…MEDITATIONS on MEREDITH…

BOOK I

In the kitchen wrist twisting like a stir fry. Decant vodka into assorted diet coke bottles retrieved from sharehouse recycling bin. I am stoically ignoring blood running down my ankle from this mornings leg shave razor wound coz Angie is on her way to pick me up. I’m nonetheless equipped, as Marcus Aurelius taught me exactly how to cope in situations like these.

“When you start to lose your temper, remember: There’s nothing manly about rage…”

(Meditations, 11.18).

Wait, real. Last thing I need is a fat manly rage right before Meredith. Bandaid and press pass bestowed upon me as fish fetishizer/STEW orchestrator Max is currently missing in the NZ wilderness. His Brisbaneiousness sits neatly adjacent to their hobitness, so he’ll teach them to line up three cherries in a row in no time. Lob my shite in Luke’s car boot and feel my post-ruralism further materialise as we speed out of de city der. Before I know it, I am stood amongst the other Blundstones with a dry grasp on soju, and wet thirst for music.

DR SURES UNUSAL PRACTICE are first to the stage after the Welcome to Country. Lead singer is engulfed in a huge, gold paper mache version of his own head. I am genuflecting at this cartoon reflection - the gee up is sincere and the stakes are apparent, but we have drinking to do. Already, I am face to face against the sunset with a belly 1/4 full of tuna and corn thins. The diet that asymmetric STEW coverage demands. Sweating off the glam full face beat I just pawed on, I hear the decadent harmonies of FOLK BITCH TRIO from the steaming hot innards of my streamline hiking tent. Gather the gazebo goblins and make haste for the Sup. Crosby Stills and Nash for the young punters of Naarm, inculcated harmonies and assured melodies beckoning the bodies strewn upon the fated hill. My eyes widen at the sight of it all, peering through the pleasant yet foreboding haze shimmering above our heads.

~

Having MILDLIFE on a festival lineup is like opening up the pantry and finding a packet of walnuts. Unsure why they’re always there, nonetheless grateful for their satiety and 7% of daily folate recommendation. The frequency of which Conor is waving uncapped jungle juice under my nostrils is at such a rate where by I am assaulted by the vibes of this band. We’re all lowkey enjoying the psychedelic daft punk vocoder regardless of ones 9-5 Collins street vocation or Fine Arts bachelor at VCA. Crowd chemically fused by nostalgia and cap ingestion. The synth sounds like the colour orange, snaking around the joint, hissing in my ear, making me sleepy. I am a stupid fat bad journalist and get too tired to see it through for NINAJIRACHI. PLEASE don’t fire me. I have a wife and kids!

BOOK II

Good Morning Scatters. Self-consciously crawl out from streamline hiking tent to learn that everyone is bed-headed, fried and lowkey sexy. I remember this is because I am camping in the artist area. Using the pisser in this red zone of fame feels crazy, coz I could detonate that toilet then come face to face with ARIA award winner Chet Faker. I’m waiting for the shower when a real life W.O.W (Wise Old Wook) emerges. Senior Wook of the highest subordinate. Dirt clad so tight between his toes I can still see it even through the festival sediment of my grot goggles. Splashing his decrepit hungover head with water, he turns to me and something illegible spews out of his chapped lips. I think it was something along the lines of:

“All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike. All is ephemeral—both memory and the object of memory. The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere”

(Meditations, 7.21).

Dead right you know, the last thing I need before MOUSEATOUILLE is a limp grasp on existential psychotherapy. We are walking in to the action, playing the Good Morning Game. It’s like people repellent - and all you have to do is sling a gm to as many cunts as possible. Angie’s grin is way too cheeky. One feller actually just flipped us off then walked away. I just wish the W.O.W had a quote for sincerity in the modern age. Rain spittin but requisite coffee hittin as the giant band assemble before us in their uniform of primary colours. Microsoft loading screen visuals illuminate all nine members of the band - fluorescently painting pictures of imaginary skunk girls in “Mike & Melissa”. The brass coming-of-age optimism in “Tom’s Lament” makes me feel a bit better about the storm clouds forming above me. Their latest record “DJ Set” was produced really beautifully, and I think the band sound mad at a festival scale. Man walks past wearing Neil Young “ZUMA” tee-shirt. Run after the geezer and award him a pre-destined print of Neil and Joe Rogan that I had in my purse. RADIO FREE ALICE are not really that bad except the main guy was putting on an Irish accent and it perturbed me. Fontaines DC for the derelict edge-dwellers. Tummy rumbles as I retrieve bygone sprite and vodka from campsite, tentatively reaching for nether-esky vegetables when Chet Faker pokes his head out of a nearby tent and says:

“Does your cucumber taste bitter? - Let it alone. Are there brambles in your way? - Avoid them then”

(Meditations, 8.50).

Yes Chetcus. I will carve a path through the bushland with my bottle opener and force feed myself more curry flavoured tuna.

