Project Description

FESTIVAL OF THE SUN DAY 1

@ Port Macquarie

Breakwall Tourist Park

(Live Review)

14/12/18

Reviewer: Jess Moog

Photographer: Amy Halpin

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Now I’m sure you’d know by now that yah girl goes to A LOT of live music events, but not many of you know that one of my absolute most favourite festivals of all time is Port Macquarie’s glorious Festival of the Sun.

I’m telling you kids, this festival will change your life. It’s three nights of camping with two full days of sensational music, its relatively cheap, it’s BYO alcohol, it’s next to the beach; it’s pretty much just everything you need to have the best weekend of your fricken life. FOTSUN dished out an awesome lineup this year (as per usual), so I grabbed my sleeping bag and a bunch of pearler mates to head up North for a grog-guzzling, tune-loving time.

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We all arrived on the Thursday arvo to secure ourselves a decent slab of grass and set up camp. Getting in to the fezzie is always the most exhausting part, especially for all the people without car passes who had to walk through the campgrounds with almost a whole house strapped to their back. Setting up a tent in high kilometre winds is also not ideal, but it’s ok because the consumption of beverages afterwards was definitely enjoyable. By about 6pm, the entire tourist park was filled to the brim with festive gazebos and chirpy campers, eager to dissolve their livers in the days to come!

Now obviously all our exciting, fun antics on the Thursday night resulted in rather a dusty start on Friday morning, but it was finally time for some good old live music, so I downed an energy drink and a six inch sub in an attempt to pull my foggy brain out of it’s soggy hungover slump. Within two hours I was miraculously cured, and thus began my FOTSUN Friday!

The first act I caught was cool singer Jess Locke. Funny enough, some dude from the JB HiFi tent had actually approached me earlier asking if I could sign some vinyls for them thinking I was her. Baha I wish. The REAL Jess Locke started off with some acoustic tunes, gradually building the crowd up to her rockier stuff. There was only a few people standing in front of the stage, but there was a nice group of festivalgoers chilling out on the grass area nearby. The actual festival area at FOTSUN is super small compared to other events, so you’re able to get a real decent view of the stage from pretty much everywhere. My view at this point was of Jess and her band having a fun time while a couple of dudes wrestled in the sand and a number of others had a boogie. They all played great, and were a perf start to the day.

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Up next on the side stage was Newy girl Grace Turner, a well-suited follow on from Jess. Her indie style voice sounded miraculous, flowing through the air like a brilliant musical breeze. The crowd was still very spread out, but her mellow tunes were encouraging a lot of heads to bop. I got the chance to have a chat with Grace the next day and she was an absolute delight, truly just as nice as her music. The sun was beaming down on us now too, illuminating all the glittery faces and half naked humans. There were people laughing, people hoola-hooping, people trying their best to roll cigs on the dance floor, it was all bloody happening! So much to see, so much to do, and it was only like 2pm. Incredible.

After taking a moment to apply my third layer of sunscreen, I headed back in to watch Melbourne rockers Clowns. And honestly, if you were at FOTSun and you didn’t see Clowns, you better have been either graciously helping an old lady cross the road or glued to a toilet with some type of horrible bowel illness, because there is no other excuse I can think of for missing such a ridiculously great set. My GAWWDDDD they were so goooood, punching out their throbbing bass lines and knee tingling riffs with endless bouts of enthusiasm. Stevie was switching his voice from subtle melodies to scream so effortlessly that I was almost convinced he had some sort of secret vocal switch on the side of his throat. It was, by far, the craziest set of the weekend. Stevie did a couple of stage dives and even jumped into the push pit at one point, while guitarist Jarod and Hanny the bassist’s heads looked like glorious, puffy, vibrating creatures. They played various highly relatable tunes like ‘Dropped my Brain’ and ‘I Shaved my Legs For You’ before leaving us all with huge smiles and sore necks.

