Live Review: Here's All The Highlights From This Year's Meredith Music Festival

Another year, another Meredith in the bag. So now that it's wrapped and we've all had time to wash the dust off, what's the verdict? Did everyone’s favourite Aunty deliver for the 29th edition of Victoria's top fest? 'Ken oath she did. In no particular order, here’s our run of the weekend's highlights in case you missed (or maybe just can’t recall) some of the best things about Meredith Music Festival 2019.

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Julia Jacklin

We could have written the crux of Jacklin’s blurb before we ever set foot in The Sup' – she is always a guaranteed highlight. As usual, her banter is minimal but on point. "This is for anybody who’s gonna break up with someone at this festival,” introduces Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You and we find out Pool Party was about "swimming and being depressed". Her voice is as powerfully emotive live as it is on record and even on the quieter songs her alt-country, Aus-folk trills and drawls are able to transfix the crowd. Side note: Jacklin's cotton candy-pink prom dress makes her a strong early contender for best dressed in fest. 

Julia Jacklin @ Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

Briggs 

No one makes an entrance like Briggs. He is straight up on the blocks for a, "Say, fuck yeah!" "Fuck yeah!" call-and-response and hands are sky-high from the get-go. His Life Is Incredible art (Briggs’ smiling face in a gold circle) is projected on the screen backdrop, the original blue sky backing now block red and dotted with gold stars. It gives off strong North Korean propaganda vibes and, to be honest, if Briggs drops the 'Senator' for 'Supreme Leader' we wouldn’t complain. Unfortunately, Briggs' AB Original bandmate Trials can’t make it – apparently he’s broken his foot. Jesswar jumps on stage though and tears it up, while Lindsay "The Doctor" McDougall shows off his shred chops with some meaty, fuzz-heavy guitar and Jayteehazard scratches away at the decks.

Briggs @ Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

The Supernatural Amphitheatre

So overwhelming is the beauty of The Supernatural Amphitheatre – especially at night when countless doof sticks illuminate the hillside and there are hands in the air as far as the eye can see – that sometimes (especially during DJ sets) the spectacle pulls focus from the action on stage. Your calves might very well ache as a result of dancing on a sloped surface all weekend, but everywhere in The Sup' is prime real estate. Those festive, coloured lanterns that are evenly distributed down each side of the hill leading towards the stage are also fantastic markers when planning rendezvous points.

Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

Liam Gallagher

Sure, many raised eyebrows accompanied the announcement that Liam Gallagher had been belatedly added to the 2019 Meredith line-up, but we immediately recognise the Supernatural Amphitheatre as the perfect setting for a biblical Wonderwall singalong. So confident is Gallagher (and, let's face it, when is he not!?) leading into the first chorus that he stands back and takes sips from a bottle of water while all assembled belt out, "Because maybeeeeeeeee...". The lairy Mancunian boasts a lung capacity that would rival a free-diver, therefore we can't even come close to sustaining that note! Gallagher then puts the bottle back down on the stage beside him so last minute that we think he is gonna let us continue on lead vocals, but, no! With the agility of a ninja, he springs back to the mic with barely a millisecond to spare: "Today was gonna be the day..." Oh, and he also somehow makes playing a recorder look cool, tilting his head back and going 'look-Mum-no-hands' style as if necking a massive shot. 

Liam Gallagher @ Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

The Meredith Community Tucker Tent

The people at the Meredith Community Tucker Tent do the Lord’s work, no mistake. Some mornings out there in The Sup', the sunlight streaming through your tent in the morning might just be enough to finish you off if it wasn’t for the knowledge that just a stone’s throw away, the Tucker Tent crew are hard at work churning out egg and bacon sandwiches to refuel the unwashed masses. They never judge either, no matter how blank-eyed and bleary you are. Lifesavers.

The City Of Ballarat Municipal Brass Band

Meredith regulars already know that the wholesome good vibes supplied by City Of Ballarat Municipal Brass Band are the perfect way to blow away the hangover cobwebs, bypass the comedown and kick straight back into revelry gear. They've been performing the opening Saturday slot at Meredith since 2005 and this year the audience participation is at an all-time high. After a punter clutching a bunch of bananas becomes our designated "band leader", he leads an energetic crew of marchers on an adventure around The Sup', distributing said bananas to seated festival-goers en route. We jive along with Rock Around The Clock and sway with arms around each other's waists in remembrance of lost loved ones during Hallelujah. Then, after set's close, four musicians join us in the crowd, getting up close and personal to lead us through two irresistible classics: The Hokey Pokey and Chicken Dance.

DJ Koze 

After "unforeseen circumstances" prevent London's Steam Down from making the trip Down Under for the 3.10pm Saturday slot at this weekend's Eucalyptic Odyssey, DJ Koze gets the call. Such is this German DJ/producer's deck wizardry that even the more DJ allergic among us can't help but bust a move and feel like they've had eccies for brekky. DJ Koze's console is surrounded by pot plants and there is so much smoke on stage at one point that the DJ is forced to helicopter a towel around in order to disperse it. Props to the lady in red (bumbag included) up on shoulders in the front section holding a vintage rotary-dial phone, pretending to be on a call and occasionally presenting the receiver to punters claiming, "It’s for you!” during his remix of Lapsley's Operator. As close to a blissful, Ibiza day-party experience as Meredith could possibly get. 

Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

No dickheads

Aunty Meredith has managed to write the 'no dickheads' rule into the festival's DNA and everybody benefits. The respect from festival-goers for each other and the site is stellar. Plenty of people hold on to empty tins and assorted trash until they can stick them in a bin, while volunteers zigzag through the crowd grabbing any rubbish that does make it to the ground. Couches are dutifully retrieved from the Sup' after The Gift. We even notice a couple of pocket butt bins around. Last Golden Plains, we wrote that someone in our camp lost their phone at 8.30am and had it back in hand from lost and found by quarter-past nine. That good egg energy is everywhere over the weekend. This reviewer leaves a tote bag on the logs by the loos and a bloke chases us all the way to the stage to return it. Sometimes Meredith feels like a few thousand good Samaritans getting loose in the bush and it is a powerful vibe.

Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

The Sup' toilets

Meredith boasts that they are "renowned for having plentiful, permanent, private, well-designed-and-built, waterless composting toilets". And you know what? They’re absolutely right. Not only are they water-free, treated on-site and completely composted, the Supernatural Amphitheatre might be the only festival site in the world where you can hit the head on day three without a hazmat suit and bated breath. We love that people take the time to decorate them as well. The Order Of The Transcendental Temple, Future Sex Space Rave and Miami Vice stalls all get top marks.

Digital Afrika

So there we are pulling shapes to the rapturous Afro-house sounds of Future Roots and Si Fixion (aka Digital Afrika) – while feeling incredibly unco in comparison to their incandescent Afro-Colombian dancer Karen Bravo – when on grooves Remi Kolawole, the rap component of REMI. What!? That's when the Meredith massive feel really spoilt. Irresistible African percussion gets us grinding while sparkling melodies build, layer upon layer. Experiencing Digital Afrika live is just about as joyous as it gets, Bravo sure is aptly named and Kolawole's star quality is also undeniable. Seek Digital Afrika out pronto. 

Digital Afrika @ Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

Viagra Boys

Viagra Boys completely steal the show. Singer/evil-looking bastard Sebastian Murphy hits the stage in a pair of speed dealers and a shirt with "PISCES OF SHIT" written on it in sharpie. The specs never leave his face but the shirt comes off almost immediately and a tatted-up beer gut has never looked so sexy. The energy is pure chaos. Oskar Carls’ sax screeches like an animal dying on the roadside over chugging post-punk rhythms and Korg beats. They have lyrics you can really latch onto ("We’re in town cooking up some stuff/Psychedelic amphetamine, yeah, put it up your butt") and Murphy delivers them in sinister mutters and howls, stalking the stage, getting up in the front row’s faces, now lying on that gut and drooling VB all over the stage. How do you follow that?

Viagra Boys @ Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

"Mate, what are you doing here!?"

It feels like half of Melbourne rolls up for Meredith and even if you’re a bit lax on general group planning (guilty) you’re 100 percent going to run into your crew. How good is wandering down to the setlist sign right of stage to see who’s up next and seeing ten familiar faces with the same idea? Or waiting at the toilets only to have someone you haven’t seen since last Meredith come out of the cubicle?

Amyl & The Sniffers 

After first gracing the Meredith stage in 2017, when they opened the festival in the 4pm Friday slot, recent Best Rock Album ARIA recipients Amyl & The Sniffers score the coveted 10.05pm Saturday night slot just two years on. During their set, guitarist Dec Martens tells us that their car broke down en route to Meredith in 2017, but this time they got a hire car – moving up in the world, huh? Drummer Bryce Wilson sports footy shorts, Martens wears mum jeans pulled right up his crack and bassist Gus Romer is decked out in a Viagra Boys tracksuit. Amy Taylor really is the lovechild of Chrissy Amphlett and Bon Scott. Her banter is terrific – “Don't let anyone touch you if you don’t want them to and if they do, slash them!”; "I just wanna say my personal opinion, Fuck Scott Morrison! Suck my arsehole!" – and as she careens around the stage, gesticulating like a wild thing, we almost get whiplash trying to keep her in our sights. After a stint in the crowd, Taylor clambers back up onto the stage with the mic cord tangled in loops around her neck and is so immersed in her performance that she doesn't even notice. Their vibe is electric, they perform like tour-fit pros and stadium stages the world over await Amyl & The Sniffers. Catch this band in small local sweatboxes while you still can.

Amyl & The Sniffers @ Meredith Music Festival. Photos by Joshua Braybrook.

Gordon Koang

Gordon Koang is a living ray of sunshine. It is the perfect set for mid-Sunday, Koang’s cheeky grin and message of love sweeping away at least some of the mental fog that has built up over a mildly excessive weekend. People slumped about the Amphitheatre are briefly revivified, trudging down the hill to bounce and shake away the last bit of gas in the tank to Koang strumming and plucking away on the thom, a traditional South Sudanese instrument that looks like a cross between a lyre and a boxy birdhouse. Stand Up (Clap Your Hands) has even the heaviest heads bobbing and the dancers that join Koang on stage are exactly the wholesome touch we need to see us through to The (less wholesome) Gift.

The Meredith Gift

The gift that keeps on giving, The Meredith Gift is an annual competitive nudie run loop around The Sup'. Contestants must dive onto a mattress at the finish line and grab a hat from the head of a blue heeler soft toy before placing it onto their own head in order to be victorious – some play dirty, but hilarity always ensues (especially when there are naked stacks involved). MCs Sarah Smith and Geraldine Hickey (RRR Breakfasters co-hosts) are on commentating duty from the stage this year while Gabriella Bartonova and The Huxleys (dressed like glittery gold aliens with oversized pink, or blue, neon wings) report from the ground. Cameramen film the action from the roof of the stage so that we can all watch on screen as well as in the flesh. There are three categories, boys, girls and 'all-in', so three winners take home golden robes in 2019. But everyone who nudes up to compete in a footrace after a two-day bender is a winner in our book.