Souhtbound - Part 1

Wow. What a weekend. I had the best 4 days this past weekend, and I must say Southbound 2010 was better than Southbound 2009. I didn't get sunburnt, I rekindled old friendships, made new friends, and saw one of my favourite bands without their shirts on.

Firstly camping was a lot nicer this year. I was in the staff area so there was less than 10,000 people cramped into one camping destination. We also had a little chill area and some nice trees. I didn't have to line-up for a long time either, which helped with the not getting sunburnt.

After arriving I headed down to the Southbound Radio caravan where I would be spending a majority of my weekend. It was about 10:30 and people were pouring into base camp. It was still fairly quiet, but I was surprised to see the amount of people already eager to start their southbound weekend. The radio caravan was pretty nifty. It had air-coniditioning and also a fridge, the perfect hang out for a hot weekend. We also had sunblock stored outside on the radio desk that I would lather on about once an hour. The radio desk was situated right near the entrance to base camp, so people heading back to their tents could see. This was both good and bad... It was good because we could see our audience, which made it quite fun. Bad because at the end of the night we received a ton of people and their drunken antics.

Day 1 for music was fairly good. The first band I caught was Whitley, who is apparently dating Sarah Blasko (just a bit of gossip =P). He was good, as always. My favourite part of his set, however, was when he turned around to a crowd member and shouted "Fuck You!". The look on his face said he wasn't joking, for a split second I was actually kinf of frightened =\. Next up was the Boxer Rebellion, a cool little band from London. They had a really nice sound, and I really got into them while my fellow southbounder Gerry fell asleep... Emiliana Torrini was very cute with her little European accent, which no one could understand. She mixed up her set a bit with a mixture of bouncy and mellow tunes while leaving Jungle Drum to the end. Next up was Jamie T, and boy did he deliver. His rhymes and his beats had me on my feet dancing the whole time he was on stage. From start to finish I was bobbing. Half way through his set Jamie's band came out to wish him a happy birthday, he was turning 24 (I think...). He then thanked us for singing happy birthday and being his unofficial birthday party which in turn made us his friends. He was very sweet, something I wasn't expecting.

After Jamie T we went and had dinner. For me - a bread roll and a piece of cake, I wasn't keen for pasta that night. I then went and fetched my jacket from my tent and headed back to the radio caravan ready for my late night shift. Dea, Lousie and I had the pleasure of hosting Southbound Radio from 10pm to 1am Saturday morning. We had a great time interviewing comedians, receiving free hot dogs withouth sausages, and watching people dance to the Venga Boys. I would also like to add that several boys pleaded us to play "We like to party" by the Venga Boys. It was a good night. We went to bed at 2am after Louise and I had a freezing cold outside shower, well worth it though and way better than showering with 100 people in the morning =]

Saturday may just have been my favourite day of the weekend. There were several awesome highlights. First up, Liam Finn. That guy is incredible!! I was so dissapointed to hear that he had to cancel last years Southbound performance, but this year he was there in all his musical royalty glory. I can't really use words to describe his performance other than out of this world. It seems that the stage he played on had become a little posessed. Ending their performance before Liam Finn were Philadelphia Grand Jury. They spent the last five minutes of their set screaming "I don't wanna party!!!!" while swinging their guitars around and thrashing their drums. At the end of Liam Finn's set he started swinging his guitar around while also thrashing his drums. It was quite the performance by both bands, very impressive indeed. Next up were The View. A bunch of cute little boys from Scotland, who are actually most likely in their 20's but all the same were pretty short and sweet. Oh boy... the next band I'm going to mention had my heart beating fast. Ever since the One Movement Festival I have had an undeniable crush on the guitarist/singer of Little Red. I was so excited to see them again at southbound and when I rocked up to the stage to see them walk out I coulsn't have been more pleased. They decided it was too hot that day to wear shirts. I took about a hundred photos (not an exxageration =P). After Little Red I headed back to the radio desk for my next shift stopping by Kate Miller-Heidke's set, which was as awesome as always. Radio was very boring that day, everyone was watching Art Vs Science... I wasn't too pleased about missing them, but Moby made up for it. After a mediocre performance by Wolfmother, Moby came to save the day. Before his set I could only tell you the name of one moby song, now he is forver embedded in my brain as one of the best artists I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing live. He sang a cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" encouraging 10,000 people to sing the trumpet solo, turned Sir Bowell Park into a rave, and successfully dealt Wolfmother one of the biggest burns of the century. Yes... Saturday ended well.

Here are a few photos of Friday and Saturday at Southbound...