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Three days after Fat As Butter, and I am still dazed about the whole thing. All the bands I saw were amazing and I seriously can't fault a single one of them. But the sound left a whole heap to be desired for a festival of its size, there was very little food, even less in the way of stores and the crowd was young, drunk, racist and mostly naked to put it nicely.
Back to the music though, there really was a lot on offer across the four stages. The bulging eyed set had two places to dance away to DJs, with the Melt Stage and The Fabio stage keeping the fists pumping and the asses shaking well in to the evening. The craziness of both those stages was either contagious or left you running for something a little more chilled, but it was never the part of the festival where you'd want to just sit back and have a drink.
The Butter stage offered up some great Australian talent, surrounded by the Newcastle harbour and the extra added entertainment of the Red Bull X Fighters Jam and their crazy feats on bikes. Rufus, Urthboy, Seth Sentry, The Rubens and Hungry Kids of Hungry all put on an amazing show, and from the sounds of it so did every other act that hit that stage.
Up on the main Stage (FAT) the crowds were constantly streaming in, as though on leashes with music at the helm, just dragging them towards a bigger show. Yellowcard had the crowd singing along to their classics and their cover of "Teenage Dirt bag", which the crowd sang again when Wheatus hit the stage, in a screaming round that resounded across Newcastle.
Grinspoon owned the stage for me, starting with the classic "Hard Act To Follow" and ripping out classics like Chemical Heart and No reason, along with newer stuff, that kept the crowd rocking throughout their entire set, which I really wish had gone longer.
360 entertained the diverse crowd with his dub step beats and personal beats and Good Charlotte rocked out all their classics including "Girls & Boys" and "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" to put on an good old fashioned rock show.
All in all, it's not something I would do again but I know a lot of other people that had an absolute ball. If you're going to head that way next year, just know the booze is really expensive, there isn't much of an option when it comes to food, there's hardly any cool festival shopping to do and the sound left a lot to be desired. The crowd were really young, really drunk, outwardly aggressive and really proud to be white. There were continual teenage brawls, that were often surrounded by teenagers screaming words of encouragement and a stream of police that had worked up a conveyer belt system to eject the endless piles of aggressive drunks. Oh and it sounded like a Justin Beiber concert when Good Charlotte hit the stage.
