Fairgrounds 2016
Menangle Road is littered with workmen and the Werombi to Wollongong expressway, a usually reliable stretch, is crawling. Covered with orange-vested beard-carriers shoveling scorched tar onto already-laid roads, repairing a few months of truck-induced damage. A few hundred metres at a go. A never-ending task. They re-start back up at the Northern entrance point the day after they hit the council limits South. It's the Harbour Bridge paint-job of the south-western suburbs of Sydney.
The workers wave me through. I lift a single digit from the steering wheel to blank-faced replies. Not of ute-carriage, but Sports Utility. I'm a shoot-through, nothing more. Tall positioned, not all terrain ready. Nice, with Bluetooth and seat positions stored in computer bytes and Apple Carplay, not just necessary.
Menangle to Wilton to Appin to the safety go-slow truck lanes of the Princess. Down roller coaster roads to new housing and forgotten towns (Albion Park) and speed traps and the other type of speed traps (Albion Park). Pass rolling hills now not so rolling. All postcard potential — arguably put to pasture years early by the decaying industries and their final black breaths of life — ruined further now by rows of residences. Required lots for all those dripping down from Sin City as pride of quarter-acre ownership is weighed worthy of long daily commutes and/or non-city salary sacrifices of the not-so-good, not-exactly-tax-dodging type.
Past future bypasses and blow-holes both large and small and bakeries that are all stocked with better produce than anything where I'm from. Pies covered with sand somewhere near the 3.6 mile point of Seven Mile Beach, Shoulhaven Heads, are still better than all artisan attempts where I'm from. Where I'm from there's people. Heaps of them. Not so much here. Here there's some space for sandunes seats alone. But restlessness traits of city-side folks travel too, and all relax pauses last less than a hour-and-bits before being back on Messenger.app for earlier-than-orginally-scheduled meet-ups. "Where you? Is the house ready?" Code for immediate cold ones at balconies of rented Berry farms, booked via AirBnb.app by someone else, willing to put their star-rated reputation on the line.
Berry is over-run. Poor Berry. Pray for Berry. Start a fucking GetUp.campaign for Berry right now. Residents, rightly so, shoot stink eyes to all those blow-ins blowing through, crawling through the solitary Main Street looking for pie shops and the "plus liquor" of the local IGA and ample on-street parking and other attractions highlighted in TripAdvisor.app.
Our farm is west, halfway to Berry Mountain, where town water stops and your mobile phone carrier choice matters. There's shetlands, a few acres of steep unusable acreage and a pool, which Host Geoff is busy cleaning and guarantees will be ready for morning hangover recovery.
Us, obviously an anti-carpooling brigade, all vehicles of single-passengers, drift in over the course of three hours, seven beers. All my attempts of stalling stall as him and her, the last pair, arrive and broker deals for day-split ride shares. Them now, me tomorrow for retrieval. Quick calculations of eight beers and carry the 3.2 kilometre walk, multiple by the 5 minute drive for the final 2.5 bands of the half Day One. Worth it. And we're in only minutes after the earlier on-foot half of our party arrives. All just in time to see Gareth and the Drones, mumbling and fake-drunk stumbling through the last bits of their set. Meh. Me from years back cared deeply, maybe too much as "fucking Halo 2" and drawn-out lines of obscuration-but-obvious-significance adapted as needed. But attention waned as they wandered away further. To new places with old hate, dissent intact and as life on this side of that equation got peachy, or at least more insular, there's evidently got altogether bigger, more aware and more precise and more complex.
King Gizzard deliver awash of guitars and talent and one song split into pauses. A tact antithetical of opening night closer, Rodriguez — the obvious, southcoast middle-aged drawcard — who focuses on familiarity. Half covers, half hits. It works for those who would've accepted anything. Instead I pay attention to cans and piggyback rides back up the hill from guys recovering from serious ligament damage. I'm a drunken fuckwit.
My room at the farm is an office converted into a semi-pro massage den. That spins. This air mattress clearly too lightweight to stay completely grounded in such a drunken storm. Write drunk, edit sober. So they say. So notes on day's activity are noted into Notes.app, before sleep engulfment. Scribbled into short-form sentences indecipherable by daybreak: "king giz hair [line break] lame impala [line break] #BoycottTheDrones [line break] broke Holc's back [end]".
