Woo hoo! A Festival!

Yesterday I went to my first and only music festival for the season. V Festival kicked off yesterday at Centennial Park. It's not the most accessible location for public transport and requires a lot of walking, or a lot of waiting for buses. I chose the former, which apparently I am too old for. But apart from every muscle in my body screaming by the end of the night, I had a good time.

The first band I saw was Modest Mouse, who I knew absolutely nothing about. They were pretty cool - punk, blues, country all mixed together, with a lead singer with very freaky eyes.

I wandered over the hill to see Roisin Murphy, but decided quickly that her kind of pop was not for me, so back over the hill to The Jesus and Mary Chain. This is a band that passed me by at the time, but they seem to receive a great deal of reverence from the music industry so I was interested to see why. I still don't know why. They were ok, but I don't quite understand what the hype is about.

Then back over the hill for Air. What can I say? They looked like particularly tragic Little River Band film clip and the music was.... lift music. On the plus side I got to organise some logistics for our upcoming weekend away.

Back over the hill (you're starting to see where the aching muscles came from) for Queens of the Stone Age. Tight and professional, the problems with the sound that I hadn't really noticed before became much more apparent. They kept losing the top end. Very annoying. The music was good, no surprises, but they rock.

After that, I wandered around, bought the world's most expensive corn cob ($5!) and drifted past Duran Duran. I don't know - the sound was good, but I haven't become a fan in the last 25 years.

And then back over the hill to The Smashing Pumpkins. They were everything I expected. Self indulgent, arrogant and really good musicians. The sound was a little better than it had been, but was still irritating at times. They didn't play my favourite song (Zero), but they did play a medley of covers including Britney's "Piece of Me" and AC/DC's "Let there be Rock". What more can you ask for?

I missed my normal dose of summer festivals, I'll be trying to head off to as many as possible next year. Even if I am an old fart. :)