be dancing there at the same time. Of course, these were the smallest stages. I’m not into the Carl Cox style of funky house, but the people there who were into that really enjoyed themselves, and there were plenty of them. Main arena was atrociously packed near the mosh pit, and I never got a chance to go inside (they actually have a sealed off moshpit area here, quite generous in size). Outrage was openly busy throughout the day thanks to its location right next to the entry gate. Also Cream(field) stage was also full of patrons throughout the day and night, you couldn’t go wrong here. Tiesto atmosphere fizzled after a stage power blackout near the beginning of the set. Very unfortunate.

Video: Ten pin bowling

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Stereosonic main stage during Calvin Harris set – just before Tiesto

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Riding the bull for 21 seconds (fail):

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Timeline

What did you wear James?
I hear you ask, my dearest reader. CAN I SAY I CREATED A REALLY AWESOME BUBBLE WRAP SUIT!?? Hell yes. I was inspired by this guy who walked into a bar just wrapped in bubble suit a few weeks ago, but he really didn’t make an effort. He just wrapped bubble wrap all around his limbs and torso and looked like a giant ROLL of bubble werap, which was fair enough. So I set to make my own. Imagine 3/4 length shorts, a blazer constructed from individual pieces of bubble wrap complete with hood and velcro buttons. Imagine a 4 piece overlaying skirt to flow over my delicious legs. Imagine your shoes entirely wrapped in bubble wrap. THIS WAS MY SUIT.

wearing the bubble suit after the festival

Did I also mention that this amazing suit was rejected by security?

Huh? A costume rejected at the gates… .At a festival?

Yes.

Rejection I: Security Talk
“Are you serious? What are you meant to be – bubble boy?”  - The first words out of his mouth.
How do you answer that question – what am I supposed to say? “No, I’m superman/Ironman but I couldn’t afford spandex/Iron so I got bubble wrap”. Of course I said yes, I was bubble boy.
Fun Nazi Security: “NO. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED INSIDE WEARING THAT. TAKE IT OFF AND GET CHANGED.”
James: “What do you mean? it’s a festival. You can wear whatever you want”… (Security guard is now being a real asshole)
Fun Nazi Security: “I don’t like people dressing up because I was raised in a world where costumes were only for the circus freaks, and because i was such a freak I wanted to join the circus, but I was rejected and now I am taking out my anger on other random people.”. Well, he didn’t say that but he might as well have – but he repeated to me that I wasn’t allowed in.

Rejection II: Police talk
Police officers: “That’s a pretty cool outfit. why are you taking it off?”
James: “Blah blah… fun nazi security is mean blah blah blah”
Police officers: “That sucks. There were three guys painted in blue body point. They were sent home as well”
James: “Oh Rly?”
Police officers: “They were coming in as smurfs”

How can you deny smurfs entry into a festival????? SO COLD

Rejection III: Security Talk II
I’ve walked back to the same security guy.
Fun Nazi Security: (Shaking his head in disapproval at me) “Seriously, bubble boy? what were you thinking??”
James: “I dont know” 
Fun Nazi Security: “Unbelievable. Get in.”

It’s one thing to politely tell someone they aren’t allowed in, but to actually question and look down upon me based on my outfit is bloody outrageous. You f*cking ASSHOLE!! Really fucking frustrated at his attitude.

Post mortem I was told the next day that the Smurfs got in later. This suggests that it was more of a security guard being a fucking asshole issue rather than a Stereosonic being a party pooper and not telling anyone issue.

Rock, Scissors, Paper
I’m wearing an attractive PINK LEI around my neck and some boys I walk by want a piece of it! Oh really do they. They wanted it. I refused. Why should I give it to them? They challenged me to a ROCK SCISSCORS PAPER duel. The winner would get to keep the LEI.

My Pink Lei with a t-shirtless dude.

Well, being the man of honour, I had to oblige to his challenge – and so the gauntlet was thrown down.
Challenger: “Before we start, which one are you going to be?”. A strange question to ask someone. Was it a trick?
James: “I’m going to be ROCK”
Challenger: “Ok, ok!”
Rock…… Scissors…… Paper!!
James uses ROCK, as promised.
Challenger has thrown out SCISSORS.
ROCK smashes SCISSORS !
James is confused to why Challenger didn’t use paper.
James wins. James keeps the LEI. +55 HP
James earned the UNDEFEATABLE award.

So anyway, if there’s a lesson to be learned in all of this, its the most obvious one – and that lesson is that ROCK. ALWAYS. WINS. I mean really – do you think you can beat a rock? HELLOOO.. It’s a freaking rock!!!

All the asians are at the cream stage, lol
OK this isn’t really true, but all my Asian friends who I bumped into or tried to catch up all were at the Creamfields stagge at one extended point in time. It’s the music they were playing – I don’t know how to describe it – classic uplifting trance I suppose is the best way to put it. I certainly had a good 1 or 2 hours here dancing to Aly and Fila, Sied van Riel.

My starjumps moment
Also, at the Cream stage, I did starjumps on top of the overhanging walkway above the DJ stage.. and lots of people did starjumps as well below. It was awesome.

