For the 2009 Stereosonic tour inthemix gave one lucky punter the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to head out on the road with Stereosonic as our ‘live festival reporter’, sending back updates and pics from events on the 2009 tour. The lucky recipient of this once-in-a-lifetime prize was John Treadgold, and here he gives us his wrap-up of the whole experience!

I threw my room key at the concierge as I dashed out of the hotel and slid into the waiting limo. I had been rudely awoken five minutes earlier by a well-mannered receptionist who informed me that a car had been waiting for an hour and that my flight to Sydney was leaving in 30 minutes. “Shit.”

As I sank into the car’s soft-leather seat my pounding head brought back cloudy memories of the previous night. The Sheraton’s hotel bar, badly mixed martinis, Ajax, Drop The Lime and Perth’s impossibly beautiful women. Sydney girls dress better, but in Perth, girls can be both hot and nice.

The Sydney gig seemed so long ago. Looking over my Facebook posts, the memories returned. Axwell’s buttery-smooth remixes, Laurent Garnier and his band playing a sublime set to a near empty Horden Pavilion, and Drop The Lime serving an onslaught of grime, dubstep, breaks, d’n’b and even some Beach Boys and Elvis, just to fry the fragile minds of the feverish crowd.

I moved from stage to stage with the privilege of a AAA pass. I highly recommend getting your hands on one of these, they really are fantastic. Backstage, side of stage, the photo-pit and clean toilets. Life is good at the top. Deadmau5 played an afternoon set in Canberra and made it to Sydney in time to close the night. I asked him what he though of Canberra, “Yeah good…. lots of kangaroos.” We drank beer and Red Bull and vodka and shots of Jager.

I wandered home, sweaty and sore. Lusting for bed and dreading the next morning’s 7am flight to Perth. I’d eat a kebab and be in bed before midnight, I told myself. I got home, got changed and drank gin on a Surry Hills rooftop till 4am. Cabs turned up on time but the plane was leaking oil. The pilot made us wait for three hours until he found another one.

Arriving at the Claremont Showgrounds in Perth was surreal. Our van drove us in the back gate and after getting my AAA pass and a beer, we weaved our way straight in to Miss Kittin & The Hacker’s sun-drenched dancefloor. We were on the other side of the country and getting ready to do it all again. There were giant men with tribal tattoos and delicate cans of Vodka Cruiser, tanned women in short denim shorts and a VIP tent serving mojitos. Renaissance Man played loud house music and Fedde Le Grand’s fireworks singed my hair.

I arrived at the side of the stage as The Bloody Beetroots got ready to play. The crowd was baying for blood. I sauntered between the mosh-pit and stage as 10,000 rabid Beetroot junkies screamed their desperate pleas. They dropped their first beats and the impossibly skinny Justin Robertson screamed into the microphone. Hearts melted and heads exploded. Sweaty bodies, twitching in ecstatic glee, were pulled from the heaving mass.

The beers backstage were cold and so was the jet-black night sky. We loaded into vans and were delivered back to our hotel. I put on a pair of jeans, washed my face, drank two single serve bottles of vodka and headed down to the bar. Onelove were looking after the bar tab so I ordered a Martini and put my hand on Drop the Lime’s shoulder, “I always thought American DJs were shit, but you fuckin’ rocked!” “Hey fuck you dude,” he joked in reply.

I spent the week sleeping and arose the next Friday with a maniacal grin. Melbourne was the first stop and Onelove didn’t disappoint, they put us up at the Langham Hotel. It was divine. At the Melbourne Showgrounds the lines were long and the crowd was fevered with anticipation. The mainstage was a seething mass all day long thanks to Miss Kittin, Axwell and Fedde.

I was drawn to the dark and sweaty confines of the Sneekerpeeps stage. Umek and Marco Carola provided the beats and I danced the daylight hours away. Laurent Garnier played the final set. He danced on stage as the conductor, shaping the varied sounds of his band into an electronic symphony. The Man With the Red Face was the closing track, it was a treat to experience the saxophone section live and loud.

The crowds had taken it out of me and the Langham has impossibly soft beds. I put myself to sleep before midnight, which was lucky because we were off to Brisbane the next day. The flight was brief and it was a relief to step into the muggy Queensland air. We spent the morning in the spa of the Merriton Hotel. The 5th floor pool gave us a nice view over the city. Soon enough we were back into the thick of it. We shared a bus to Eagle Farm Racecourse with Chicane, Ajax and Surkin.

With AAA lanyards firmly attached we wandered between the stages. Sneekerpeeps was on the grass and under the trees, Umek played cruisey tech house. Drop The Lime played the Outrage stage. With sun pouring onto his stage he twitched, danced and pounded the sound system. The Bloody Beetroots destroyed the main stage. They jumped into the crowd, jumped on their decks, threw shoes, drank vodka and gave the crowd exactly what they wanted. Mayhem.

Deadmau5 did his thing to close the night and soon we were back at the hotel and soaking in the spa once more. We debated our plans for the night and after some red wine and a little prodding we were wandering through the Valley. I’d never been to Family, but I’d heard it was fantastic. I wasn’t disappointed. The place was huge but always seemed intimate. The upstairs room had a relentless strobe light and it kept me mesmerised for hours. Best club in Australia, hands down.

I woke up in my hotel on Monday morning, groggy and bleary eyed, to the sound of my alarm. There was a bus waiting outside that would take us to the Brisbane River, where we’d spend the day on a boat drinking Corona and discussing the tour that was with the festival crew and artists. What an experience. Would I do it again? That sounds like a rhetorical question.

Check out all the pics and updates from John’s momentous journey in the galleries below, and be sure to also check out all our Stereosonic 2009 coverage including full event galleries and the inthemix.tv feature episode:

> Sydney full photo gallery
> Perth full photo gallery
> Melbourne full photo gallery
> Brisbane full photo gallery

> inthemix.tv at Stereosonic