Splendour in the Grass 2013

Arreeee yyyoouuu rreeeaadddyyy ttoo Spllleeeeeeennnndddoouurrrrrr!

Splendour Day 1. We got there on Friday at about 7am so we didn't have to wait in the line very long, but by the time we came in the place was packed. I don't even know where other campers would have parked later on in the day because it looked full. We were directed to a carpark, which kind of sucked so we drove out and parked as close as we could get to the entrance. Which wasn't actually close, but we didn't mind. We set up base camp, got dressed and went and found the girls base camp which wasn't too far from ours. 

Yolanda, Saya, Madie, Nikki and I

YES at Splendour

After we spent most of the day by the girls tent drinking, we all headed in.

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This is Kelly, if any of you read my London posts you may have seen this stunner's face before. She is from Perth but I met her and her friend Connie at Bricklane, they asked for directions and next minute we were all getting drinks together. I was hoping I would run into this absolute babe and the first day, she is the first person I run into. Was so good seeing her again.

She does some amazing drawings, you should check out her stuff at Kelly Emma Illustrations

The first artist Nicole and I saw was Robert Delonge, we sadly lost the girls at this point. Robert was definetly one of my favourite acts of Splendour. It was such a great act to kick the weekend off with. He was so incredible to watch, he was doing everything at once, singing, recording himself, drumming, I can't really say much about what he was doing because I honestly have no idea about music. But it was pretty incredible. He was doing a million things at once, but remained cool as a cat the whole time. I could go on about him for a while. Would definitely see him play again. 

Friday was the best and worst day/ night for me. It had the main acts that I wanted to see. One of which was Haim. I could go on and on about Haim before I saw them play live, I was absolutely obsessed with them. I could not stop thinking all day how madly I wanted to see them. And then when I saw them I completely lost my mind. By far one of the best live performances I have ever seen. They were just dripping with 90's cool rockstar vibes and I was in the crowd squealing as if I was a tweenager at a One Direction concert. They just had so much raw energy and were just so confident. I sound so silly but I really do admire Haim so much. They are everything I can't be, a 90's vibes girl band. I think I overanalyse things too much. To me Haim is this crazy cool girl band emulating the 90's "don't care" attitude, with undertones of feminism. They all have such raw, naked looks, they don't need crazy hair colours or extravagant outfits or over the top make up, they just came as they were and blew us all away by their actual musical talent.  Haim probably just think of themselves as a girl band. I'm sorry I am just so obsessed and I am trying to write this in the same mind frame as when I was standing in the crowd being a total fan girl to these babes. 

After Haim the night started taking a turn for the worst. I made the mistake of eating cheese that had been in the car. I ended up getting awful food poisoning from it. I spent the night spewing near the toilets trying to make it look like I wasn't just a drunk girl spewing at a festival. Turns out nobody really cares, but I still was quite upset about it. We managed to watch Matt Corby play. We sat with a big group of people we didn't know on the fence of an Amish barn. We sat for a good 20min on this fence watching Matt Corby play, it was such a chilled out atmosphere. If it wasn't for me feeling quite awful it would have been so nice. After getting kicked off the fence we hung around this general area and watched Mumford & Sons play. Turns out this was one of their last shows for now as they have recently announced a "hiatus". Read more about it here.

snapchat: yeswanderlust

After Mumford we headed back to our home on wheels and settled in for the night. Friday was the best day emotionally but the worst day physically, my body just broke down. But we went to sleep keen for the adventures the next day would bring.

I love bindis to death. I loved them ever since I bought some on the Melbourne roadtrip with YES. Although girls started wearing them all the time and they gave bindis a bad name. But festivals are still for me the most socially acceptable time to wear these little gems, so my thoughts are to go full out when you can. Also by the end of the weekend the amount of guys I had seen wearing them and the amount of times I had been asked by guys if I had any spare was just ridiculous.

Note for next Splendour: bring eyelash glue. I slept with mine still on the first night and I woke up with them all still attached in the correct spots. We lost our eyelash glue on the second day, in the mess that was our van. So throughout the day we slowly lost more and more. 

This is how we came into the festival plus alcohol we had given to the girls. Probably the best thing about being in a van is all the compartments that are just impossible to check when the bed is folded out. To be honest though we took so much of it home with us. We didn't drink during the day because it just makes you hungover at night, and plus it was too hot. I still have so many of those little gold splendour drink tickets lying around my room.

Bumping into lovely people like Sanjana. We are sitting in the Virgin members tent. Probably the smartest marketing move for virgin. They had a little area where virgin members could go in, and you could select a friend who was also allowed to come in with you. The cleanest toilets in miles, with deodorant and hairspray and a place to charge your phone for free. Although these products were usually stolen by midday, this wasn't the point. These toilets became our best friends. They only ever had like one person in line, if at all and they always had toilet paper. Thankyou Virgin. 

