Ten years after its humble beginnings in Byron Bay, this Saturday Homebake celebrated a great tenth birthday festival in the leafy surroundings of Sydney’s charming Domain. Dedicated to promoting Australian acts (and some pretty talented Kiwis to boot), Homebake has become an important fixture on the domestic music calendar.
The sun was shining on a gorgeously not-too-hot day as I made my way across the city towards the Botanical Gardens. A little hung-over yet eager to witness a whole host of diverse bands split across four stages, I arrived from Martin Place only to notice an exceedingly long queue of festival goers patiently waiting as it snaked its way around the corner and off down the street. Extremely relieved to find out I didn’t have to join it, I waltzed in through the VIP entrance gloatingly appreciating the inthemix reviewer highlife.
How nice it was, for the first time in a while, to see a mass of humanity sprawled across verdant pastures with one aim, that of listening to music and rocking out in the sun. As soon as I made my way through the entrance, I was drawn towards the hip hop beats of Katalyst drifting towards me from the nearest stage. It’s testament to the ever-growing status of Australian hip hop that a huge crowd was appreciating the show, while I cursed myself for not dragging my body out of bed earlier to catch Koolism (and I’ll admit, Sarah Blasko).
This year there was increased input from hip hop and electronic acts; Adelaide’s gold-selling Hilltop Hoods played the headline spot, head-to-head with Jet, although this was essentially a rock and pop outing; the Australian music industry as well as record-buying public is still overwhelmingly rock-orientated. Yet for me, the best thing about the day was what was undoubtedly the best thing ten years ago – where Regurgitator, Spiderbait and Grinspoon (three bands who returned) got their breaks; numerous rock bands, hitherto unheard of by me, damn well rocked the fuck out.
The Hopetoun Hotel tent, tucked away behind the main stage, was where I soon enough found myself enjoying the energy of The Tremors, even if their foul-mouthed front-man put off a few of the teeny boppers, a group of people who seemed to almost dominate the festival overall. The afternoon withered away as I made my way between the melodic guitar rock of Perth’s End of Fashion and the seedy synth pop of Machine Gun Fellatio, who, to their credit, it was damn near impossible to see due to the hordes of people attempting to get in the tent. Maybe New Zealands’s the D4 should get a more controversial name to compete; they put on a fine show at the same time on the main stage to a mere handful of people.
Yet elsewhere, overcrowding was, as it often is at festivals of this sort, a real problem. Toilet goers fought bladder pressure and patiently stood in line, while the thoroughfares between stages became bottlenecks as punters stopped to browse the wares available. And what a range of diversions from the music there were, from Paella to caps ingeniously emblazoned with ‘Von Fuct’ logos, to Amnesty International’s stall to the hilariously overpriced fairground rides with the impressive backdrop of Sydney’s urban skyline.
As the day wore on, the acts got bigger, Scribe kept the quasi-hip hop heads happy, while Spiderbait showed everyone what a good cover version of ‘Black Betty’ sounds like. Eventually, the mega-selling Jet boys took to the stage to end the night, bringing to my mind the little girls with ‘Fuck Jet’ scrawled across their arms I had seen earlier. Funny they were there, these guardians of music, as Homebake probably wasn’t the best place to go if you don’t like rock and pop.
