This One Time, At Band Camp...

Last weekend I lost my music festival virginity. My friend Tom turned 30 and celebrated by inviting mates to spend the long weekend with him at the Port Fairy Folk Festival.

I have previously steered well clear of music festivals, as they involve camping, and camping fills me with pure dread. There are two kinds of families: those who go camping regularly and find it enriches their lives, and those who go camping this one time and their mattresses deflate and a prowler steals their stuff and it rains and the tent smells like cat wee because the cat weed on it (which no one realises until the rain releases the stench of feline urine) and everything sucks. Or perhaps - there are two kinds of families: those who go camping, and those who go to see 'The King and I.' Twice. Maybe you can guess which was mine.

So, camping = scary. And festival camping in a rural dustbowl full of dreadlocked djembe players while listening to John Butler sing songs about pine trees = no way. I was perfectly happy to hear music in pubs and spend holidays sleeping on actual beds, kthxbye.

That is until now. See, Tom is the first of my friends to crack three-oh. And he and his ladylove, Snooze, are certified awesome. So I decided to be brave.

I snagged a ride down with Curtis and Sasha, who recently became the first in my 'peer group' (such as it is) to get married. To my immense relief they expressed a similar anxiety about camping, with Curtis even declaring that 'we haven't spent tens of thousands of years evolving as a race to be stuck in a tent in the middle of nowhere.'

It was a long drive. We got stuck in horrible traffic coming through Geelong. 'I've got it in for Geelong,' said Curtis darkly. 'They should just pull it down and start again,' agreed Sash.

It was dark by the time we arrived. Tom and Snooze had staked out a patch upon which about 20 of our friends-and-relations had already constructed tents. Curtis and Sasha had a trunkful of elite camping equipment, and a total lack of any clue as to its assemblage. Just as I was standing there thinking, fuck, we are going to be here all night sobbing into the instruction manual, Tom rolled up his sleeves and quietly stated, 'I'm going to get my head lamp.'

I stared at him. Head lamp? Saywha'now? To explain: We all know one another through (wince) student theatre. Tom is an actor and former choirboy who sometimes wears an 'Importance of Being Earnest' cast t-shirt and who I first met shortly after seeing him perform 'The Jet Song.' Drama club people aren't meant to know stage left from stage right, let alone possess wearable light-sources and casually construct large tents in the pitch black after several beers! Yet here was Tom, striding about manfully and delivering instructions such as 'grab onto that toggle' and 'align the flies'. Good lord! He was ably assisted by another friend, CC:

CC: Be careful of that pole, Curtis, if you pull too hard it might...
Curtis: *holding two pieces* Er... break in half?

The next day everyone got out their festival guides and beetled off to various events. Well, when I say everyone I obviously mean everyone except one particular person who spent much of the day cataloguing and replacing the various things she forgot in the psychotic panic that characterised her packing attempts. You'll be glad to know that if you ever arrive in Port Fairy without, say, a towel, toothpaste, socks, sunglasses or a belt, they are easily bought, although you might have to endure the scorn of nosy old ladies in the shops who say loud things like 'Can you believe that girl came all the way here without any of those things?' And you might also only find one belt in the charity shop that fits and it might be a really cheesy one clearly originally bought from Supre for 14.95 by an 11 year old girl and have the letters NYC emblazoned on the buckle, and also it might be crap and keep coming undone the whole weekend but you're two embarrassed to take it back in case the old ladies talk about you again. Apparently that's what happened to one particular person.

Perhaps the most unpleasant part of camping experience is the issue of one's toilette. The Port Fairy ablution experience involved venturing into 'Mouse's' portable facilities.


You will notice this hygiene-based company has thoughtfully chosen to name themselves after a rodent.


I followed the example of my friend Mags, who declared she was not going to shower in anything represented by a nappy-wearing mouse, especially one unbuttoning a flap in it's diaper 'as if it really needs to poo in a hurry.'

Luckily, fellow TomFest 2007 attendees Virge and Sophie had use of an actual house, a human-sized one made out of wood and brick with plumbing, and were good enough not only to open it up for an official birthday party one night, but also to allow those of us traumatised by the Mousey trucks to have a real shower. Thus I showered once in three days. Skanky yes, but at least I kept my dignity.

At this same official party we gave Tom a group present of an hawsome fancy camera. I think he liked it, he kept making squealing noises.

Many festival goers looked like my Mum's friends - smiley middle aged social workers and teachers in zip up fleecy vests. This led to an amusing moment when Curtis declared he was sick of baby boomers and I, who grew up lovingly ensconced in the arms of a thriving inner-city baby boomer groove, sprang to their defence. A few moments later we walked into the Fesitval bar tent where a conga-line of inebriated older ladies were swaying and screaming 'Swe-e-e-et Caroline' at the top of their lungs. 'See what I'm talking about?' shouted Curtis.

There was also a huge contingent of underage poppets, or 'spankettes'. This lot were frankly disturbing as they seemed to be running around loud and boozed and totally unsupervised. I realise this makes me sound like a complete grumpy old woman, but it was actually kind of worrying. My friend Fishy's mum is a counsellor at a nearby high school and has spent the last week or so trying to repair the damage. Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be unsupervised and drunk on a beach at Port Fairy!

