Southbound: I came, I saw, It Kicked My Ass...

I have finally recovered from the mission that was Southbound so I thought I would put up a little post about the festival.

If there are two words that could describe the festival they would be "FUCKING DISORGANISED". This doesn't mean the festival was bad, far from it, it was just painful in a few ways I will go into detail about soon. Pretty much it comes down to I don't think that Sunset Events has ever really put on something that big and hopefully next time they will learn from this year.

Four things that made southbound crap (and three things that saved it)

CRAP: The Driving / Parking / Camping sitch.
The drive down was fine, but coming to the venue there was little in the way of traffic management and having 8000 people coming from three directions all trying to get into the one entry point there was aways going to be a problem. I ended up sitting in the traffic for around an hour and a half to get a park, and then we had to walk what I estimate at around 1.5 to 2 kilometers carrying all our shit (there was no returning to cars) to our camping spot. Painful. "FUCKING DISORGANISED"

CRAP: The amount of people (including the increased presence of teenyboppers and bogans)
The best part about southbound last year was it was just the right amount of attendees. It was comfortable without being empty and made the day just downright enjoyable. This year there was just too many bogans camping, and too many people in general. One thing I do have to say though: not many emos thank jebus... "JUST PLAIN GREEDY"

CRAP: The loos / showers vs. people ratio in the camping
With so many people camping there was always going to be a fight for toilets but this was just ridiculous. Showers were virtually non-existant and the toilets were festy by the evening on the FIRST NIGHT, not to mention how they were looking by the next morning. More toilets and showers would have helped this. "FUCKING DISORGANISED"

CRAP: The Modest Mouse debarkle
Modest Mouse were about the only band I really REALLY wanted to see. They were scheduled to play at 3pm (or there abouts) but the organisers left all their gear up in Perth, meaning they had to play later. Later ended up being closer to 11.25pm and with equipment problems they took ages to set up. Then their sound was stuffed and the lead singer was just so pissed off he started using the pickups on his guitar as a mike (it worked suprisingly well). In the end at 12pm the managers of the event end up shutting down the show, including fading out Basement Jaxx half way through a song, and it was all just a shambles. "FUCKING DISORGANISED"

Like I said, it wasn't a bad festival though and here a few of the best points:

SAVED: John Butler Trio, The Bees and the rest of the music goodness
I can put up with just about anything if I get to see some great music and at Southbound I got just that. I think I had a musical orgasm watching John work his magic on the guitar and I loved shaking my booty at the Bees. They were the two stand out bands of the festival for me, but even the rest of the line up was grand.

SAVED: Lauren, the hot mocktail girl
I spent $25 on mocktails just to get a chance to talk to Lauren, she was just the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Hopefully there will be more mocktails at other events soon.

SAVED: Chai tea in the mornings
I don't now how people can't be morning people, especially when camping. Most of the place missed out on the best part of the day. I grabbed a Chai Tea and a coffee at 6am and chatted with a few of the other people who were up at that time. We relaxed and breathed in the cool morning air. It was a great way to wake up before the crazy day.

Overall I had a great time. Thanks to Joel, Jeff, Dylan and Sonja, and Jess and James for being great camping buddies. Unfortunately I didn't take a camera, but if I get any photos off Sonja or Jess I will post them up here.

Roll on Good Vibrations!