Live Review: Fairgrounds Festival

Fairgrounds Festival is officially this scribe’s favourite Aussie festival. It’s in the most beautiful setting on the south coast of NSW, and it has one of the best vibes of any festival we’ve ever been to. It’s there for everyone: for children, for teens, families, people in their 20s and 30s. There’s a pool, children’s activities, a rockin’ vintage/locally designed/designer market and record fair. The food selection is always delicious and broad, offering plenty of vego and vegan options, and the whole space is set up to deliver the best festival experience possible – yeah, really short queues for the loo and bar.

Basically, everyone there was just in it together, trying to find a patch of shade and dance like a loon to their faves. Even clashes were few and far between, the second stage a quick sprint from the main one – and if you didn't feel like packing everything in, you could just spend the ample time between hour-long sets getting yourself sorted for the next one: take a leak, grab a beer, get a snack and set yourself up in prime position.

We cannot gush more: everyone there was so warm and excited, just as chill and laidback as this entire festival, but still pumped to catch Vance Joy at sunset. He seemed to emerge from a white spotlight for Call If You Need Me, solo on an acoustic guitar. But then he brought out the full band - including horns - for Mess Is Mine, his widely adored 2014 single. We’d never seen so many ten-year-olds up on shoulders, screaming along. It was really heartwarming to see an entire festival come together to appreciate Joy’s solid pop – and he came off charismatic and kind, a warm stage presence. The dude delivered exactly what’s on the tin, dropping catchy romantic single after catchy single Like Gold, a flash of a smile cast into the audience causing our collective hearts to melt. 

Vance Joy. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

Almost every song garnered a collective sway, and every lyric on Take Your Time and even his All Night Long/Sorry mash-up was crystal clear – an outdoor festival with sound quality this good is basically unheard of. And it was super easy to push in close to see the exact way Joy dances to his own music, a kinda rhythmic stomp like he’s keeping time. It was straight up haunting – in a good way – how everyone sang the final chorus of Fire And The Flood in place of Joy as the stage was lit up orange, mist catching the light. By the end of the set, there was a clear night sky, a smattering of stars, and Joy had invited a little kid called Oliver up to the stage. Oliver was holding up a sign asking to play on Georgia – but it was for his big brother Darcy. Darcy, a teenage Kurt Cobain, absolutely smashed his role on the acoustic guitar, while Vance Joy struggled to figure out what to do with his arms, Oliver still just there, excited for his big bro. Joy pulled out the ukelele for Saturday Sun, starting a wave of outstretched phones trying to record every second – and it was impossible to see him not through someone’s camera lens when he finally pulled out Riptide.

Pond.  Photo by Peter Dovgan.

While Pist Idiots were clearly making music that’s fun as shit, the main stage was setting up for Pond. Frontman Nick Allbrook has returned all swagger and glam-pop power, covered in glitter. 30000 Megatons made for a full-on set opener, totally sprawling out in the massive countryside space. The noise of it, and Allbrook crying out over the top of it, swinging himself off his mic stand to veer off the edge of the stage, got everyone extremely excited for the full set, totally engrossed, almost smitten. They followed it up with Sweep Me Off My Feet and Waiting Around For Grace, which had the crowd thrash-dancing up front as Allbrook navigated the space between the barrier and the stage, launching himself in for a crowdsurf. The set was heavy on new tracks, but the old ones like Giant Tortoise, Eye Pattern Blindness and Don’t Look At The Sun Or You’ll Go Blind still totally wailed, and it definitely ended up pretty sweaty right up in front of stage, the crowd all totally dedicated to Allbrook’s cult leader persona. Allbrook’s basically the most charismatic frontman we’ve got, all dancing and love vibes, careening and kicking and jumping about the stage. The bloke jerks, and the crowd moshed wildly, jerkily in turn, throwing themselves into each other right up to the very end.