Pete developed a taste for the gourmet sausages on sale, and was often heard wondering aloud if it was wrong to eat a kransky with the lot for breakfast. (Verdict: if it's wrong, then dammit I don't want to be right!)


Ah, the God Botherers. I hated them! They had a large ugly bus with retarded slogans (see above) plastered all over it, and their massively loud P.A. could be heard blasting ALL DAY AND NIGHT with woeful God-rock. I really hate these kind of nutjobs because they give regular Christians a bad name. Among the many creepy and unsubtle tactics designed to convert folk was the use of shitful puppets singing rock and pop songs that had been re-worded in the lamest way imaginable.


If anyone can prove that seeing a felt cow-puppet mime a version of 'Sweet Home Alabama' which has been re-worded 'Sweet Home... In Heaven!' (genius!) caused anyone to convert I will personally perform a liturgical dance at Mass next week. Another gold lyricism was 'GOD! LOVES EVERY DAY PEOPLE!' (As Pete pointed out, don't they realise the original song was written by the one man who has perhaps consumed more drugs that any other person on earth?)

Musical stylings that were very much to my liking: Habib Koite and Bamada, who completely went off. I also give the Jelly thumbs up to Jordie Lane, Lisa Miller, and the extraordinary Liz Stringer, whose music gives me goosebumps. Mags, Rosie and I spent our final morning enraptured at the feet of Eric Bibb. The man is a miracle and I have ordered his cds instead of ripping them off Limewire, which is a big deal, believe me.

There were other people that were obviously talented but not really my thing. One such act had been going less than a minute when Pete, sitting to my right, started to wriggle like a 6 year old.

Pete: I reckon I've only got another five minutes of this left in me.
*the woman performing lets out a high-pitched 'yiiiiiiip!' noise*
Pete: Well, that just shaved two minutes off.

By all accounts Luka Bloom (who, the Redhead pointed out, looked freakishly like Greg Kinnear) was very enjoyable. I'm ashamed to say that while he was performing I was sitting drunkenly in a tent with Curtis, Sasha, Mags and Rosie, trying to eat cheese and biscuits without getting them on my thermorest. This led to a now-infamous incident that involved us going to hear Lior, and finding ourselves completely surrounded by children no older than 16, many of whom were drunk, most of who were cuddling their emo boyfriend/girlfriend, and all of whom were convinced that every word uttered from Lior's lips was like, the Holy Gospel on how to live life and like, go on an amazing journey, man. As if this wasn't hideous enough, Lior himself achieved new heights of pretension even for an god of acoustic rock when he petulantly asked the crowd, 'This next song is like really special to me. Do you think you could be QUIET while I play it?'

According to other people, at this point I took a dislike to a girl in front of me who (a pox on this disgusting jingoistic teenage trend!) had an Australian flag painted on her face. And I apparently decided to kick her. Now that I type it out it sounds utterly mental but at the time it seemed quite reasonable. My memory is very blurry, but apparently this led to an horrific juvenile group 'kick the spankette' activity which eventually backfired when they all turned on us and started to say (quite reasonable) things like, 'if you're not here for the music, maybe you should leave?' 'Oh my God, they're bullying us!' shrieked Rosie. So we legged it. And then I spat on one of them. Or at least that's what Mag's reckons, but she's also an actress and they are prone to exaggeration.

All in all, it was a very cool long weekend. The camping wasn't even scary, but this was possibly because I ended up sleeping in Tom and Snooze's Party Tent, which is roughly the size of the Taj Mahal.* And I only got lost and cried once - bonus! The music was great, but even better was the company. How often to you get to go on holiday with 20 of your friends?

The Jelly Verdict
Tom and I have known each other for some years now, but I think it's fair to say it took us a while to become real friends. Speaking for myself, it was well worth the effort, which has revealed one of the softest hearts I know. It dawned on me recently that, in the words of the great** Bruce Springsteen, 'maybe we ain't that young anymore.' People are coupling up, and by the time I turn 30, a lot of my friends will already have babies. And that, of course, will change things forever. I am very grateful that Tom and Snooze encouraged everyone to attend TomFest2007. At least we'll always have Port Fairy - the group holiday where we we sat around in folding chairs, listened to music, drank beer, I may or may not have spat at some teenagers, and Tom wore a headlamp.




*I did have my own tent (courtesy Fluffy - whose current post you must ALL go and read because it's amazing) but as there was plenty of room in the Taj, I figured I didn't need it. However, any time I have mentioned this to people, they have immediately wondered if I might have, um, 'cramped' Tom and Snooze's 'style'? Yikes! Of course this is didn't even occur to me! I'm not a pervy girl, I swear! Tom's sister was sleeping there too! But oh God, did I deprive them of some kind of 30th birthday conjugal right? *is naive*

** Bruce Springsteen's greatness may or may not be debatable, although the level of wankerdom exhibited by me in quoting him this way is probably not.