PARTE  THE  THIRDE
(of my three-day-all-day-new-years-bender)

<< toot toot >> 
Day 3 begins with a horn honking outside my door at 7:30 in the morning.  Been bedded for approx two hours.  My eyes are full of mucus.  My mouth is full of blood.  << spit >>  Am fully clothed from the waist down.  Pants.  Socks.  An old pair of shoes.  That’s ok.  Less time wasted in the chore of preparation. 
<< toot toot >>
My generous lift for Southbound declares her benevolence.  I grimace.  Groan.  Grouch.  And grimace.  Have very little energy.  What little I possess is expended on finding an appropriate festival-type-shirt.  << rummage rummage >>  Survey countless candidates  yet am continually drawn to the two I’ve sported already this weekend:
- Old Checkers; and
- Old Stripey. 
Both reek of perspiration and EXCESS.  Then again – in several hours so too will the rest of me.  Decisions.  Decisions.  Decisions.  Consideration for my fellow passengers makes me opt for a more sanitary version.
<< toot toot >>
Trudge outside.  Am told I look like Death personified (if Death possessed terrible taste in festival-type-shirt-age).
“Where’s your bedding…?” 
“I need bedding..?”
Shuffle in.  Doona.  Pillow.  Shuffle out.
“Let’s roll..”
<< vroom vroom >>
Trip down a nightmarish blur.  At some stage food drops into the bottomless chasm that doubles as my stomach.  Chased down with beer.  Takes a six-pack before I start to feel human again.  Hit the goon-bag.  Perk up. 
And we’re there…

Dallas Crane are rocking out as we set up our camping gear. Quite the cranking performance on the Offshore Stage – am glad I’m knocking in tent-pegs rather than knocked about in the moshpit.  << Sweat.  Hair.  Stink.  No way >>  It’s hot.  Too freaking HOT (regretting the decision to wear two layers of shirts and a pair of thick brown pants).  Hear a few gems in their set – “Ladybird”; “Dirty Hearts”; that one about a road or summat.  Finish their set off with the appreciably Jimmy Barnes-less “Sit On My Knee..”  Impressive live showing.  Even from across the expanse of the camping grounds. 

Avoid The Panics in the Big Top.  They have a terrible tendency of draining my will to live.  Enter the arena to Triple J rootsy-downbeat faves The Beautiful Girls.  Nice chilled out set – quite suitable to the region and surrounds.  Good tonic after the frenzied freneticism of the Dallas Crane show.  Recognise a couple of tracks.  “Blackbird”; “Weight of the World”.  Some stuff from the newbie.  Nice.  Appropriate gear for the earliness of the day.

Oh Golly.  Time for End of Fashion.  Have a bit of a wander (and a brew or three) whilst avoiding their particular brand of derivative pop.  The teenage girlies seem to love it however.  The grinding of their nubile teenage bodies both fascinates and repels me.  The incessant catchiness of End of Fashion’s “Oh Yeah” manages to pervade my consciousness despite my best intentions.  Such a freaking sing-along song.  ”..said I want to talk about it for awhile..”  Damn.  Now it’s stuck in MY head again.  Move on.  Move on.  Move on.

Xavier Rudd on the Offshore.  Now here’s a man with talent to spare.  Barely visible behind his huge stack of home-made instruments, didgeridoos and what-cha-ma-call-its.  There’s some other guy supporting him but it seems to be a spiritual or moral support rather than anything musical.  He’s barely required.  I recognise “Let Me Be” – as does the rest of the crowd.  Such a cool little ditty.  ”..doooo doo doo do do do-do..”  Then I’m off and wandering again because:

It’s Shins time peoples.  Sweating it out under the Big Top.  Jim Mercer and boys.  EVERYONE’S favourite Albuquerque lo-fi practitioners (thanks to Zach Braff and his little film named Garden State).   Blag my way up the front with my ITM Media Pass.  Take dozens of photos – none of which turn out.  SO many songs.  Who could remember what they played.  “Not I..”  says his fly.  All I know is that I was in hog-heaven.  Their lovely lovely sounds washing over me in my position up front of the barricade.  They did play the Garden State track – “Caring is Creepy..”  Then heaps of stuff from both Chutes too Narrow and Oh Inverted World.  Brilliant bits and pieces.  Would be awesome to catch them in a little intimate club somewhere.  But we make do with what we have.

It’s over and it’s wandering time again.  Plenty of feisty female flesh on display.  However my lady companions are complaining about the lack of quality “pork-sword”.  It’s alright ladies.  Look:  here’s Pete Murray.  Cue a bunch of desperate horny women humping at the overage fence.  A more disgusting spectacle I am unable to recall.  With that in mind I mosey on over to the Mix-Up Tent.

Fdel playing a rocky/dancy/breakbeat set.  Even throws in a couple of his own tracks from his awesome long player Audio Fdelity.  ”..ladies and gentlemen..”  ”..rocksteady..”  Quite a decent-sized crowd milling and dancing about.  Better than I expected truth be told.  There’s a decent beats line-up on this year’s Southbound bill but I wasn’t sure how many punters would be keen to sample it.  I’m pleasantly surprised.  On a down-point we are informed that the organisers have already run out of bottled water.  At just before 7pm.  Not a great piece of organisation.  Though there are some 12,000 people here.  I wonder if they expected such a big turnout.  They certainly have the space for it.  If not the stock on hand of liquids.