Cream stage just before I did some star jumps to the crowd below

Toiletries are upstairs too
Don’t we all hate lining up for the bathroom! So all day we avoided queues. Queue at a bar? We walked the 5 minutes to the other bar on the otherside of town with no line and got our drinks right away. Queue at the toilet? We hated the portaloos that were setup as you risk walking into a smelly one. So we went in the stadium, walked up some flights of stairs and found that the in-built stadium toilets were readily available for use. Since not many a people came up here, not only were there no lines at all here, but also they were pretty clean throughout the day. Pretty cool!

Showing the DJ love
Met up with a friend at one of the dying stages. There are less than 10 people in this room. After some stupid dancing, we realised nobody was up at the front dancing – it was decided to show the DJ some love!! Ran right up and jumped around for a good 10 seconds until the DJ realised he had some fans. An acknowledgement and that was it. It was really loud as well, I had the earplugs on but my whole body was shaking here, and I ended up getting a serious headache for the next half hour after we left the area. It was that bad – I don’t think I’ve ever had a headache from dancing too close to the front before – or its just been a really long time since I remember.
Where’s Wally?
I found him.

Tiesto fail
Tiesto – what the majority of people came here for, and it was my first time to see him. I didn’t know what to expect – I got familiar with his classic tracks and songs from his latest album, but only a lot of trance was being played instead of the classic tracks. It left some parts of the set a bit .. i dunno.. stale. I’m sure it was going off near the front. Anyway maybe about 30 minutes into the 2 hour set, the power cuts off!!! Holy crap. Silence for a minute and then the music is back up, but the video clips that were playing behind Tiesto were replaced with default clips that were being played in previous acts – BORING! Also for a good total of 30 minutes at least, tiesto stepped offstage to let the music play. He was probably upset that Stereosonic’s Audio Video system monumentally screwed up. That, or he was playing from a CD.

Arrivederci
Left at closing of Tiesto – some of my friends had already left only an hour into set – they were disappointed in Tiesto. 

Recommendation
A strong lineup, very good weather make it a good day out. Of course, only for house/trance lovers of music. Very disappointed in the Tiesto set – I had really high hopes for it. Also some of the smaller stages could have done with more people.

Also, the security guard who gave me attitude for wearing my bubble outfit and then not letting me in was such an asshole. Major points lost. Whenever someone asks me about Stereosonic you are the first thing that comes to my mind. Also stereosonic need to tell security what the dress code is. Total fail.

Stereosonic @ Sydney Showgrounds – It would have been 7.5/10 but due to the dress code incident, only 6.0/10. I really had tinge of bitterness throughout the day after that.

Gallery:

A female native american indian - Future Music Festival Sydney 2010

All week it was raining. Forecast was raining. We bought tickets months ago, but on the day.. HALLELUJAH! Big old sun was out and about, kicking clouds’ ass. I put on my American Indian outfit, got some pre-drinks at a friends place and off we went – here we go!

Future Music Festival @ Randwick Racecourse Sydney

Assessment Time: 4pm – 10pm
Website: http://www.futuremusicfestival.com.au
Address: Royal Randwick Race Course, Randwick, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes. Everybody wore sunnies. I wore an American Indian outfit.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $100 FR, $120 SR, $145 FR for GA Tickets
Inside: 7 or so massive dance areas. It’s a freaking racecourse. Well its not the course itself, but all the pavillions and surrounding grasslands.
Cloak Room: There was one but I was too lazy to walk to the other side of the course to put it in there
Bar: $10.50 for smirnoff ice cans. They’ve upped it from $10!! Dodgy. Both times we waited about 10-15 minutes for our drinks. Limit of 2 drinks per person.
DJs/Acts: Prodigy. Most epic set I have been to (I havent been to many). I was pretty much situated a good 200 or 300 metres so from the stage, and the whole area was still jumping up and down like a moshpit through all the songs. I missed every other main act, but they included David Guetta, Empire of the Sun, Sven Vath, Boys Noize, Dubfire, and Booka Shade from memory.
Music: House, Trance, Electronica
Crowd: Mixed bag of everything. Mostly caucasians if you wanted to classify.
Entertainment: Roller disco, Rides, free shots of drinks, and lots of other stuff we didn’t discover that day.
Weather: Sunny all day. Perfect.
Atmosphere: very good. The weather was great and provided for a good mood for everyone involved.

Future Music Festival Sydney Videos:

Me doing drunken cartwheels

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Read on for more heaps more videos and the Timeline

Pod Room 360

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The crowd outside
There are just people freaking everywhere you go.

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Green Room 360

It’s a small room, i think sponsored by an energy drink. anyway we were so freaking thirsty from the alcohol, we took whatever energy drink we could. Nice.

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Starfuckers stage 360 + “I Gotta Feeling” Black Eyed Peas

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Silent Disco Area (a bit redundant as the camera is outside listening range of any of the music)

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Prodigy were the only act we managed to catch the whole day. The rest of the day was spent just walking around the whole place. Needless to say, the entire set had the crowd constantly jumping up and down, and even though we were about 200 metres back, where we were.. it still felt like we were pretty close to the stage. Pretty awesome. Whatever energy we had left was all spent after this. I tried to go closer to the stage, and cut off a girl. She got pretty angry at me, grabbed my headpiece and threw it to the ground.

