Kelly's World

This is just after we arrived and before it had even rained for the day. We knew it was going to be a dirty, disgusting day.

Water. It’s such an abused substance; totally taken for granted. Last night I was praising its existance, and apologising for having neglected it all day.

Yesterday I also worked at a music festival, Summafieldayze. It’s all electronic music, played by DJ’s throughout the day. There was about 5 different stages, the majority of which are out in the open. I work with Ravesafe, a group who try to encourage safe partying and take care of those who have had “a bit much”. We have a huge tent full of mattresses and pillows, and loads of room for everyone to generally lay down and chill out for a bit. We work in conjunction with the police and St John’s Ambulance, who both have so much to do themselves during the day. If they have someone who is intoxicated they will bring them to us to take care of until they’re right to continue on their way. Likewise, we may call on their services if we have a person with a deteriorating condition, or if they start to act in an unacceptable manner. In addition to running the tent, we also run “patrols” of the festival area to see if we can find people in distress. At the same time we carry water sprayers and spray the crowd with water to help keep them cool.

I can’t sing the praises of this group enough, all of whom volunteer their time. We don’t get paid at all, but accept donations from the crowd during the day (which is then used to buy the volunteers a bite to eat, or something to drink). Our services are in high demand though, and generally from the word go the tent is in use. I can’t even begin to imagine how many lives we save just by offering the sheer basics, which are often neglected during the course of the day. We work damn hard.

But sometimes we need to focus more on ourselves though, as I found out.

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On the 27th February, Brisbane played host to a number of bands and dj’s in the form of a music festival, Future Music. Headline acts included The Prodigy, Franz Ferdinand, Empire of the Sun and David Guetta, just to name a few. I attended the concert with Ravesafe doing crowd care, basically making sure there wasn’t anyone passed out or in any danger (whether it’s as serious as unwanted sexual advances, to simply dehydration).

The day started off shaky, when on the way to Brisbane I encountered some heavy rain on the highway. From there, the rain pretty much never let up, although there were a few moments of clear skies (albeit short lived). The festival was based at Doomben Racecourse, which being a race track meant the majority of outside areas was made up of grass. Lots and lots of grass. And when you combine grassy areas with rain, you get mud. Lots and lots of mud. By the end of the day I had mud up to my knees, and my white shoes had turned a dark shade of brown.

During the day we saw people mud wrestling, or kicking/throwing mud at each other. Patrons wearing thongs soon discarded their footwear, choosing to walk around barefooted instead. The roller disco that had been set up soon turned into just another dance party area, as the water deemed the roller skating surface too dangerous. There were rumours during the day that some bands were going to pull out due to the rain, but thankfully the rumours didn’t prove to be fruitful.

Earlier in the morning there had also been set up issues. From what I was told, the guy who organised the festival had also been responsible for a festival the previous weekend. When packing up the equipment to relocate it to the racecourse, it had all been put into the truck backwards. This meant that electrical equipment (usually the last to put up) was at the front of the truck. Due the rain during the week, they were unable to take anything out of the truck at the risk of getting the electrical gear wet and ruining it. By the time the festival opened, the setup team were approximately 3 days behind schedule. They’d had to block off almost 3/4 of the festival grounds (main stage and two of the minor ones) while they finished setting up all the gates and safety equipment. By the time the crowd were allowed through to those areas the festival had been going for almost two hours. The need to stick to the schedule meant that any performers on the closed stages for the first two hours missed out on having an audience. A massive shame for them, and all due to a simple packing decision.

With regards to performances, I really only got a chance to see a couple of shows. I made sure I got to see Franz Ferdinand, who were absolutely fantastic. It may have been raining, but it was worth it to see them. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Back in 2009, I’d missed out on seeing The Prodigy at Big Day Out. It had only been a month since my knee surgery, and they were in the Boiler Room (a great big tent). The crowd was so large, and I was a bit fearful of hurting myself so we passed on seeing them. I was determined not to let that happen this year, especially after I was berated by a friend, a diehard Prodigy fan. At Future Music, they were the last to go on the main stage which meant that space wouldn’t be an issue. It was still raining, but I was set up with my drizabone and ready to see them. While their music isn’t quite my scene, I can definitely appreciate their talent. They worked that stage SO hard, andthe crowd were definitely in the moment. A sea of people just constantly jumping and dancing, it was wonderful to watch.

One band I wasn’t impressed with was Empire of the Sun. I enjoy their music, and their film clips make it look like they’d be incredibly interesting on stage. But when I got there I was horribly disappointed. The lead singer basically stood at the microphone singing, didn’t really move, didn’t dance, and was outright boring. They had dancers with them on stage, but they were doing the same move for minutes at a time! It was a yawn fest. They looked fantastic, they were wearing some pretty elaborate costumes, but unfortunately the rest of the performance didn’t match up. Disappointed, I left after about ten minutes.

Overall, the day was pretty good. It was my first time going to a festival where it turned into a sea of mud and I thought I coped pretty well. The crowd were fantastic considering. We didn’t have many drug or alcohol incidents, and everyone seemed to be really enjoying themselves. Really, you can’t ask for much more than that. But maybe I’ll buy some gumboots next year, just in case.

Every year I make a list of things to accomplish during the year. It’s not resolutions as such, like the usual “eat healthy, lose weight, get a new job” blah blah. It’s a list of things that I’m going to challenge myself to try, to make sure that each year I feel like I’ve actually achieved something. Given that we’re now almost at the end of the 7th month of the year I’m well overdue in an update to my 2009 resolutions.

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