‘It Changed Me Forever’: Splendour Acts Reminisce On Festival Ahead Of Virtual Event
You never forget your first time at Splendour In The Grass, something both punters and artists will attest to. We caught up with a handful of acting playing the festival’s virtual event, Splendour XR, this weekend, July 24 & 25, to relive some classic moments ahead of what promises to be another epic offering.
“Splendour has always been such a special show for us whenever we've been lucky enough to be on the bill so we were really excited to be part of the VR version. Festivals are such a special way to connect with music, as a band and as fans, and it always feels to us that Australian crowds have a lot in common with Scottish ones so we feel at home there (and inevitably get very messy after the set).”
“We played Splendour In The Grass in 2018. It was a year after our debut album VERA had been released and we had started to feel a real build up around that record.
“This momentum peaked for us right around the time of this festival and walking out onto that stage to a packed Mix Up tent was a really special moment and a career highlight.”
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“2019 was the Splendour of my life - a perfect splendour. Landing from a backpacking trip in Europe, I was in good spirits and went hard night one, reunited with the Aus industry.
“Night two we threw an epic campground set (with 120 people under a tiny gazebo), followed by the legendary tunnel party.
“Night three… with the cancellation of Chance The Rapper we knew my headline set at Mix Up was going to be cooking. The big surprise for everyone was, not only did Jono Ma and Trev Lukather jump up to perform our records in the live show, lord Daniel Johns had been hanging with us all weekend and jumped up to close the show with a medley of all the songs we’ve made together. He even recorded a vocal in the artists' transfer on the way to the set, of a freshly made production which we ended up closing the whole festival with.
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“But it didn’t stop there. After a quick flight to Tassie, running off the fumes of my Splendour high, I rallied up the confidence to hit an 18ft swell approaching the coastline. With a boat, boards and local crew arranged, the following morning we were on our way to one of the world’s most dangerous big wave surfing spots ‘Shipsterns Bluff’.
“I can’t really explain the feeling of being on that stage and only two days later in such a life-threatening yet exhilarating situation. I think it changed me forever. I survived the day and we thought nothing more fitting than to score the footage with the song we recorded in that van on the way to close the Mix Up stage.
“So thank you Splendour for birthing such a life-changing moment in my life.”
ANDREW DOORIS (THE JUNGLE GIANTS)
“Being at Splendour In The Grass is like being in a dream sequence from a David Lynch film. It’s a place where memories are synthesised, distilled and distorted so quickly that you’re not really sure if they ever happened.
“However, you never do forget the first time you play Splendour. It’s an automatic milestone for Australian acts and my favourite Splendour memory would have to be crowdsurfing at 1pm on the Sunday main stage in 2013.
“That same year, we joined our recent tour mates San Cisco on stage for a dance and my Mum’s 1997 Toyota Tarago got bogged trying to leave the festival. I distinctly remember none of us really being able to talk driving home, then again nobody likes hearing people talk about their dreams.”
DEC MARTENS (AMYL & THE SNIFFERS)
"My favourite memory from Splendour is meeting my two guitar heroes, Murray from The Wiggles and Johnny from DMA'S, and playing pool with them backstage."
“My favourite memory of Splendour would definitely have to be my very first one, the year Kanye and Coldplay were headlining. It was a couple of days before my 18th birthday and it made a huge impact on me.
“I remember seeing Regina Spektor do her entire set solo on a grand piano and being floored. It was one of the earliest times in my memory that I felt like being a musician could be achieved. I remember knowing I could be there too and I could one day do that.”
TOBY CREGAN (SKEGSS)
“My favourite SITG memory is actually one of my favourite all-time memories from playing in the band.
“It was 2015 when we won the triple j Unearthed comp as the local band to open up the main stage. I think we were on at 11.45am which is the time that they were opening up the gates to the amphitheatre, but we didn't know this, when we walked out onto the stage there was not one person there and we were all like, ‘Yeah, makes sense its early and we aren't popular, haha.’
“But shortly after we started our first song, a bunch of people started streaming in, running down the hill dancing and screaming it was such a surprise. It’s probably the most euphoric feeling I’ve ever had on stage.”
“When I first played Splendour In The Grass in 2017, I had only been out of high school for six months. Amazingly, a sizeable audience for my music had developed over the course of the second half of 2016, after having won triple j Unearthed High that year.
“On the morning of the day we were playing, I vividly remember arriving at the GW McLennan stage to soundcheck and observing the size of the space where an audience would soon be standing.
“I thought to myself, ‘This will fill up about half way and I’ll be stoked.’ To be honest, I didn’t know if my set would attract much of a crowd as I was a new artist. However, before we’d even started playing, that space had filled up entirely and I proceeded to play the set as if I was in some kind of dream.
“I couldn’t believe how many people had come to watch, and as we closed the set with my song Drive, the crowd was full of energy and singing (or shouting) along to every lyric at the top of their lungs (and there are a lot of lyrics in that song!). My 19-year-old self that had been sitting in exams six months beforehand was completely blown away. I didn’t want to leave the stage.”
HARVEY MILLER (CLIENT LIAISON)
“Being Australia’s premier music festival, the privilege of playing Splendour In The Grass can best be described as sacred. With that said, it can also be a bit of a pissing contest... who's got the special secret guest appearance? Do you have pyrotechnics?
“You see... music should never be about competition but when you're playing alongside some of the best acts in the world, you can't deny the fact that this is your one shot to bring your A-game. So if you wanna stand out, then you gotta make your performance count.
“And as we exited the main stage on the Saturday night of 2017 Splendour, having just shook the Amphitheatre to its core with a multisensory extravaganza that included dancers, choreography, bespoke costumes, pyrotechnics, and a special guest appearance by Australia's Beyonce, Tina Arena, we were kindly confident that we'd done just that - brought our A-game and put on the show of our lives.
“I remember feeling like the whole world was watching and we'd just hit a six. As it turned out, one of the many people who were watching was Federal MP and Leader of the Labour party Anthony Albanese, seated side of the stage. It also turned out that he thought it be a good idea to share with his Twitter audience then and there that we'd 'jumped the shark', a phrase used to describe 'desperate measures to maintain viewers' interest'.
“And like that the boxing gloves were off. By 8:00am the next morning his chief of staff and entire office was in damage control as the Twittersphere and 20,000 people in the audience didn't take well to his review of our set.
“As a man who boasted about attending the 1995 Big Day Out and seeing Nirvana, I understand that Tina or our choreography may have been hard for his 'grunge' anti-establishment roots to digest but as I sat there the next day looking at my phone, I begin to realise two things.
“One, when you start to have success in this world, people will try and cut you down and two, all press is good press.”
Featuring the above acts alongside Khalid, The Killers, Denzel Curry, Tash Sultana, Masked Wolf, Violent Soho, Phoebe Bridgers, The Avalanches and heaps more, Splendour XR launches this weekend. For line-up info, tickets and more, check out theGuide.
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