Prodigy – “Breathe”

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Prodigy – “Omen”

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Prodigy – “Invaders Must Die”

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Timeline
Hey! How are you? Hey! How are you?
The above title was my greeting for everyone I met today. Someone at the bus stop saw me and had blessed me with it. Love it. I’ve come dressed as Chief Breaking Wind, the dancing native American Indian.

Lining up
As with any festival, unless you’re in the VIP line, you’re thrown in with everyone else. At first glance the line appeared huge, but thanks to 6 entry gates where we were, the line up only took about 20 minutes. I must say though for bathrooms – Future Music Festival has some of the shortest lines for any festival. There were even some areas where there was no line at all. Amazing. They had portaloos everywhere you go. It’s amazing, and a job well done for Future Entertainment.

Losing friends
Initially it was 6 of us. After about 10 minutes, we got split and it was just me and my buddy Crabs left. Despite the constant SMS back and forth ‘where are you’, “i am here”, we never found each other for the rest of the day.

Apparently not the last Mohican
Honestly I thought I would be the only one dressed up as a native american, but what I forgot was the fact that Empire of the Sun were playing.. and if you don’t know, Empire of the Sun LOVE wearing their Indian American Headpieces. So, the fans were out in force:

Die Hard Fans of Empire of the Sun

another American Indian Friend of Mine

Roller Disco with two randoms
In my drunken haze I grabbed a woman and danced with her. We became friends, and she had her guy friend as well. So it was us 4 (including Crabs), and we decided to go to the roller disco! It was awesome fun.

Everyone fell, except me:
I have never been on roller skates, but I used to rollerblade when I was a child… and I can hold my own with ice skates, so skating around on skates was ok for me. My friends though, STACKED IT HARD. Hilarious.

Here’s a poster we found on the ground:

This is how we roll!

Crabs loses his shoes
We returned to the shoe area. The way it works is that you leave your shoes under the chair and skate, then come back. Well, once we came back, Crabs shoes appeared to be missing. We could not find them – someone had stolen them!! So I urged my friend to steal someone elses shoes, which he did, and thus the chain of shoe thieving continued.. hahaha

Getting Married
My friend Crabs has a priest outfit. He married me and a girl in the Silent Disco room, but she refused to kiss. what kind of marriage is that? Later I married a guy in the same room, but I don’t remember this – it is only what Crabs has told me afterwards.

We got married by Crabs the priest

We also missed the entire David Guetta set cause were lost track of time, but apparently one of the speakers in the back had stopped working, so people standing at the back had a shitty time. Meanwhile, we were dancing it out hard in the Silent Disco room!

Dehydration
Drunk, Tired, and we had only been drinking alcohol. Bad recipie, cause i was so freaking parched. Once I got my hands on a tiger woods gatorade outside the venue I gulped that thing down so fast it wasnt funny. Neeless to say there was a water station somewhere, but the place is so big we didn’t walk by it.

Arrivederci
After the Prodigy set everyone was kicked out. The lines were too long for a bus, so we walked to The Entertainment quarter (Fox studios) where taxis were dropping off party goers for the Mardi Gras party at Hordern.

Recommendation
Pretty good. Nice weather, nice crowd, nice music.. everything nice. Wish the bar prices were cheaper.

Future Music Festival Sydney 2010 – 9.5/10

Good Vibrations Sydney 2010

I won two tickets to Good vibrations 2010 in a 25 words or less competition. ( I wrote a very clever line which I shall keep secret ). Matty made me enter the competition, so I gave the second ticket to him as reward. It was pretty hot midday so we bought some sombreros and awesome hologram sunnies at Market City and suddenly we were ready – so here we go!

Good Vibrations Festival @ Centennial Park

Assessment Time: 16:00 – 22:00 (closing time)
Website: http://www.gvf.com.au
Address: Centennial Park Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes, no dress code.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Prepaid tickets were $145 each. I won tickets to the show today.
Inside: There were 5 official big areas for the acts to appear. There were also 2 smaller sponsored areas for dancing as well.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar: $8 light beers, $10 smirnoffs. Thanks to the cool weather, there weren’t so many people lining up for a bar, and we had some booze in our hands within 3 minutes of lining up.
Bathroom Line: Appalling at about 20 minutes
Acts: Salt-N-Pepa, Armand Van Helden, DJ Crazee, Aston Shuffle were the main acts we visited today. Other acts included Busta Rhymes, Naughty by Nature. The Killers and Friendly Fires (I was dying to see Friendly Fires) had pulled out of the Sydney show.
Music: A mix of Indie Rock, Hip Hop, and House
Atmosphere: Despite the pullouts, the atmosphere was buzzing throughout the whole day. People are everywhere and its quite good. Later in the early evening it starts to rain but not too hard, but it rains enough for people to get out their ponchos. Instead of being a downer, people embrace the rain and keep dancing and singing along. The rain is also a huge welcome as earlier it was pretty stinking hot earlier in the afternoon.