We went back to the girls tent trying to find them but couldn't find them so we made ourselves some gourmet lunch. 

I honestly didn't know who Chet Faker was until I saw his performance. I know, I know, I am really bad with music. His performance was incredible. He is one incredibly sexy bearded man with the voice of an angel. Plus I am so obsessed with this photo. I took it at just the right moment that it sort of looks like he is smoking the girls cigarette. 

After Chet we baked in the sun for a while with our totally awesome matching gumboots.

I didn't know what to do with my hair anymore so I decided to put it in tiny little plaits all over my head. My hair colour was just ridiculous. 

I love that this festival had so many children with their parents. It was so cute. Minus the prams though, thats just a bit silly. But how cute is this little bubba, decorated like Empire of the Sun. I saw at least 3 babies with this makeup, plus one had the actual headpiece. 

We went to the Redbull tent a fair few times because Nicole knew a couple of the djs. This was one of them. We went backstage and hung out there with him for a while. It wasn't really that special. But hey at least we can tick off "going backstage at Splendour" off our list. Even if it was only backstage at the Redbull tent. 

I remember rocking out to Ms Mr and just feeling so happy, the whole time she was smiling like she couldn't believe she was performing in front of us even though she had probably done it multiple times before. Her happiness was so contagious and it was just such a great act. And then we danced silly to Alison Wonderland and had a smashing time. On the way to see Empire of the Sun we for some reason fell in love with this horse. We weren't on anything. Just a little drunk. But this horse, I just can't explain. It was like the kindest, most majestic creature we had ever seen, it's eyes were oceans and it had a loving soul. We spent a good 20min hugging this horse and confessing all our deepest and darkest secrets to it. I kind of miss that horse.

Empire of the Sun was spectacular, I have loved them since Walking on a Dream and finally was able to see them live. They did not disappoint. We were right up the front, we had managed to slowly melt into the crowd after coming 5min late because of the horse incident. The energy was so intense from the crowd and the performers. There were dancers and crazy costumes and lights, they really put on a show. Pretty happy we were able to see them from two angles, the stage and the screen. And just when you though they might be finished and all hope was lost, they played "Alive" and the crowd literally lost its shit. It was pure ecstasy all around. I just remember thinking in my head at the time "this is why I come to see live music, this is the reason". I could go on and on, you may not even like the band, but you will know this feeling. Or at least I hope you have experienced it. Definitely a huge highlight for me. 

After the song ended the crowd parted in a huge mess trying to scramble to Flume I assume. Nicole and I stood our ground, took a bit of a beating but we were able to stick together even though we were literally being pulled opposite directions and holding on to eachother for our dear life, it was pretty much a movie scene with more sweat and mud. We eventually got to Flume, we hadn't missed much. If you haven't seen Flume before live I suggest you drink like 4 alcoholic beverages and stand outside and play the cd, you will get the same experience. I'm sorry to you die hard Flumey's but he really is quite unbearable to watch as a performer. It was like eating your favourite food when your sick, it's sitting there in front of you, looks the same, is the same, but something just isn't right. He was just so awkward, and not in the "cute, socially awkward way", but in the "I got really famous really quick and don't really perform ever but here have some of my ego". I honestly could go on and on about how bad Flume was live. He is a spectacular producer and he is extremely successful because of it, but I would rather just listen to the cd then watch that tool on stage again. "Hello Splendour are you ready for some gangsta beats". No Flume take your stupid button up and put some actual performers on stage. 

God I sound cynical. I am just trying to type this in the same mindset I had when I was there. At the beginning of Flume we went through the side and ended up running into the Rufus boys again. We danced with them for a while, I'm pretty sure Nicole snuck in some music talk with them, I don't know how she does it. I think they went to venture deeper into the pit. We decided to go the other way and go chill out. We went to the Carlton tent and sat on the ground and watched him play on the screen. We were sitting next to a couple of guys who looked like they were together (friends). At some point we said something to them and we all started talking, turns out they didn't know eachother, they were just sharing some fence. Their names were Eric and Nic. We are Erica and Nicole, spooky. Out of nowhere Nic just pulls out a little cannister and a balloon and the next minute we are all taking hits of laughing gas and having a jolly good time. Probably the weirdest "drug" I have ever seen somebody bring in to a festival. I am pretty sure after Flume we wandered around listening to the changing music for a while and then we went back to Jane Lane.

How to eat an avocado by drunk Erica.

Things seemed hazier on the third day. Everything seemed harder to do. Standing was difficult. We had well and truly developed lines on our calves from the gumboots. And I think we had completely given up caring on how we looked or what we wore. 

Helpful tip: If the tops of your gumboots are digging into your leg, roll them down. 

The pyjama festival.

