Ah, Playground Weekender, we meet again. What a weekend of silliness, of debauchery, of good times for all. Oh yeah, and music – I almost forgot. Any seasoned Playgrounder can tell you that, during this weekend, the experience most definitely comes first and the music comes second. It’s no wonder that this little boutique festival can boast Best Atmosphere and Best Crowd of 2008 and 2009, and I’m willing to bank that it will sweep the 2010 awards as well.
Stepping off the ferry and onto the solid ground of Del Rio Riverside Resort after, all of my good memories from 2009’s Playground came flooding back to me, and I smiled as I imagined the good times of 2010 that would ensue.

The Atmosphere

The stunning backdrop is what greets you first, with the Hawkesbury’s waters surrounded on either side by tall, sandy-coloured cliffs and massive copses of trees. The country air is fresh and clean, and as you pitch your tent you can see kangaroos and wallabies bounding around behind the bushes.

The festival grounds are relatively small, making for a much more intimate setting than other events like Good Vibes and Big Day Out. Moreover, I think that any time a festival lasts more than one day it gives everyone much more of a chance to develop a sense of camaraderie and togetherness at the festival, which obviously adds a lot more to the atmosphere overall.
Strolling through the festival, you see people left and right soaking up that fabulous atmosphere and enjoying the resort amenities of Del Rio; couples playing tennis, groups of lads putting around the mini-golf course, renegade swimmers taking over boat parties on the river, and most gathering at the hotspot of the festival, the Club Tropicana pool area. This is where I ritualistically headed every day after my daily Hawkesbury swim. The pool is the place to be during Playground’s daytime hours, the heat of the sun making it nearly impossible to really ever be too far from the water, and the rotating DJs make sure festival-goers are happily jamming to summer tunes all day long. Others choose to pose a bit and sunbathe on white deckchairs to the side or take cover under the canopy. The pool itself is, especially by the last day, akin to a human soup (fairly disgusting), but no one seems to mind. Beach balls are batted around, festival pranksters run, jump and splash everyone with massive cannonballs, and even those brave enough to take their little ones to Playground splash around in the wading area. The entire operation is overseen by one staunch, stern pool attendant who, armed with her megaphone, makes sure that everyone follows Club Tropicana regulations. That means: “NO DRINKS BY THE POOL!!” , followed closely by “NO SMOKING BY THE POOL!” One of my only regrets of Playground, actually, is the fact that I neglected to get a photograph taken with this wonderful woman; she was absolutely hilarious.

The People

We all happily leave sensibility behind for our Playground weekend, and as we find ourselves stripped of phone signal, of our mundane jobs, of the hustle and bustle of our daily Sydney existences – of all of life’s stresses – everyone suddenly becomes a lot friendlier, a lot happier, and a lot more, well, interesting! This is festival magic in action. What ensues, then, is probably one of the most communal existences most of us will ever experience. Everyone is friends here because everyone is, well – here. Together.

The time for Playgrounders to shine, and surely everyone’s highlight of the weekend is, of course, Fancy Dress Saturday. It’s a great idea if you ask me. Funnily enough, Fancy Dress Saturday has more or less evolved into Fancy Dress Weekend by now. I guess everyone just has too much fun to put their costumes away after a mere one-time use. The ultimate level of silliness is reached on this day; there’s just something about donning a costume, putting on some face paint, and dusting off that ridiculous hat that makes people get even more loose than normal. I guess it’s the fact that you get to be someone else other than yourself and therefore can feel pretty guilt-free about any naughty and debaucherous behaviour.

This year, there were all of the standards you would expect: pirates, doctors, cavemen and women, American Indians, police, Michael Jackson – the list goes on and on. The efforts that some went to really were impressive, as I saw fully blue-body painted Avatars, the Jamaican Cool Runnings bobsled team, a massive group of Scrabble letters who spent a great deal of time working out how to spell “Playground Weekender”, a kissing booth (don’t think he would have had any luck with the ladies otherwise), and Fred and Wilma Flintstone, who appeared in a full replica of their family car. Well done to everyone who came out and made the effort, making Saturday really a sight to see. For me, the even more amusing sight to see is Saturday evening/Sunday morning, with all of the broken, lost and abandoned bits of fancy dress strewn everywhere. All you can do is laugh when you imagine the story behind all of the rubble.