Videos:

Salt-N-Pepa : Let’s talka bout Sex + Man Dancing on Tent

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Everyone is cheering for this guy more than Salt N Pepa – hilarious – The poor guy was most likely kicked out, but for immortal fame in the eyes of thousands? Sure, why not.

Salt-N-Pepa : Push It

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I was disappointed with the Salt N Pepa set – didnt know they were doing a DJ set. They were playing house music for crying out loud!

DJ Crazee: Playing Daft Punk’s “Alive”

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DJ Crazee’s set was aweseome.. very well mixed and kept everyone going. Not a dull beat. Was very happy with this set

Armand Van Helden Good Vibrations: Bonkers

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Armand Van Helden (Duck sauce): aNYway

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I enjoyed Armand’s set. The rain gave a bit more of a wet atmosphere, but really prevented me from doing some epic dancing – I was just standing around singing along to the songs like everybody else. It would have definitely been more epic if his set was originally set in the Laundry tent where the surface was dancable.

The Aston Shuffle: Play the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “heads will roll”

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Timeline: So we got in without problems, cloak room no dramas – plenty of people on hand to help out, but when we went to Good Vibrations Stage.. we couldn’t even get close. There were just so many people!

Timeline

Big Sombrero Syndrome
We dig deep into the Good Vibrations crowd, but in every spot we stood, the people behind us would tell us to take off our Sombreros. HELL NO! We moved on and kept running into people who wanted us to “TAKE IT OFF!”. No. NO. nuuuuuuuuuuu!!! We finally found a little spot where there was a 1 metre gap behind us, an we happily stood there and watched the festivities.

Long toilet lines
These are a feature of every event for the people who purchased General tickets. Even so, there is only one VIP set of toilets – if you were at the back at the Star Bar area or the Roots tent, you would have to trek across to the other side of centennial park in order to get into the VIP tent and then there would probably be another line inside as well. anyway we met a friend lining up for the toilets which was pretty funky dory!

We met them in the toilet line

Toilet competitions
Not sure if it was the sunnies, the sombreros or just our presence as men but we somehow are talking to all these girls in line! We made a challenge to see who would be quicker in the bathroom. I put down the gauntlet and declared I could be in an out in 1 minute. I barely scraped by – in and out of the toilet in 55 seconds. Oh yeahhh… Im the man! I can only thank god for giving me good muscular control over my bladder. I won the competition, but no prize to be had. Thats a relief.

Man with a suspicious backpack
There’s a man who has a backpack with a huge tube coming out of it and he’s sucking on it. How on earth did he sneak that in??!!

His girlfriend offers us a sip.. sure. It’s just water!! BOOO.

It's only water from the backpack

2 girls tonging each other like theres no tomorrow
We go inside the green room – its very relaxed here, but of course theres a DJ and we dance. The music is surprisingly easy to dance to and I enjoy it. I can’t remember exactly what type of house it was. There’s also a very high ratio of women in here, probably because this room was sponsored by SportsGirl. In a matter of moments I am dancing with a girl, woo! But then a friend of hers steps up behind her and grinds her bum. Ok fair enough, we keep on dancing, a sandwich of sorts. But this second girl.. she was totally grinding her friend really really rough, like dry humping. Suddenly a girl takes my sombrero and they start making out hardcore under my awesome hat!! Matty is laughing his ass off. I imagine myself under my hat, and I feel sad.

Last act (and women) of the night
So for the last act we went to The Aston Shuffle. I had already seen Basement Jaxx at Future Music Last year, so it was some proper dance time! I’m not familiar at all with the Aston Songs, but everyone under the tent here were dancing and cheering. I especially went all out with my socks being wet, and we get lots of awesome attention. We dance and a hot asian girl joins in our circle. I once again did something stupid and TALKED TO HER. She ran off.

But hey, another girl came along, gave me a random pash. I tried to talk to her but she, too, ran off. I REALLY HAVE AN UGLY VOICE!

Look! It's a girl in a punctured ball used as a poncho, lol.

Recommendation
It rained today and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everybody else was going through the same experience and it became a kind of a comraderie. It just wasn’t fun walking out of the venue. Speaking of walking out, it was THE LONGEST walk out to the bus stop, and having wet socks really sucks. At least I wasn’t muddy like some of the others that were spotted.

Apparently the Naughty By Nature set was epic. I could see their entire tent was packed with no moving room. anyhow, without the Killers, it was still an awesome day for us. Having free tickets really helped.

Good Vibrations Sydney – 8/10

Sensation White Melbourne 2009

Sensation @ Etihad Stadium Melbourne: 31st December 2009
Assessment Time: 10pm – 5am
Website: http://www.sensation.com
Address: Etihad Stadium, Melbourne
Dress Code: You have to wear white, pants, top, skirt, everything.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $149 (from memory)
Inside: This years theme is the Ocean of White.

One central area where the DJ spins around. The theme of tonight was the Ocean – Two platforms extend out to either side of the stadium, to hold where ten or so water geysers are installed. Huge octopus hang from above. There is also a trance room and a VIP dance room.