Hang around at the Mix-Up Tent – foregoing a bit of Downsyde and the Hoodoo’s – keen to check out an Ugly Duckling-less DJ Einstein.  Look at the size of that boy’s bling!!  Talk about “eye on the gold chain..”  Sensational stuff.  He launches into an upbeat hip hop set.  Not dissimilar to DJ Andy Smith or Format of the last two nights.  However there’s less emphasis here on soul or funk and more attention paid to pure fun-loving hip hop.  “Mistadobalina..”  DJ Kool.  “Talking all that jazz..”  Beastie Boys – “Check-check it out…”  Arrested Development “Take me to another place..”  Cypress Hill.  That song by Jamelia “Touch” that I’m almost ashamed to admit I love.  Ugly Duckling themselves.  “Turn it up…”  Bit of Jurassic 5 to end it all.  Fun and fantastic.  My ass did NOT stop shaking.  Much as you’d expect from this light-hearted record spinner.  

Go for a bit of a trudge again.  Catch a piece of the Hoodoo Gurus’ classic rocking set.  They’re playing to a bloody large crowd at the Offshore Stage now.  I soak in a bit of the nostalgia as I cross to the Big Top to watch some Butterfingers.  Wow.  They’re a lot rockier in a live context.  Far heavier than I was anticipating.  They’re playing to the converted but.  The crowd lapping it up.  Singing along to almost every word.  After four songs or so I have to bail.  Not in the mood for this after the fun of Einstein.  Flee back to the magic Mix-Up land. 

Hadn’t planned on catching any of Katalyst’s set – so the sheer quality is a bonus.  There’s a damn good crowd going by now.  Bop-bop-bopping along.  I enter the tent to a damn fine mash-up of White Stripe’s “Seven Nation Army” with Public Enemy’s “Bring da Noise”.  Genius.  Great selection as well.  Bob Marley “Could You Be Loved..”  Black Eyed Peas - “Saturday”.  Old school stuff.  New school stuff.  “Ooh.  Make you feel like it..”  A very respectful audience.  Very well-numbered for a DJ set. 

Zipping back and forth between stages now like a ping pong ball.  Pok.  Pok.  Pok.  See a bit of Dandy Warhol’s – “A long time ago…  we used to be friends..”  “Bohemian like you…”  Seems like they saved their best songs for when I was strolling by.  Catch Ian Brown in the Big Top.  He’s looking so very English.  Could be either of the Gallagher brothers dancing/marching around up there.   Except for those unmistakable tones from his throaticles.  Hear “Time Is My Everything”.  Then my fave Stone Roses song of all time – “I Wanna Be Adored”.  “I don’t have..  to sell my soul..  he’s already in me..”  I’m in raptures.  There’s a chance he’ll play my second fave Stone Rose’s track “Fool’s Gold”.  But there’s Ozomatli to view people.  And they’re not worth missing for ANYTHING.  I hotfoot it out of there. 

Unfortunately there’s some sort of delay.  The second organisational glitch of the day (however compared to the litany of glitches on offer at Sun Electric twas almost a completely Straight ‘A’ day).  Out they finally scamper – the Ozomatli boys (all ten of them by my count).  It’s a shortened set due to the half hour wasted.  But by golly they cram some quality tunes in there.  If you don’t move to this palaver then you MUST be clinically dead or passed out in some drunken/drug-fuelled mess.  There were a lot of people in that second category.  It was a long long day/weekend/drive etc.  Not me however.  I couldn’t have stopped my dancing feet with a bucket of concrete and a pound of animal tranquilisers.  Must.  Dance.  On.  “Saturday” from their latest Street Signs release got a Guernsey.  As did a cover of “We’re Not Going To Take It…” that finished the evening’s proceedings.  Just enough time for a quick musical jaunt through the crowd – much like a band Multiple-Pied-Pipers (without the Pipes).  And like that – they – and my three-day-all-day-new-year’s-bender was over.

Southbound.  You’re well on your way to becoming a regularly attended annual fixture in this: the Well-And-Truly-Chockers-Summer-Festival-Season.  Grand work on the organisers part by expanding the range and scope of the musical bill.  There was a little bit of something for everybody on the day.  Rock fans.  Roots fans.  Groove fans.  The massive turnout testament to the quality of the acts on display.  A truly great and memorable day.  Top marks Southbound peoples.

As for me.  Danced my little anus back to my tent.  After three days of solid partying I was up for more.  More.  More. 
<< bring it on >> 
Passed out almost instantaneously my head touched my almost-forgotten pillow.  << zzz >>  Snored deep.  Long.  Loudly into the night.  Slept all the way back to Perth.  Slept all the way through my next week of work.  Slept all the way through the weekend and start of this -  the new week of a New Year.  Have awakened briefly to rattle out these three prolonged belated reviews.  Ratta.  Tatta.  Tatta.  Now I think I may just give my weak and weary body back for some more sleepy-boo-boo time. 

Goodnight In-The-Mixers.
Goodnight Australia.

(the end)

Heronimous Wang