This is how my hair turned out on the third day. I don't even know what it is. The plaits came out and it took on a somewhat great lion mane appearance. 

We went in sunday morning to get some Byron Bay Organic Donuts. These are a must! I can't even begin to explain the orgasmic explosion that occurs in your mouth. It tastes like childhood, wrapped in a blanket, sprinkled with sugar. If anyone knows a place in Sydney where I can get these bad boys, hook me up. 

We went to the girls camp and relaxed there most of the morning with our freshly squeezed juices. 

I don't really know who we are watching or what we are doing but we all went in and just danced in mud when there were probably people still asleep.

I bought two oversized shirts so I pretty much looked like a whale majority of Splendour but you know what, comfort over looks.

We spent most of the morning/ afternoon migrating between the Supertop and the Carlton Tent, haven't had a Strongbow cider since and probably never will ever again. At least until next Splendour. 

We went to see Lorde, she was amazing. I was actually so happy Lorde was filling in for Frank Ocean because I don't really know his music that well, plus it was really cool to see someone play their first major live performance. She nailed it. For a sixteen or something year old she had a lot of confidence. I don't think I could ever do that in front of so many people, I nearly vomit when I am asked to public speak even if its only a room of like 20 people. I just wish I knew more of her music before I saw her. 

At Lorde we met up with Eric again and after we took him to see our baby Janey Laney. 

I am probably the only one but I really do think he looks like Garry from Geordie Shore. Sunday was a mess. I remember not much of anything. Not because I was drunk but because my body was dead. We went and watched Alt J but halfway through my body caved and I ended up sitting in a corner of the Mexican Cantina just trying to regain some composure. I could barely walk, it was a bit intense. We went and sat in the Carlton tent and watched James Blake which was quite beautiful. He really didn't need the weird visual effects on the screen though, his voice was beautiful enough. Sunday was on and off rain, but halfway through people just stopped caring. We were a wet mess. We had lost the girls and had given up all hope in trying to find them before the night ended. Instead Eric took us to the Teepee Forest where we met a girl who we had spent time with the night before. It was like a big family reunion.

We were hugged too many times by a horribly fast speaking very small girl. We somehow managed to form some big group half munters half painfully too sober to handle the current situation. We danced as much as we could for two people falling apart physically. 

We all planned to go the Smirnoff tent, we all started walking, someone called out to Eric, he went one way, the girl kept walking, Nicole called out to Eric, I called out to the girl. But it was hopeless. And they were gone. We tried to find them but it was pointless. And we knew at that moment that this was the universe's way of telling us that Splendour was over. 

The next morning we woke up at some god-awful hour to get out of Splendour as soon as possible to avoid the rush. This is what my hair looked like at the end of Splendour. Nobody needs to know what my face looked like, a puffy, muddy mess. We ended up leaving at I think 7am. We had to wait for the idiot who had parked us in to get back. We wrote them notes on their windows when we had got back the night before asking them to move but obviously they hadn't seen them. I don't really have any photos from the roadtrip home. Mostly just videos of Nicole and I singing at the top of our lungs in attempts to stay awake and focused. Nicole drove the whole way back to Sydney from Byron that day! Yes, she is a machine. And she is also a babe. Thankyou again Nicole for driving us to Splendour and back, you are seriously the best. 

Splendour was kind of the best festival I have ever been to, and will probably keep that title each year. This is a festival I will return to as many years as I possibly can. And for those of you thinking of going next year, here are some helpful hints:

. Take a van, they are just the best experience and it's so great not having to make and put away a tent.

. Get a camping ticket. You won't get the full on Splendour experience otherwise.

. Bring gumboots. I don't care if the weather man says its smooth sailing, it won't be and they will end up being the only shoes you wear the whole time.

. Don't take showers there. Don't be that guy. Just be dirty and have fun. 

. Don't worry about what you wear. Dress like an idiot, who cares. Just be comfortable. 

. Ponchos are probably the best thing ever. 

. Byron Bay Organic Donuts, enough said. 

. Film Cameras

. If you are with Virgin or if a friend is, sign up to the Virgin tent.

. Wet wipes

. Lots of wet wipes

. Bindis and eyelash glue, because when else are they mildly acceptable to wear?

. Sunglasses, bring two pairs of shitty ones

. Socks and underwear, bring like 20

. A backpack, Nicole bought a super sweet one from Jansport when we were there.

. Dry shampoo

. Also if you bring a van it is much easier to bring in "soft" drinks.

. Lots of compartments

. If they are giving out free rain ponchos, stock up. They are very multi purpose.

. Garbage bags

. Snack food, NO DAIRY

. Bring lots of fruit and vegetables, you will be surprised how much you want them when they're not around.

I will most likely add stuff to the list later on.

That was Spendour in the Grass 2013, made awesome by these stunning humans. 

Thankyou.

erica