Never got into the trance room. The line was massively long and the room was PACKED and probably hot and smelly – just as I like it. Sadly never got to check it out, it really looked good.

VIP room was pretty clean in comparison as there was not as many people as the trance room, but was pretty good, because here you would have enough room to dance around in! It was pretty loungey here.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $10 cans of Smirnoff blacks
DJs: Caz James, Roger Sanchez, Sebastian Ingrosslo in the main stage. There
Music: House in the main arena, and trance, funky house in the other rooms. Compared to last year, the music tonight was much better and ‘tolerable’ I suppose. Megamix was awesome and did not disappoint and well basically it was pretty pretty good.
Crowd: People of all types were here.
Entertainment: The whole setup was a show – dancers on the water, fireworks, laser lights, bouncing balls.. it was pretty decent
Atmosphere: Very white. We had room to dance. The event didn’t sell out but it didn’t get squashy packed, regardless it was still a crapload of people here tonight. The atmosphere is buzzing before and  during the opening, then we dance. Buzz goes up again around new years midnight, then slowly dissipates as people head home, leaving the hardcores behind until the end.

DJ to the left, fountains cut into the crowd.

Opening to Sensation Melbourne video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline

The Epic Outfit that Came Out as Something Else
So basically if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am dressed up as Gandalf the White, from the Lord of the Rings. Your guesses were totally off the mark. Everybody, (including yourself, my ignorant reader) thought I was dressed as:

- Jesus
- Moses
- God
- Santa Claus,
- Merlin
- The kung fu master from Kill Bill where he strokes his beard and laughs really hard.

Primaly it was “Jesus” that was  being yelled around –  It was always “Jesus!” this or “God!” that.. which is something I got used to as time went on, and eventually I took on as my new persona. So I end up walking around with my arms in the air crying ‘Jesus walks!’ and ‘The ressurection is here!’, much to the amusement of everybody.

Oh look, heres a photo of a group of people ON THEIR KNEES PRAYING IN FRONT OF ME! Oh my father, how I missed being alive on Earth.

Young christians pray to me. Keep the faith up.

"James is my homeboy"

Can my ego be stroked enough? Never!!

Happy new years 2010!!
an amazing shower of fireworks falls down upon the setup.. much akin to the waterfall at the Sydney Harbour Bridge – but this is way cooler because I’m right in the middle of it!

New Years Fireworks 2010 - Sensation Melbourne

You have to see this video – its sweet as:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jesus made me a mini-celeb: Can’t be left alone
This outfit alone gave me celebrity status around the whole place – No other outfit that I encountered had topped mine, and only one came pretty close to being as awesome as mine – a man with a gas mask on… but I was still 10 billion times more awesome.

Cool outfit! His wasn't too bad either

Every waking second, people are looking at me with curiousity, and at an average of about once per minute, someone has asked to take a photo with me. I could not dance for more than a few minutes alone without someone asking me for a photo. I loved it, but I can understand how real superstars feel.. it can get annoying.

It was pretty bad so i took a video, so you, my loyal reader, can experience just a minute of what I went through.

So here, I present – 90 seconds through the eyes of James:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sneaking into the VIP Room
I didnt sneak in, I just walked right by the security fencing, and walked right by the door security – neither ask me for my wrist band. My friends however, got readily rejected, and I could not stay in the VIP area for long without dogging my friends. I do remember last year that they had opened up the VIP area for everybody later in the night, but this year security was a bit more tight.

VIP Room

New Years Milk
During the course of the night I run into a woman who appeared chemically imbalanced. Jesus immediately took hold of the situation and we are pretty much kissing… Shall spare you details. anyway, she stops and asks me:
Woman: “Where is my daughter?? Have you seen her??”. A strange question to ask, as I have not met her daughter.
James: “no…” (more kissing)
Woman: “But i want to introduce you to my daughter to hook up with!”
James: ……………. (omg this awesome, keep calm James) “Yeah.. alright.. let’s look for her. What does she look like?”
Woman: “Blonde… big boobs…. sort of looks like me”

JESUS. How is that description of your daughter going to help? It will truly help in absolutely no way whatsoever.

anyway she wanted to palm me off to her daughter!! Isn’t palming a guy off breaking one of the commandments? We never did find her daughter, and  she got obsessed with finding her. Her daughter was probably kissing a guy, then asking him if he’s seen her mum! So I left her after a few minutes…

Met some vietnamese
I was dragged by a guy to meet his friends. I assumed it was a bunch of girls, but it was an oldish woman and a scary looking, but friendly guy. They came all the way from America for new years! They probably would have had a better time in the Sensation White going on in Germany.

halp

Bouncing Balls!

During the Megamix, balls come flying down from nowhere – totally awesome. Here’s the video – I get to touch a ball!!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Megamix
The megamix phase is where the whole stadium sound, water, fire  and light effects synchronize for 15 minutes or so of fucking awesomeness. A short clip:

Click here to view the embedded video.

