After returning from what would become a ritual of heading to Byron Bay for breakfast, I caught Dune Rats on the main stage. These guys are always a lot of fun. "We know all you cunts are on drugs so we brought a couple of distractions!" they cried out. There were scores of beachballs, those blowy wind men, and a guy in a zorb ball running on top of the crowd. The band would later encourage zorb ball guy to get naked and run around on stage.
You can see from the photo that any hope of sitting down nearly anywhere close to the stage without getting muddy had vanished, so I wandered up the hill. After Dune Rats, The Smith Street Band were on the main stage. I'd never seen them before, but their Aussie political rock attracted what they called the biggest crowd they've ever had, and they appeared very happy to be playing Splendour.
I retired to the tent for some refreshments and just to escape the mud a little. The Grates sounded great from the tent, and I'm kind of sorry I missed them. Getting off my arse was difficult, but Pond were playing the main stage so I headed back to see the band which is one of my favourite Aussie bands of the last decade. I love their psych rock sound and it was fun stomping around in the mud to them.
The Church were up next in the GW McClennan tent, so I trudged over. I'll admit it, the Church are a band I knew little about until fairly recently - oh sure, I knew Unguarded Moment and Under the Milky Way, but that was about it - thought they were kind of one hit wonders really. I know, I was wrong. Their set was great, full of classic Church songs. They said they had only one song left and launched into Under the Milky Way, and then said they were going to do one more BUT they didn't play Unguarded Moment, which I was devastated about.
But at least that gave me a head start to get back to the main stage to see the Dandy Warhols, in one of their only performances in Australia! Except it was pretty below par. The sound mix was very muted, you could barely hear Courtney's vocals, and there was very little energy from the band. Which was sad, because they have been brilliant the last two times I saw them.
Geri and myself managed to get a pretty good spot to see the Wombats. I had heard only a few songs, and whilst they're ok, it's not really my thing. The morose, depresing lyrics juxtaposed with happy melodies has been done to death recently. And I'm still confused as to why so many kids would choose to take ecstasy to the band, but there were lots of munts about, like the girl who power hurled right next to us...
Final set of the night was Florence and the Machine. It looked like EVERYBODY was there to see her, as the whole amphitheatre was rammed packed with people. But my gosh! What an amazing performer. So much energy! She runs out onto stage and dives almost immediately into the audience, singing to one girl, making her festival no doubt, and then bounding back and forth without dropping a single spectacular note. She also pulled a guy up on stage who was wearing a wedding dress to dance with her, which was hilarious! I thought I would take more photos, but I was just awestruck by her stage presence.
And so day 2 of Spendour ended on very much a high.
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