As Advertising Manager for your Student Association, MUSA, from time to time I receive some pretty decent perks.
And while I’ve only been the in the position for a few months, I have to say that getting to go to the Rhythm and Vines Festival for free probably holds the top spot.
I suppose it was mostly thanks to the fact that the Marketing Director for the Festival is a graduate of our fine academic institution, and because of this he felt obliged to give back. Needless to say, I didn’t say no.
Of the hundreds of you that entered to win through Chaff and Radio Control, four lucky winners were drawn and each won themselves a three-day general admission ticket to the gig and a Panasonic Camera to record the experience.
Although, I didn’t receive a Camera, I was lucky enough to receive a ticket in return for my efforts and to write this review your currently reading.
Let me first mention that I love this festival, its hard not to. This was the third time I had attended the event and every year always surpassed the last for me.
The first year I attended, I stayed at the infamous Baywatch campsite. Now I can understand why they call it Baywatch, as it is close to the beach (herp-derp). But to me it more resembled a refugee camp, with the exception that the refugees get shit faced all day.
I mean, you would struggle to walk ten metres without passing a used beer funnel.
I remember this one guy who had passed out. Luckily though, he had some good mates that were looking after him. They had stripped him down to his underwear, had drawn all over him and where dragging his unconscious body around the campsite for all to see. I remember thinking to myself; “I don’t think that guy is going to make it to the festival.”
The most important thing I learned from my time at Baywatch was that when choosing a suitable space to set up your tent, make considerations to how close the portaloos are. Because when the wind changes direction, you’ll know it.
For this year my friends and I decided to stay on site at the festival itself. The benefits of this was that we didn’t have to line up each night to get a on bus and hear 15 drunk guys chant offence rubbish like “I wish that all the ladies, were potholes in the road”.
On top of that, we got to camp inside the vines themselves and with other young adults as the site was R20+, which weeded out most of the troublemakers… Mostly.
As with every festival I have attended, I organised my plan of attack for the acts very thoroughly.
Justice was number one on my list of acts not to miss, followed by Boys Noize, High Contrast, Chromeo and Netsky.
However, when you’re with a large group of mates, all with differing tastes and opinions about who is worth seeing, sometimes it is a little easier said than done. So at times, it was necessary for the group to break up and go their separate ways.
Let me say this, trying to meet back up with anyone in that place is damn near impossible. You could walk right past your best mate, and not even know. There are just so many people.
However, I did manage to catch all the acts that I wanted to see and luckily none of them disappointed.
Justice blew my socks off and still stands in my mind as the highlight. The French duo put on an epic set, smoking durries practically the whole time.
Chromeo were epic as well… when they finally got going. They had a bit of trouble getting started as for about five minutes their sound guy couldn’t seem to get the mics to work.
High Contrast is a genius, that’s all I can say about him. The way he controlled the crowd with music is something I’ve never experience before. And very similarly, Netsky was a fantastic end to the festival. The up and coming Belgian producer/DJ has gained considerable fame very quickly in the past couple years. And as the sun came up on the first day of 2011, I understood why.
Some of the other notable mentions for me were The Gaslamp killer, UK lengend Carl Cox and Tine Tempah. All three of these acts win my award for pleasant surprise of Vines, by well exceeding my expectations.
One realisation that I came to during my time at Vines, maybe due to the fact that I’m getting older, is that I’m not so keen on getting up and personal near the stage anymore. This is because I love to cut up a rug (dance), and when your up in the D (area close to the stage) you get Muppets (annoying people) pushing past you every two seconds. Which gets real old real fast.
Me and my mates found it way more enjoyable finding a spot out near the back of the crowd where we could cut loose and where people would walk around us.
It’s also allowed us to find each other again after going to the toilet, which I did… a lot. When thinking about it, the amount of times I had to visit the portaloos when an act was on that I wanted to see was on was probably the lowlight of the festival for me. I must have broken the seal early or something I dunno.
It is interesting to note that in the eight years the gig has been going, there have only been a handful of arrests, less than ten I believe. For me this is not surprising as everyone is there for a good time, not a long time. That’s one of the greatest appeals of the festival I think. Everyone has time off work, its summertime in one of the nicest places in New Zealand and you get to see some of the biggest acts in the world. Everyone just can’t help but being happy and friendly to everyone they meet.
So here at MUSA we would like to congratulate the winners, each of which received a three-day general admission to the event, as well as a Panasonic Camera to record it. They were:
- Joshua Sydney-Smith
- Audrey Quinlan
- Remy Irvine
- And Sally Evans.
And Remember if you would like to go to Vines this year, or other cool events, keep reading Chaff, listen to Radio Control and supporting your Student Association, MUSA, and ill do my best to keep bringing you the sweet hook-ups.
By Daniel Kearney
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