People crashing the water features – nothing short of hilarious
It’s near closing time, and people are pointing and looking up – 3 people have breached security and jumped up into the water fountains and are dancing along various spots. They are surrounded by security at different spots and they dance in defiance. The whole crowd is taking photos and cheering on. Two of the three are tackled to the ground/water, and there remains one sole man. Hopelessly outnumbered, he does only what a dancer can do – he gets down into the shallow water and starts doing the worm! WHOA. This was such a hilarious sight – a guy doing the worm up on stage to the cheers and laughter of the crowd. Loving it. Security for a brief moment looked a bit puzzled but ended up dragging him out of the water to a place unknown.

Arrivederci
5am was the end time and everybody got kicked out.

Recomendation
Not as crowded as last year but the solid and entertainment kept everybody going.
Sensation White 2009 Melbourne – 9/10
I probably won’t come back next year – 2 new years eves in a row is hectic enough for me, and this year, even though still very epic on its own.. probably didn’t have the same amount of buzz as 2008′s Sensation.. The DJ lineup wasn’t very strong and the event didn’t sell out. Everyone should though, definitely check it out, if you don’t plan to visit the one in Europe soon.

FULL PHOTO GALLERY FOR SENSATION WHITE CAN BE FOUND ON MY FACEBOOK FAN PAGE !!!

Homebake: Standing outside the Main Arena

Homebake Sydney 2009 @ The Domain

Assessment Time: 15:30pm – 11:00pm
Opening Times: 12:00pm – 11:00pm
Website: http://www.homebake.com.au
Address: Royal Botanic Gardens, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney.
Dress Code: anything goes. I wore an orange jumpsuit. Everybody else was pretty casual, and being summer, it was lots of shirts, hats and skirts.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Tickets were $99
Inside: Four or five areas. Most of the big acts were in the two main areas – the Main Stage and the Big Top, which is just a huge tent kind of thing. Food stalls inside, and a merry go round swinging thing. In the middle is a huge grass area to sit down. Plenty of toilets.
Cloak Room: $5
Bar: $10 smirnoffs. Lines were extremely long today.
Food: Rip off. $5 bottles of water. $7 hot chips, $5 Hot Dogs, $12 Salt and Pepper Squid
Acts: Powderfinger, Jet, Hilltop Hoods, Eskimo Brojo, Sia, Daniel Merriweather, Midnight Juggernauts, Sarah Blasko, A Special Best Of Performance By Tim Finn, Closure In Moscow, Short Stack, Phrase, Decoder Ring, Bumblebeez, Tumbleweed (Original Line-Up), Eddy Current Suppression Ring,  The Funkoars, The Middle East, The Aston Shuffle, Sugar Army, Record Producer, Shockone
Music: It’s all Australian music today.
Entertainment: The merry go round provided entertainment, as well as some of the small stores for tattoos or typical carnival like things. In between acts on the main stage, the TV screens would play some funny clips of people rendering their versions of popular songs.
Crowd: Dominantly White Australian. I probably spotted a total of 7 or 8 other asians the whole day.
Atmosphere: Throughout the day the good weather provided a very good atmosphere. This was a sold out event so there were just people everywhere, walking around, doing their thing. There was enough room to find your own spot in the grass and relax as well. The atmosphere at the two main stages was always pretty packed. I would say it was more intense in the Big Top than the main arena – it could have been because the Big Top had more acts which were ‘dance’ or crowd oriented. People in the Big Top were likely to dance and jump up and down. The Main Stage.. people just stood around singing along.

Acts seen:

Hilltop Hoods
Probably the best act we went to today. They got the crowd going, and the crowd of course, went with it. Lots of chanting, and played a lot of stuff from their new album. Luckily I have a copy of their album. Also the screens behind them had pretty awesome animations. Here’s a video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

During the act there was also a random balloon floating around. On closer inspection, it was actually a blown up condom. But we could see that there was sperm along the inside of the walls. Someone had blown up a used condom. This was disgusting.

condom crowd surfing

Phrase
I didn’t know many of his songs, but it was a very good vibe inside the big top as well. At the end of it he event went crowd surfing, lol:

Phrase crowd surfing video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jet
We sat on the grass – the lead singer sounded like he was yelling throughout. Even though we sat at the back, it could be felt that it was a pretty powerful and rocking set.

Powderfinger
All day we were waiting for this act, but it ended up being only average. Some of the new songs played I did not know yet. They played a song and wanted the crowd to sing along. They put the words on the screen, but the words were only published one word at a time. Not only that, each word was up for half a second, and it was 1 second out of sync of the band. It was a total fail and nobody ended up singing along to the song. Other than that, the more famous songs got the crowd going well. I heard they were breaking up after their current set of shows were completed, but they seemed to be ok.

Powderfinger “Got you on my mind / Summertime” video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other things
I get a Hottie tattoo

The first thing we did was end up at the fake tattoo place. Place is a rip off at $20 but we got one anyway. I get ‘Hottie’, while my male friend gets Love Hearts on his neck, lol.

Homebake hottie!

