Where does one begin dissecting the cluster fuck-up that was Heatwave 2012? Maybe the feverish looking guys who ran up to the gate as you went in, desperately trying to sell off their tickets after being told that D12 probably wouldn’t show up? Or the announcement on a flashing roadworks sign screaming ‘NO ALCOHOL’, confirming the organisers had stuffed up their liquor licensing and we were now expected to sit out in thirty six degree heat with little more than Acai berry popsicles, hot dogs and yet another brand of energy drink to see the day through?

To estimate the Sidney Myer Music Bowl as being a third the way full is putting it optimistically and those who did persist in sticking around looked, well, pretty underwhelmed. The only thing the crowd found mildly entertaining that whole afternoon was when Obie Trice got everybody to flip the bird with both hands and wave their arms around to the beat, which felt sort of satisfying if you closed your eyes and imagined you were looking right at the festival organisers while you were doing it. At least Obie Trice got to have some kind of fun, skulling a half bottle of vodka (just to rub it in?) before picking a girl out from the crowd to come onstage up to dry-hump her from behind. There seemed to be some frantic waving going on backstage, reminding them that underage girls were there and, uh, she was probably one of them, but they continued on unfazed.

On the massively overshadowed plus side, D12 did eventually show up and though Crazytown were an interesting choice having released sweet nothing in a while, the guys put on a show that wasn’t too far off decent, notwithstanding persistent sound issues and the understandable dummy spit by Shifty Shellshock towards the end of their set. For a brief, miraculous moment when Tech N9ne came out later in the night, their brilliance and raw energy as rappers and entertainers had some of us wondering whether the event might not be a total waste of time and space.

As Kid Cudi came onstage with a full live band to finish up the festival, that glimmer of hope began to spark a little brighter. But then twenty minutes into his set the unthinkable happened: as if somehow hell-bent on maintaining a consistent level of crappiness throughout the entire festival, the organisers gave the signal for Cudi wind up his set in five. How they managed to let the previous acts run that far overtime past the sound restriction of 10pm – even subtracting no-show Chamillionaire’s set from the equation – is a time management fail of shameful proportions.

You know things are bad when both the headline act and the entire crowd declare out-and-out anarchy but that’s exactly what happened. Shouting that he was promised an hour-long set, Cudi continued on with Up Up and Away, only to have his mic cut off midway through Cudi Zone. After the guitar and synths cut out, Cudi jumped offstage as bouncers tried to grab him, kicking over a light and a speaker as his backup band just stood there with their arms up in either defeat or frustration.

Predictably, the crowd got ugly, throwing bottles onstage and kicking chairs and bins as some even started crying, coming to terms with having spent up to $150 to be lied to, short-changed and even denied the small comfort of a stiff drink to take the edge off. The only consolation is to think of what alcohol would’ve done to tip the balance on a crowd that close to staging an all-out riot but really, that’s not a whole lot to be thankful for.

The real shame is that the Australian festival scene really could do with a strong hip hop festival on its calendar and though patchy, the Heatwave line-up could’ve come close to delivering. Tech N9ne and Kid Cudi, in particular, deserved so much more from the organisers, as did the rest of us. Let’s hope acts of their calibre they don’t write off ever returning to Australia, even if the rest of us cross Heatwave right off our list if – god forbid – this shambolic excuse for a music festival ever happens again.