Meredith Review
Pick Flower, Not Fight! Friday and Saturday at Meredith Music Festival 2010
by Lozza D and Silly T
This year Meredith celebrated its twentieth birthday, a huge achievement, having maintained the basic core values from the festival’s inception of good music, relaxed vibe & no dickheads. Amen.
Crazy weather conditions aside, spirits were high and musical delights at the ready:
Let us start at our festival end, the finale of Saturday night’s stellar live fare, Melbourne’s treasure The Dirty Three. Playing under the stars of Meredith Supernatural Ampitheatre, violinist and crazy genius Warren Ellis’s trademark kick dancing was on display in all its glory, alongside Mick Turner’s steadily beautiful guitar, and Jim White’s strangely emotive drumming, as they played rain songs in an attempt to rival their last Meredith performance in a raging electrical storm in 2004. This year’s crowd was treated to a Dirty Three first: all three members wearing jackets on stage. “It took us twenty years, but we made it!” Ah Warren… He also delighted the crowd with his inimitable song introductions such as ones about finding yourself in a hole and deciding to decorate, or a personal favourite- ‘this song is about lying in bed at night and wanting to drop a big rock on your head, just to quiet all those thoughts.’
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings delivered their sweet, impeccable soul complete with high energy boogie (what a woman!) to combat the pouring rain.
But what really came through for us was the excellent and diverse homegrown talent.. It spanned from Kimbra, a young songstress with a hell of a voice (just starting her career and we’re looking forward to seeing her develop) through crowd-pleasers Cloud Control and Little Red to Neil Finn, that amazing man who charmed us all, sharing the well known and loved melodies for a good old sing-along and even getting a guy up from the audience to play guitar with him on stage, nice. Then, all our little Meredith hearts went a flutter when he got Warren Ellis up to duet on Don’t Dream It’s Over. It’s always a special joy to see these humble musical icons do their thing together.
The Australian skill and favour for inhabiting foreign personas (a la Melbourne’s Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentleman) was in fine form with the Puta Madre Brothers opening proceedings on Friday evening Mexican style (via Princess Hill High Carlton) and C W Stoneking regaling us on Saturday afternoon through a misty drizzle with his signature deep south swamp (via the Northern Territory), top stuff.
Sadly we were all tuckered out by Sunday morning and had to hit the road so missed the annual Meredith gift, aka nudie run, but we trust that all involved had a liberating experience! And if we do make it back, ferris wheel at sunset, we have a date with you. A big thanks to all staff and volunteers, and congratulations on twenty years of laid back festival fun. And nice work on the composting toilets!
Tickets available now for Golden Plains, 12-14 March 2011, www.goldenplains.com.au to catch the likes of Joanna Newsom, Architecture in Helsinki and Boy & Bear.
Awesome photos by Ben Loveridge, capturing these fabulous artists performing their souls out- We salute you.
We spoke to a few Meredith lovers and will be playing the audio on the show Dec 23rd, and will upload it here as soon as possible!