Went on the ride of spinning fun
I haven’t been on one of these in about 10 years, so for the cheap price of $8, I could sit on this thing. I was pretty scared on this thing!! It didn’t help that my friend tells me about how a girl once had the chains on her chair broken off , and she fell to her death.

The outfit
It’s an orange jumpsuit with the words “Easy Jail” on the back. We sticky tape extra words on it .. see pics below.

Nobody wants photos with me
This was probably the least successful outfit i’ve had. Probably only 2 or 3 people wanted to take photos with me

Guys slap my ass, and I am called out to be put into jail
This was probably the most successful outfit i’ve had to pick up guys. On the back I had my Name, and my phone number. After 9 guys took down my number, I decided to remove the mobile phone bit.I also had many, many random guys slap my ass or proposition me.

Also, I would get people occasionally yelling out “Get him!! Put him back in Jail!”

I walked around like this for half of the day

Also had one very affectionate fan jump on me and dry hump me… terrible.

My biggest fan..

Nutbush!

They started playing Nutbush City Limits during intermission. I admit to a friend i don’t know how to dance the Nutbush, so she gladly teaches me:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Turns out the reason why they played Nutbush City Limits was that there was actually a Flashmob doing the Nutbush dance on one of the other areas! Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
We left after the last act of Powderfinger.

Homebake 2009 – 8.5/10 . Strong line up and good weather provided for a good day out. Wallet still hurting from exuberant food prices.

Godskitchen - During the Cosmic Gate set

Godskitchen @ Hordern Pavillion Sydney
Assessment Time: 10:00pm – 3:15am
Opening Times: 9:00pm – 7:00am
Website: http://www.futureentertainment.com.au/wsite/future-events/92-godskitchen-2009
Address: Hordern Pavllion, Fox Studios Sydney
Dress Code: anything goes. I had dress shoes, jeans, fedora hat. Pretty inappropriate for a rave. Everybody else was pretty casual, and the hardcore shufflers had their leg warmers out with glowsticks and light spinny things ( I have no idea what they are called ) and shiny reflective pants.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Prepaid tickets for $60. Also available at the door.
Guestlist: VIP tickets available for express entry, and access to the VIP room.
Inside: Just two of the halls were open. One hall for Godskitchen main area to hold everybody, and the second hall to serve as a chillout space.
Cloak Room: Yes, available, but forgot the pricing.
Bar: $10 smirnoffs
DJs: Main acts were Cosmic Gate, Blank & Jones, and John ’00′ Flemming
Music: The first act was .. ‘meh’. Crowd wasn’t really into it, just swaying around. The boombox wasn’t on at this time. Next was Blank & Jones, and the ‘official’ start to the Godskitchen event. Music was good. Everybody here seemed to be waiting for Cosmic Gate to come on. Music not too bad either! But, being someone who hasn’t heard any of the DJ’s before, it wasn’t too alienating. Everyone else seemed to know how to sing along to the songs. Once John Flemming came on, the music started getting a bit too hard, and was starting to get very repetitive. That is not something I really liked.
Crowd: Just anybody who is into these DJs. Mixed crowd all natios and all ages.
Entertainment: The ‘boombox’ was the star of the show. In the main room, it was a huge projector screen spanning the width and height of the stage. Behind the projector were bright lights and the speakers themselves. Four projectors from the back scan down to push projected imagess into the screen for awesome effect. Boombox wasn’t activated until 11pm, when Blank & Jones came on. Also alongside the DJs on occasion were two dancers in the Boombox. Pretty cool
Atmosphere: Initially upto 11pm it was pretty tame. During Blank & Jones, and cosmic gate, the main arena got quite packed and the atmosphere was pretty awesome. After 3am I was just suffering fatigue from the thumping repetitive beats. This was not a sell out event, as opposed to the Melbourne show. Perhaps it was because it was the same day as Parklife, which had just finished at 10pm?
Videos: on the next section

Timeline
Munky sponsored tickets
I won two VIP tickets by being featured in a Munky newsletter.  Thanks

VIP treatment
We had 2 VIP tickets. This gave us express entry into the event (we waited about 2 minutes) and access to the VIP room.

The VIP room was located next to the main stage. It was a small room with chairs outside facing the crowd. The room had a single unisex toilet and a bar. The “VIP Toilet” was totally crap, as both men and girls lined up for it. It was basically a disabled toilet. total joke.

The VIP room. Overwhelmingly disappointing

However on the other hand, the bar was pretty good. Even though there was only one guy at the makeshift bar, there weren’t many VIP holders in line, so we never had to wait long for a drink, where as outside the lines were massive long!

Boombox videos
Videos even cannot describe how epic the boombax was. Without this boombox, Godskitchen would have been only mediocre, at best, for me:

Blank and Jones: Intro to Godskitchen’s boombox

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cosmic Gate – “Firewire” Intro

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chillout room
So there was a chillout room. Not many people chose to sit in here, but instead chose to mingle in the outside cold, which was really bizarre, because on occasion there would be some rain and what not. anyway, inside the room there were two bars, and a DJ playing some songs. Behind the DJ set was a video feed of what was happening live inside. You could see the boombox doing its magic, and it always looked beautiful.

and the chairs! the chairs were were the most comfortable fold up chairs I have ever sat on. The cushion was at least 2 inches thick, and it wasn’t the plasticky material – it felt like office chair rug material. It was pretty awesome. on top of this there were chairs everywhere – anybody who came in had a spot to sit as well as a place to dance and drink if needed.

