On the back of a hurricane that started turning when you were young...
Song: "When You Were Young"
March 28th
Today I went to Australia's V Festival, which is essentially the exact same thing as the Virgin Festival in the United States (which I went to for the first time this past summer).
Hilde, Vilde, Amy and I left around noon to get to the festival. We met up with Vilde's friend from Norway and then got to the gates around 2pm. When we got there, the old schedule was being handed out as the official schedule, so I ran over to where I thought I had missed 45 minutes of Jenny Lewis's concert. I had not. Instead, I had missed 5 minutes of Duffy's concert. I stayed for that show which was pretty amazing. Duffy had a lot of good quips in between her songs and I really need more of her music. She also sang with the megaphone a few times.
Elbow was also great, but I left their show a little early to get to the actual Jenny Lewis concert across the park. True, I really like Jenny Lewis's non-solo work (Rilo Kiley, The Postal Service background vocals...) better than her actual solo work, but I still knew most of the songs and really enjoyed myself there. Her boyfriend Johnathan Rice, famous in his own right according to me, was also on stage with her.
After that, I went to what I thought was the M83 show, but the festival had YET AGAIN changed the schedule. Grrr... I'm sure there was a reason for it all, but it was incredibly frustrating. I found the M83 show and the whole 15 minutes I got to see of it was really good.
I then grabbed food. I decided to get something to eat next to a concert so I could hear something while I was in line (or in the queue as Australians would say). The Italian flatbread station looked good, but its line went epically slower than any other line. About halfway through I contemplated switching lines, but I was too stubborn. I had been in that line so long, I was attached to it. The concert I was next to was Razorlight, which I enjoyed from the side.
After that, I experimented with The Kills show and I didn't enjoy it very much, so I left and got something to drink in anticipation for the Kaiser Chiefs show. I then got my concert shirt between stopping for hydration and Kaiser Chiefs.
I didn't stay there very long because I was too excited about going to the Snow Patrol show but it was cool while I stayed.
Snow Patrol was phenomenal. Gary Lightbody is one of my favorite singers and was incredibly entertaining to watch, especially when he forgot his words and just giggled.
He also stopped mid-song to tell these guys behind me that they looked way too muscular to be at this show and they definitely hadn't been drinking enough beer at the pub. He then took off his shirt and told us that next time he comes back to Sydney he's going to have a six-pack.
It was also Earth Hour at 8.30 pm so Gary was obliged by the festival to tell us about how we should be responsible with energy, etc. He pretty much just said, "hey, if I tell you to do this, I'm a major hypocrite as a musician who uses tons of this energy at every show, so go read about it on the internet instead." He then sang "Run" in the dark (with a flashlight on him) until halfway through when the lights lit up (at "light up, light up as if you have choice"). It was phenomenal.
I have most of it on video but due to many problems with my computer, I can't get it to the internet just yet. I think it might be coming. UPDATE: It has arrived!
After Snow Patrol wrapped up, the crowd made its way to see The Killers, who were the official headlining act of the festival, and unlike the festival at home, it didn't completely conflict with the other top acts (um, like when Jack Johnson played in the exact middle of the Foo Fighters set last summer. Uncool American Virgin Fest, uncool.) I didn't miss too much of The Killers act, and I'm glad I didn't because they put on quite a show, complete with fireworks and fake palm trees! (They might have been real palm trees, I wasn't close enough to see.)
After the show, Vilde, Hilde, and co. left to get home. We left out the wrong gate and then had to pay for a bus instead of catching the free one, but whatever. It actually took us to Circular Quay, which is where we wanted to go anyway.
We were going to meet up with a group of friends down at The Rocks. On the way, I ran into Laura and Brooke, two other UMD girls on the street as we got off the bus, and then into Cam and Maeve as we got closer to The Rocks. Our utter exhaustion got to us before we made it all the way and we ended up going to McDonald's instead. Leaving McDonald's we ran into a few more people we knew from Macquarie. We then caught the bus and went home.
killers rocked melb v fest too. :-)
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