The Music

Like I said before, in my opinion, the music at Playground really plays a second fiddle to the rest of the weekend experience. Last year, I was much more excited about the line-up, which included Crystal Castles, Jose Gonzalez and The Streets. This year I was much less fussed about the acts who were playing – with the exception of one of my favorite UK indie bands, The Cribs – which included Lupe Fiasco, Orbital, Steve Lawler, Mark Farina, Ok Go, Gui Boratto, The Polyphonic Spree, and many many more. Sure, definitely not a bad line-up, but nothing overly thrilling there, either.

However, for all the Progressive House fans at Playground, 2010’s programme was a star-studded masterpiece. *Steve Lawler, Ewan Pearson, Jamie Lidell, Gui Boratto, Orbital, Mark Farina*…for all of the prog-lovers I spoke to, this was their dream come true. I remember one girl saying, as we danced in the Big Top tent to Mark Farina, that this was the moment she had “been waiting for the entire weekend.”

Unfortunately, my fellow American, Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, proved to be the disappointment of the weekend’s musical acts. His team took forever to set up the stage on top of already running late, and so by the time Lupe took the stage (about 1:30 AM), he really rushed through the entire set and it was clear that he wasn’t giving us the powerhouse of a live show he is known for. The whole thing was surprisingly quite rock-influenced, and if you ask me, he should stick to the Food and Liquor Lupe we all know and love; that’s what he does best. I spoke to a few of my fellow Playgrounders who enjoyed it, but overall, everyone was pretty pissed off that they waited and waited and waited only to get a sub-par, hastened performance. Lupe, you let us down!

My other major musical disappointment was seeing the Polyphonic Spree. They played a really chilled out set, which I’m sure a few fans enjoyed, but their slot was inappropriately wedged in between the Cribs and Lupe, and it really didn’t make the evening flow very well. To me, the Spree are like a poor Arcade fire afterthought – maybe that’s just me.

Now, on a much more positive note, The Cribs, those brothers from the small town of Wakefield, UK, totally rocked my world. I’ve always loved Weezer and I’ve always loved UK indie rock, so when these guys were introduced to me in 2004 I was delighted to find they were the talented baby of those parents. I have never had the opportunity to see them live before, and I was really pleased to see how talented they were onstage. Even more exciting was to see the new member of the Cribs, Johnny Marr, former guitarist of Modest Mouse and of the legendary Smiths, rocking it out onstage. He’s a great addition to the group; the guys all played really well together. Highlights of the set included Hey Scenesters, Another Number, and Men’s Needs, but I don’t think the guys heard me shouting “_Martell_! Martell!” over and over, because they didn’t play it. Hmmmm.

Another Chicago native, DJ Mark Farina, did the States proud and delivered an hour and a half of his signature acid, jazzy underground House music in the Big Top tent on Sunday evening. Mark’s music is normally the kind of thing I listen to in my bedroom, at night, or just to relax, chill out and have something nice on in the background. I never imagined myself dancing around to it, but Farina really crafted his set for the crowd, time and setting, and it worked so very well. His somewhat geeky appearance threw me for a bit of a loop (DJs are always look much less cool than they sound – sad truth) but he made my ears happy, and that’s what counts. I didn’t get to catch his Mushroom Jazz set later on, but my tent neighbours said it was awesome.

When I joined the droves to see the Playground closers, UK electronic band Orbital, I had zero expectations. To be honest, I hadn’t heard much of anything from them or about them before, and I knew only vaguely that they were an early electronic band of the 90s and had played at a few Glastonbury’s.

They opened with the politically-influenced track Forever, with vivid visuals up onscreen depicting the horrible death, destruction and violence humankind has inflicted upon itself in the past; it sent a chilling message, but I’m not sure if many of the spectators were really paying that much attention. I wasn’t able to pick out many more individual tracks, but they did play their massive hit Halcyon, much to the crowd’s pleasure. I wandered to the drinks tent a few times when the set veered into chillout mode, but I always came back, and in the end I enjoyed the proggy, electronic music that Orbital played. Being a fan of today’s electronica, it was pretty cool to see some of the roots of the music we are listening to now. All in all, a very fine musical ending to Playground; bravo, guys.
Then, before I had time to blink, I was waking up in my hotbox of a tent on Monday morning, to the sound of a man shouting the last ferry times over a megaphone. I shed a silent tear as I realized Playground had come to an end, and once again we joined the last queue for the ferry and said goodbye to all of our insensibility we so enjoyed over the previous four days. But have hope, Playground veterans and hopefuls alike, there’s always next year, and it’s bound to be even better!