Live Gigs: Golden Plains 2018 or I’ve Gone Back to the Greatest Festival Ever!

OH MY GOD!!!

WOW! That’s me right on the fence with black hat, flower garland, white t-shirt and drinking home brew in pretty much center shot! It’s the first crowd photo I looked at today!

This is the greatest Aussie festival ever, I’ve ever been too! I’ve say today it’s the best in the universe, not that it’s been into out space but this will be the closest I’ve came! I totally bloody love it so much! It’s beyond my silly little words can say but I’ll give it a go now for a blog post today, OK? I’ve got back and if you’ve notices I’ve not been blogging for a few days now because well, I’ve been having the time of my life or going to it and then coming back and I’ve haven’t bother to do anything here. So two years ago I when to my first Golden Plains fest and tenth year which was fuckin’ epic, I wrote this here link then when I just started this tiny blog but I did missed out last year but I’ve when back this year!

They’re a lot of reasons it’s the greatest but to start with I haven’t been to the world’s most well known fests! Here at Golden Plains a few things that don’t happen in anywhere else, well as far as I know? BYO is a very Aussie thingy, I think? Do oversea peeps know what that is? Bring Your Own and that’s alcohol, I was saying I was drinking home brew in the above photo, a bloke I met remember me as soon as he seen me and just give me his strange tasting drink, god knows what was in it? So that’s a goodie, biggie because I think most fest make a killing on selling drinks. Which leads into everyone being so friendly and happy, maybe that’s every fest in the world but who can say before the first band started to play you met up someone haven’t seen in two years and you’ve forget his name but knows yours then just gives you his home brew?

So next is that’s the single stage two days line-up which does of course means it was clash-free too! It’s a huge stage and everything is on wheels and change over is pretty quick at around 15-20 mins. which is pretty amazing, I think.

Playing music in-between sets are “the interstitial soundtrack” and everyone just dance, drink and peeps move about, you know? Some are here to see this and some are here that! Prince songs seem to be a DJ’s fave this year with a few different tracks over the weekend like Sexy Motherfucker, Sign O’ The Time etc. but I notices everything for James Brown’s Sex Machine to Savage Garden’s To The Moon & Back. Then the clean up song this year was Bananarama cover of Shocking Blue’s Venus, yeah they have a pick up some rubbish and put it in the bin so it don’t turn into a rubbish tip song!

Now the first day I when totally bonkers to tell the truth, ape shit crazy and I should just say I did lose all my bananas!

Does Gaz only have one t-shirt or something? That’s the same one he was wearing a couple of weeks ago!

 Pure genius who ever came up with the idea of Tropical Fuck Storm as the opening band! The Drones have played a couple times, that’s his old band but never seen that so I did see this, unbelievable live band! Highlight of the set: You Let My Tyres Down but I can’t wait for the coming soon album!

I did find some live clips last time I wrote about this fest but I might just embedded the video clip of the song I enjoy and I remember the best, OK? Your job as the reader is just going to pretend it’s live at Golden Plains, OK? Last time I did seen Batpiss was supporting The Drones on one of the last tours at some stage, they’ve not been out west since so I was so please seeing them again here! Highlight of the set: Weatherboard Man but the whole set was totally magic!

Who has the lyrics? “Everybody wants to be a cat, meow, meow, meow, meow” Thundercat that’s who and he and his band are totally great live! Coming after two of my fave Aussie bands was going to be hard but this was my one of my big discovery’s of the weekend and I’m buying the album now, also same with Kamasi Washington too!

Perfume Genius and King Krule were both very, very cool but sorry to say they’re sandwiched in-between Kamasi Washington and Thundercat who stole the show in the daylight hours. Well, for me they did! Kamasi is total Jazz and his last album was a double called The Epic and it was epic live too, both Cat and Kamasi guest on each others sets!

Now you might think at this point it can’t better? But it did! So I did see Mogwai at Perf fest about a week earlier which was good show but oh my god, they were made to play a set here at Golden Plains, mind-blowing is an understatement! Highlight would be: Remurdered but little more older tracks this time than all the new ones they played in the west.

The best The Preatures song to hear from the bush hill was Is This How You Feel?

The best The Avalanches song to see on the ferris wheel was Since I Left You.

That’s about it for Saturday so next day is Sunday, you know? The music started with mellow folk singer Leah Senior so check out Pretty Faces. She is on King Gizzard & Wizard Lizard label, you couldn’t find someone as far away from them if you try.

Waterfall Person was pretty great too, funny as fuck too. Please check out Everyday It’s The Same Waterfall.

 I dug Wet Lips so have a listen to Can’t Take It Anymore please.

Dressed To Kill by Rocket Science seem like the right kind-of song to play. Yet another thing I’ve not said about Golden Plains it’s a fancy dress party too! Sunday is day to dress up but anytime is fine because before a band played on Saturday a man dancing in gold hot pants with shower rail, curtain and the only thing missing is the water poring out and he wasn’t standing in a bathtub or something. Every kind-of fancy dress you could think of was there, you know?

Kaiit’s cover of Aretha Franklin’s (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman was wicked.

Jen Cloher’s Great Australian Bite was wicked too. Her songs from last year’s self-titled album just keep getting better and better. Courtney Barnett guitar solo was insane for this song!

Adrian Sherwood DJing some new and old Reggae and Dub tracks, Lee Fields & The Expressions played a great soul music set but Sunday’s show stealer was someone you’ve most likely never heard before but if your only going to listen to one of these artists or something listen to this! He putted this off live but don’t ask me how because it was beyond unbelievable to watch, he didn’t stop smiling and dancing so didn’t the crowd. I’m buying this one too! His name is Ata Kak, from Ghana and was born in 1960 so the oldest singer but he somehow out did almost everyone or maybe he did?

The Black Angels’ Young Men Dead was an epic set closer by them and going to be buying them. I did see Grizzly Bear but following The Black Angels wasn’t my thing really and the two rappers were pretty good but maybe I wouldn’t pick them as headlining acts or maybe finally I hit my limit because at some point around that I crashed out and didn’t see anything else then.

Just one more thingy that Golden Plains has to finish up my blog post about this year fest. No one else has in this in the world, is you take your shoe/boot/footwear off and hold it in the air if your lovin’ the act who’s playing, their is a whole history, linked here or here but only in Australia and at Golden Plains!

I’m holding my boot up to the whole of Golden Plains XII or 2018 which was beyond magic in the stars!

Cheers 🙂