This weekend the Partypills team and some 6000+ partygoers headed out to Tapapakanga regional park for the ever-other-year Splore festival. We headed out early Friday morning and with rain the night before and some grey clouds scattering the sky friday morning I was mentally preparing myself for a 3 day mudfest.
Alas unlike Glastonbury this festival turned on the sun and by the time we had finally put up our tent and started on the obligatory reward, an icy cold beer we were already feeling a warm glow. The entire weekend was blue skies, sunshine and colourful people. It was my first time to attend and I can’t believe I hadn’t made it along to one earlier.
It is a stunning reserve with woodlands and a gorgeous swimming beach as well as an icy lagoon to clean off the salt and drop the body temp a degree or two before getting amongst it.
Friday night had some of the bigger names at the festival fronting the mainstage.
Lupe Fiasco busted out some hip hop hits and to my surprise at times heavy rock riffs. Rumours has it he’s involved in post-punk band Japanese Cartoon and with a fair part of his show sounding suitably heavy I wouldn’t dismiss this speculation. A man with a finger in many pies he’s also in ‘Child Rebel Soldiers’ a hip hop supergroup with Kanye and Pharell. Lupe didn’t disappoint and had people singin’ along to his catchier numbers ‘Superstar’ and skateboarding love song ‘Kick Push.
Minuit and Basement Jaxx got their electronic groove on after Lupe and had us party people bouncing about. Main stage was done and dusted around 2am and the Rum Shack was the last option for a late night liquor fix with a side serve of bass heavy vibrations. It seemed like a slightly early end to the evening but with another 2 days of festivities to go it was probably a well thought out option to wrap the night up.
The rest of the weekend was just as awesome, up and comers Six60 blew me away on Saturday avo with their mix among other styles reggae & dnb, think katchafire mixed with Shapeshifter and a pinch of tiki taane and your getting an idea of their sound. I had to sneak over to Doc Westie if for no other reason than to check out his moustache-mullet, he dropped some dancy remixes like Pink Floyd and Nirvana which the crowd was lapping up
My pic for the Saturday night was the Aussie vocal wizard Dub FX. He essentially crafted his whole set using a microphone and a loop/effects device which he sang, beatboxed and freestyled through to layer sounds and loops to make Dubstep & Hip Hop styled tracks.. He’s definitely got his own groove and it was great for him to share it with us, I recommend checking his video to see what I’m talking about. His girlfriend Flower Fairy busted out a cuisine commentary which was entertaining and he had a good friend whose name I didn’t quite catch throwing down some insanely fast freestyles.
Yes there were amazing bands and Dj’s but What I loved about Splore was that it was about more than the music It was family friendly and had a very low munter casualty rate. There were art trails, sculptures, installations and early morning tai-chi & yoga classes on the beach. I even saw a blushing bride and caught the tail end of a wedding service. The food was good tasty tucker, Scallops and Prawns kept me nourished for a good portion of the weekend and there was a sustainable strand to the festival with partygoers encouraged to share their food rather than throw it out and to use recyclable containers . Despite minimal musical experience I even found myself jamming on a wooden Xylophone with a bunch of newfound friends and playing some knobs/switches in a giant tardis type contraption that was apparently rigged up to live trigger samples from Ableton live.
There was so much to see and do and I know that I didn’t get around all of it but there’s always the next Splore which is set to become a regular experience on my social calendar. If you made it along I’d love to hear your stories, if you didn’t there’s always next time!
Churr