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Around this time I decided to pop to the loo and the STI testing station, even though I am pretty damn definite my genitals are clean thanks to the fact that I have a boyfriend, but I got a wristband, a chapstick and cleaner toilets out of it so I reckon pissing in a cup was absolutely worth it. During this time I could hear Boat Show smashing out songs like ‘I Don’t Get It’ and ‘Restless’ on the side stage, with fontwoman Ali singing up a storm with her raw, punky vocals. The sun was getting hotter and the air was getting keener now, which meant more and more physically/mentally cooked individuals began transferring themselves from their tents to the dance floor.

Angie McMahon was on next, and the crowd had doubled in size. Her beautiful chocolaty voice sprinkled down on the festival like a packet of hundreds and thousands, turning all our souls into a sweet, melting mess. People were dancing and singing along to songs such as ‘Keeping Time’ and ‘Missing Me’, and the entire stage area became a slurring chorus when she played absolute tune ‘Slow Mover’. Angie seemed so humbled by everyone’s reactions too, which just made all our hearts melt a teeny bit more. Plus she apparently drew the pictures of her dog for her band t-shirts so she’s already a star in my books! A close look at some punters nearby made me realise that most people were pretty damn sloshed at this point, and we still had so much of the day to go? Oh boy.

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I had to quickly sneak off to do an interview, so unfortunately I missed wonderful band Pist Idiots (massive sad face) and by the time I returned the crowd was looking REAL exhausted. It was time to amp up the vibes a bit, and who better to get the job done than crazy dudes Skegss. Most of the campsite were in the festival area now, which wasn’t surprising at all considering everyone I know fricken loves Skegss. As soon as they whipped on their first song, about five circles pits opened up in various spots throughout the crowd, with mullets and empty cans flying about ferociously. Massive tunes like ‘Get On My Skateboard’, ‘Smogged Out’ and ‘Spring Has Sprung’ hit the floor, encouraging even more individuals to viciously throw themselves against slack-jawed strangers. There were lots of people on shoulders, even more people dancing around with super burnt shoulders, and even a few people licking shoulders due to their blurry, substance-inspired state. It was hard to determine whether most people would survive the arvo, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the high majority kick on till the end of the day!

Awesome sister duo Clews hit the stage straight after Skegss, giving people the lovely aural refresher they needed. Lily and Grace’s voices are just soooo dang gorgeous, with their beachy tones and folk-style melodies hitting me in the musical feels every single time. I got to interview them before their set, which gave me the opportunity to learn more about them and fan-girl a little bit, so that was wonderful too. Their new song ‘Crushed’ is such a belter, and by the looks of the boogying crowd, they agree with my judgement. I suddenly realised around this time that I hadn’t eaten all day, so I ducked off to inhale a cheese and bacon roll before strapping myself in for the last acts.

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I stood up the back for Tkay Maidza so I could let my cheesy belly have a break and observe the mayhem from afar. I’ve seen Tkay perform heaps of times now, but she always manages to work the crowd like a pro. She was whipping out songs like ‘Simulation’ and ‘Switch Lanes’, twirling around in the hectic stage lighting like the hip hop Honey she is. The festival was now full to the brim with extremely pissed punters, making for a very interesting dance floor. People were still partying when rap group Triple One jumped on the side stage, however it seemed the day had gotten too much for some, so a few groovers trickled back to the campsite.

Our headliner for the Friday was funky as hell Perth band POND. The crowd was smaller than I expected but then again most of the festival looked like they were on the verge of passing out like two hours beforehand, so it wasn’t really unexpected. Frontman Nick was an enthusiastic glittery angel, bellowing out his strong vocals while the band grooved on behind him. If you haven’t heard them before, I’d describe them as a colourful concoction of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizzard and Tame Impala. The latter makes a lot of sense considering they actually share bandmembers with Tame Impala quite regularly, which is cool. They played psychedelic tunes such as ‘Sweep Me Off My Feet’, ‘Zond’ and ‘Paint Me Silver’, and I even got to share a cig with some guy and his mum, who was having the best drunken time of her bloody life! So humbling to see people of all ages having so much fun together!

After all the music was done, I decided to sneak off for a shower and another C.B. roll, before laying my tired head to rest in a muggy tent, surrounded by stumbling strangers and vomiting friends. A fab Friday indeed.

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