No space for sobriety though and awoken to the cheers of both glass-on-glass and verbal as a sensible-sized six pack (4) of Stollis is polished [insert Polish joke here?] by someone before 9am. He's a stumble and split head on a pool deck away from ruining this weekend for everyone, but survives on to beers before breakfast and Friday ride-share contract fulfilment and survivalist shopping lists orders (1x frozen pizza, 1x small pack of cheese slices, 1x AntRid) and on to the Saturday starter, Middle Kids, who we can hear from the farm porch. A position that, against all lobbying, is over-ruled as an adequate vantage point for the entire day.
Julia Jacklin is great in the exact same way her album is. Sheer Mag sound awesome but "were way better at the Stag" only a few nights earlier, apparently. Does it matter? We're just killing minutes.
Because it's time to check those children into the babysitting facility (the jumping castle behind the foot-stalls near the rows of Portaloos) because Adam Gibson (and the Ark-Ark Birds) are playing, and in 2016, they were the greatest. Again. And much like last year, footage of Gibs and Co. under tin roof, amongst hay bales, dominate the weekend's memory bank recall. All scenes of the tallest tales of family reunions via shark-infested pools (and accompanying juvenile jokes of 15-year-olds' wobbegong shark-starring wet dreams) and lols of last year's Fairgrounds food debacle and yesteryear radio calls of classic trot racers and all that Australian Charm.
It's a noticeably bigger crowd for this year's instalment of Gibson's lifetime-cemented slot opening the Adam Gibson Stage. Attention garnered from word-of-mouth and memories of standout performances the year prior and me and them telling — or yelling at — everyone that it's the unmissable set of the weekend. Which it is, as well as being conveniently placed one double-broked beef brexit burger and two beers and a shaded seat distance from the other — Japandroids.
Adam Gibson and the Ark-Ark Birds
Japandroids
He's jubilantly kissing me at a ratio of 1.2 kisses/song. And we're four in (songs, five kisses) quite quickly before there's a shirtless Him, all six-foot-six-plus square skin inches of him, spotted in prereferral side glances. And him and him and him too, all weekend house-partners, all topless, with nips hard from the enjoyment of familiarity of Japandroids' classic heartlands hits. Must've missed the "shirts off" call during opening exchanges (introductions from band, cheek-planted wet ones from him). But all topless torsos surround, as predicted in Messenger.app threads throughout the time from then (last Japandroids visit, 2013) to now. Because let's relive. Let's hang on (for something more) and pretend we're not all a little lumpier and a little bit more weighed down from three years of this and that. Compare updated rigs. (Mostly) keep eyes aimed upwards, away from love handles etc. And, of course, and of most importance, enjoy that temporary feeling of revelry that's only obtainable through this exposed-skin ritual. A little bit vulnerable, a wee bit primal. Is there a name for this feeling, or have they just not named it yet?
The new ones sound OK, the old ones sound better. And we bustle around in circles not-so-violently with fists pointed skywardly and cries reminding us/everyone that "we used to dream". And there's that one guy who think it's a contest and that other cunt with more back-hair than most people his/my age have atop their heads.
Full-stopped by pre-arranged soundtracks between sets and pre-planned "shirts on" jokes that might as well have been "day's done".
Expectedly, post-recovery is a tougher task now than previous times. Some sleep off Breakfast Stolli-induced mid-session hangovers under shades of acrobra. Some chase lines that later (much later) will eventuate in close call cliff falls, naked. Some see other bands, mostly with disinterest, as measurements against all that's already been seen are inevitable. While I wander for hours, seeing Sarah Blasko and skipping Julien Baker, unwilling to sacrifice this seat so late in the day. Before early exits for soccer replays via Austar accounts and nightswimming and penis-on-penis propositions from lifelong friends and a heat-up lasagna via in-laws. Done.
Berry Mountain on a hangover is a terrible idea. The path whirls and twists like the Woronora Windys before they put that bypass bridge in and skipped the whole lakeside town altogether. My brain's not alert enough and there's too many locals on my tail with back-hand knowledge of every dip and narrow bit of the circuit. Brain not half, but all-dead, part from days of booze and air-mattress rest, part from reflection.
Is Fairgrounds a good festival? I'm hardly a qualified judge, dipping in for these weekends away only once, maybe twice per year, my involvement often dependent solely on how sorted it is on my behalf; or how hassle-free it seems. In that sense, Fairgrounds is a standout. Lines for food are minimal (and yes, there was plenty of food this year) and drinks are ready when you are. There's no time management required, little foresight required for planning on where we'll meet, what time and travelling between stages, tents, temporary disco rooms. Simple enough to just float through, see what we see and soak in some Country Air of a small town that probably doesn't want us there. Maybe see some icons, maybe make some memories or simply drink different drinks in a slightly different setting. Until next year, then.