Green grass, no mud, simply Golden

Band: Golden Plains Music Festival
Venue: Meredith Ampitheatre
Date: 9th and 10th March 2009
Reviewed By: Espylyn

Ah Golden Plains, come one, come all. No bottles, no dogs and no dickheads. It doesn't get much easier than that. Two car loads of us entered the site within minutes and found a cool possie on Highway to Hell path (turned out to be not so cool due to chairs being stolen - usually unheard of at Meredith), tents up and sorted it was time to get the beers ready in the mini esky's and head down to the ampitheatre. A sold out crowd as per usual, and it was good to see the Nolan's checking out the vibe too. A wander around and then it was time to plonk ourselves on the grass, yes green grass which was strange at first - ahh how I've missed it. The time felt like about 5pm cos we got there early but it was only 2pm! So.... lots of hilarity amongst the crowd (and us), funky costumes, silly costumes and many people in animal costumes (found out later that a facebook site called golden plains open range zoo is the reason behind all the animal costumes!). Mogwai were fantastic giving us a stellar instrumental performance, and Black Machines were great too (anyone got a flipper?). As someone in our group said, they are like Judith Durnam with Wolfmother! I was disapointed with Of Montreal, not as good as what I'd read about. You Am I topped the bill tonight, less crazy than usual but Tim Rogers in a green suit with a large bow tie (yuk!) gave the crowd what they came for - a jolly good time. A late night and a cosy warm tent before a sleep in and then time for upsie's to check out more bands around lunchtime. Two egg sandwiches later we saw Bridezilla who I find are always a great watch then Pivot who were a cruisy instrumental group, Old Crow Medicine Man had that hill billy kicking feel about them, definately got the crowd warming up! Time for more walkies and good ole hare krisna food - go the snack plate! Then it was time for more bands including The Church who have still got it and the crowd seemed very pumped for this set, The Drones and highlight of the night was Gary Numan, fantastic set, fantastic voice. As a volunteer it was my shift of midnight till 4am to work where, as crowd carer, with a monkey, we wandered around campsites making sure all was okay, and with looking at ping pong tables, pool tables and bars, all was okay in golden plains land.