Also in the far corner was a huge inflatable head of a supposedly DJ. we took some photos with his nose. About an hour later, security had enough of people hanging off the nose ring and sealed off the area with metal gates. Boo!

Inflatable Head Guy - Got a photo before they fenced off the area

The huge Godskitchen balloon falls down
There are two huge godskitchen floats hanging from the ceiling, and during the night the whole balloon floated down. The crowd bounces this whole thing along like a beach ball and it looks pretty cool. Sadly after a few minutes, security pounces on the float and deflates it. Boo!

People:

Witnessing awesome shuffling
Well, its events like these where you meet true lovers of this music genre. They dress up to dance, and are easily recognized with these leg warmers. A funny look, but it works impressively when they dance/shuffle/whatever you want to call it. I witnessed an exceptional female shuffler, spinning and leg splitting, whatever you want to call it, it was hypnotizing and I don’t think I could ever be as good as that. I’ just not flexible enough.

Raver girl - godskitchen sydney

Met this guy and he wanted me to tag him on facebook, but I lost his contact, so I’ll just post the pic up here. I don’t think he would  mind:

Random face paint guy - Godskitchen sydney

This was in the VIP area – there was a little area where we could dance.

Coda
After John Fleming came on, the music got too heavy for us,  (even I have my limits) and we left. Time of departure 3:15am

Recommendation
I probably wouldn’t go back, as I didn’t know any of the songs. However, if you knew the songs and artists, you would have loved it. Crowd was right into it. I think most people, if not all, were here for Cosmic Gate, which was a good set. With all the aforementioned in consideration, my rating for the Godskitchen Sydney Boombox Tour  is 6.5/10

I got their July newsletter – they post random pictures of people and if you are one of them you win a prize – and guess who I saw – A picture of me in my pirate outfit from We Love Sounds!! woot woot!!

I have never been so excited about winning something. Will keep you updated on what I win! I suspect it is that Saturday pass to Soho Saturdays. Yay -.- At least its not the trademark one.

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

Future Music Festival

We got there around 4pm. I decided earlier to wear the traditional Indian wedding outfit for today, since.. well since I haven’t worn it since India.

With friends. Random shouts of 'Aladdin' or 'Slumdog Millionaire' were thrown at me, as well as about 30 people asking for photos with me.

I didn’t know any bands. I really haven’t heard much of NERD or the Basement Jaxx songs.. I just wanted to dance.  There were about 8 or so areas you could dance in, which was a ridiculous good value for money. I wish I got here earlier to make the most of it.

Attacked by a beer can // Silent Disco Tent
First we lined up for Silent Disco. Someone threw a can of beer at me from behind but it hit the guy in front of us. That was cold. As a terrorist, i was offended. I sympathised with the guy whom the can hit, and he starts talking to us. His name was Parra. We all go inside, and everyone is given a set of radio headphones. Inside two DJ’s are playing, and you can switch between each radio whenever you please. This was good because if I got sick of one song, I could just switch the channel and dance with the other half of the crowd. When you took the headphones off, all you could hear were the cheers of the crowd screaming or singing along, but no music. It was awesome.  The whole time we were in there, Parra was chatting up our female buddy, so they weren’t really dancing. She nicknamed him Parasite after losing him.

Sublime Room
We trodded on to see NERD, but we were way way out at the back, so we heard nothing, so we went to sublime. Sublime was only ok.. the area wasn’t entirely packed, the music wasn’t energetic enough, and there were way more smokers than usual compared to the other places we got in (I cant remember who was playing). We lasted 30 minutes.

Silent Disco round 2
We went back into Silent Disco for round 2 (love this place) then went to see Basement Jaxx.. which I thought was average..again, I didnt know their songs and I really couldn’t dance to their pieces, but my friends seemed to like it. Would’ve preferred some dance music, or at least be in the mosh pit! After that it was over.

Dirty dust
All the dancing on the grass inevitably kicked up tonnes of dust and microsopic horse crap. Everyone got covered in a layer of dust. We went to the toilets and we looked like we just came out of a coal mine. Wiped so much crap off our sweaty skins.

Basement Jaxx
Squeezed our way near the front , but I didn’t really enjoy the act. I was still craving Silent Disco.

Coda
Waiting for the bus was entertaining. Everytime a bus didnt stop for us, the crowd went ‘awwwwhh!!’, then in between we would chant to the tune of “wheres your head at” – ‘wheres the bus at.. at at at.. wheres the bus at, wheres the bus at!!’.

I want to go again.

So I ended up turning up to homebake at around 8.30 and merely enjoyed some P’nau, Muscles, Divinyls and Missy Higgins before going home.

Chips for $5 and bottled water for $5??? F*cking rort!!!

In any case check out some bouncing balls!!

http://www.youtube.com/v/7xcQ9xffm0Q&