Golden Plains The Fourth · 6-8 March 2010 · Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre

What Goes On

whatgoeson

Plenty. See list below. Golden Plains opens 8am Saturday and goes through to lunchtime Monday. That’s about 52 hours of unadulterated Modern Freedom in the wonderful purpose-built Supernatural Amphitheatre 90 miles due West of the World’s Most Melbourne-like City. The Opening Ceremony happens at about 2pm then live music is made by the world finest artists, hand-stitched together into one epic passing sonic parade, all on the One Stage, with consideration given to time of day/night, so the live soundtrack fits the collective atmospheric conditions and collective mood for two days and two nights. Hopefully. Sometimes the best laid plans… Everyone camps within a short walk of The Action, there are many and excellent food stalls selling healthy and unhealthy foods, there’s The Pink Flamingo Bar, Sunset Strip, The Meredith Eye, SportsField TM, Ecoplex Cinema, Inspiration Point, and so on. Then Monday is a sleep-in and a late check-out after a lazy breakfast/brunch/calisthenics class.

There’s no commercial sponsors, no commercial signage on site, no market stalls, and nothing being marketed to you for the whole long weekend. It’s meant to be a haven. Camp wherever you like, bring almost everything and anything if you want – you can bring a couch (perhaps with matching armchairs and an occasional table, with a drawer) and plant it in the amphitheatre for the weekend, and soak. it. all. up. For a long weekend.

This will be Golden Plains fourth year in operation and organisers are keen to not fill every available time and space with some zany fake culture crap, so there’s room for traditions to evolve naturally and spontaneously. So far those to do so include The Boot, whereby for some unknown reason the crowd ’salutes’ their favourite performance of the festival by holding one of their shoes/boots/footwear of choice aloft. Bemused recipients in past years include Comets on Fire and Old Crow Medicine Show. Then there’s The Lampshade and The Door, both of unknown origin.

The facilities are really good, as the site is permanent so things can be built to last and built specifically for the festivals.

Probly worth having a quick look at Aunty’s Home Movies. It’s impossible to sum up Golden Plains, but some small insights about certain aspects of the festivals might be gleaned here and here.

I can hear music, sweet sweet music. The sound of the city, baby, really disappears.