The Teskey Brothers. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

Day two everyone turned up ready to continue the warm and hearty vibes of the first day. Melbourne’s The Teskey Brothers set the mood with their soul-blues: it was laidback, creating a cruisy vibe as people started to file in and pick up a Pimm's Cup, not dissuaded by their boozy track Shiny Moon. It was Billy Bragg’s politically motivated set that really kicked the day off at the main stage, however much he claims not to be a “political songwriter”. You could call him a legacy act but that’d be a disservice to how very current the 60-year-old Englishman still is. He even brought out Courtney Barnett and Wil Wagner to join him at different points. He’s still got the vocal chops to back up his pointed folk banter, encouraging people to “organise” between songs like Sexuality, The Times They Are A-Changing Back and I Keep Faith. Bragg said he felt fortunate to be in the folk music biz, making music that says something, and we felt fortunate to be able to see him there, in Berry. 

Billy Bragg & Wil Wagner. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

He’s followed up by the seminal alt-rock of The Breeders, who didn’t just stick to their latest record, this year’s All Nerve. No worries there, the Deal twins were ready to open up the noise rock, and accommodate for diehard fans desperate to hear Divine Hammer, Drivin’ On 9 and Cannonball. They’re still cool as shit, tight and deliberate, screeching on their guitars. They dropped a killer, feedback-y Beatles cover in Happiness Is A Warm Gun, before the more subdued Off You, and closed with a Kim Deal-Pixies classic, Gigantic. 

The Breeders. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

Before Sampa The Great, the coolest young rapper out, Waxahatchee spun out solid singer-songwriter feelings music at a smaller stage, but missing even a second of Sampa Tembo just wasn’t on the cards. Black Girl Magik was one of the most beautiful and empowered festival experiences, basically shaming the older acts with her phenomenal stage presence, which was totally helped by her crew of dancers, who would emerge for particularly big moments, like Tembo’s cover of Doo-Wop (That Thing). There was no more powerful young artist on this line-up and Tembo’s only going from strength to strength. She could’ve headlined this show.

Sampa The Great. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

Then Courtney Barnett was up, with a proper mullet now, smashing out City Looks Pretty. Again the number of really young fans pushing to the front was super intriguing, kids as young as 12 mingling with headbanging adults, watching as Barnett careened around stage dressed in a singlet and jeans. Avant Gardener got the requisite crowd singalong before B-side Small Talk and then Small Poppies. The set needed to be heavy on this year’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, which was basically a gift to those assembled, especially when she wheeled out Kim and Kelley Deal for vocal and guitar duties on Nameless, Faceless. They looked as impressed by the Melbourne singer-songwriter as we all were. 

Courtney Barnett & the Deal twins. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

She straight up howled on I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch, before she dropped the mood back away from feminist anger and down for Depreston. It turned out to be an ideal sunset sway moment, before she went in with vocal reverb on Elevator Operator. It was proper festival headline shit when she had Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee join her for her dreamy cover of Elyse Weinberg’s Houses, before closing with two songs from her killer debut that still totally rip live, Pedestrian At Best and Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party.

Courtney Barnett. Photo by Peter Dovgan.

The final act of the festival was Sydney boy Winston Surfshirt, who pulled in the crowd with his groovy blend of genres. His funky music was a final opportunity to really dance and that’s what everyone was doing – it was less about watching what was on stage than soaking up the last of the festival vibes and twisting your hips. Surfshirt also went in for the crowdsurf, and the teenagers in the audience were happy to reach up and grab their idol, literally screaming between tracks. It’s been super interesting to see Surfshirt’s career blow up since he started out playing alone in small indie venues on a loop pedal, and now he’s got all the swagger of a frontman, clearly lapping up the way the crowd pulsated with every smooth R&B-style bass line on tracks like a cover of Jumpin’ Jumpin’ and sexy closer Be About You.

 Winston Surfshirt. Photo by Peter Dovgan.