Back at the front of the barricade, I fasten my bugs bunny tie in preparation for THE PEEP TEMPLE. I know this is about to be mad coz all the old heads have assembled and there’s a distinctive gladitorial mania in mosh. Blake Scott commands the heavens to open and the thunder claps along as “Mister Lester Moore” sprays out. Now this is high fat festival music. Crowd seeks “Carol”, and for the eternal lashings of “I DON’T THINK TREVOR IS GOOD FOR YOU” to sting our memories for the next 48 hours. I find myself stabilising Blake’s legs as he balances on the barricade like some political spearhead. I look up at his sweaty face as the lightening strikes behind us - bodies squirm above and beside me and this begins to feel even more Roman. What weapons have I for defence within this madness? All but my notepad and pen…

Mr Faker is playing his cursed rendition of “No Diggity”, but I am too busy making Tiktoks back at the campsite with Hank and Jess to gaf about his Triple-J-tyranny. Like a calf to it’s mothers teet I suckle at the dregs of my vodka because there are still a few stubborn brain cells I have to eradicate before OMAR SOULEYMEN. What’s this? My feet start involuntarily thumping the ground as I rise to my feet… and all of a sudden i’m whirling around the Bugs Bunny tie in the air to the catastrophic level flames smoking out of these speakers right now. Souleyman is up there transporting us all Syria way, casually chirping his sermons into the mic donned in his dark EDM sunglasses. A soft biblical rain is shining through the sun that he summons with his Dabke dance tracks. That Yamaha mijwiz is mending us all - and Omar is selfie filming himself onstage like an Ibiza DJ. I don’t ever want this to end.

~

It’s nightfall, and the somewhat large percentage of edgy fuckers are kicking and screaming for BAR ITALIA to enter the arena. When finally they emerge, the beautiful and ornate Nina looks ensnared in a real time music video as the 6 fans they ordered blow upon her dutifully. Jezmi’s guitar strap is held together with masking tape and he has lost his glasses, so their ongoing shroud of mysticism wanes slightly. Billiam yawns beside me in the crowd as they crack open “My Little Tony”, but I am lapping it up like the little slacker rock dog I am. The general Meredith reception for this band is lukewarm and somewhat triggered - but they’re far too laid back up there to give a fuck. I don’t even care that they’re a meme band, coz when “Punkt” rolls out, me and the VCA kids are having an absolute ball. Set gets cut short and everyone’s crying coz they didn’t play “Cowbella”. I’m just like ah. Lads,

“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”

(Meditations, 12).

The post-set rhetoric is lively and rife. Me, Angie and Vic are dexie stomping around the blackened hills, trying not to trip over human lumps adorned in wizard robes and the occasional gimp suit. On the most recent performance, Vic elucidates:

“I want to party with them, but I don’t know how much fun they’d be to party with”

Real. I think Omar would be far better craic at a kickons. I’m like holy fuar coz Vic has lost her phone. When we go to the helpers hut, the woman in the tie dye tee shirt hands me a tractor sticker and whispers in my ear:

“Apply them constantly to everything that happens: Physics. Ethics. Logic”

(Meditations, 8.3).

And just like that - I know where to go. Tokyo is calling. ATARASHII GAKKO! are setting a new precedent for Meredith, and never in my life have I been more grateful for the quantities of cocaine coursing through my bloodstream.

While everyone’s pingers tick over to the ping setting, the girl group have carved up a kawaii crater on the stage with their precise routine hip hop choreography and overall basedness. Unexpected injections of electric guitar send out strong currents of adoration - this is exactly what everyone needed at this tipping point of the night. And more. Something buzzes in my purse. I dig beneath a muddy bag of popcorn to discover a text revealing the capture of Vic’s phone at the helpers hut. Thank You Based God! Both festival logic and ethos preside. Festival physics will be harder to coerce, because RONA and HAAI keep me kicking up dust with my Blundees and i’m getting a bit wobbly based on my own chemical interactions. Must remain in the drivers seat of my gurn, snug in the pocket of my drunkeness. Both these DJs are class acts and I am having genuinely stellar craic with the lads. I decide there and then under the high-intensity techno spell that the hype is right. This festival takes the cake as Victoria’s finest. With teeth unbrushed and racing heart, I kiss the stars and the incessant thump of the subwoofers goodnight.

BOOK III

Sunday, bloody Sunday. Trembling and desiccated, I pry open my Too-Faced Maple Syrup Pancakes eyeshadow palette mirror and see what I have become. A bone-dry empty vessel. If you dropped me on the concrete, I’d shatter and remain only as a trepid pile of coke dust. An ant crawls onto the mirror and pities me. He says:

“Thou art a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.”

(Meditations, 4.41).

I suppose so! And this soul of mine, despite my gingerness, will conquer the final day of Meredith for the promise of some real sweet acts…

FLORIST appears on the stage like two weary prophets. The lead singer Emily defines the parameters for Sunday’s uniform of hoodie, cap and sunglasses. Their music is dreamy and arcane. Big Thief for the modular synthesisers and experimental sympathisers. I am bound within their Brooklyn indie agenda when April emerges and shows me a photo of them wearing top hat atop a wooden horse - memoirs of the scat squadron (helpers hut). Later we’re watching JACK J from the Flamingo Bar. Someone next to me who is not Marcus Aurelius but may as well be is eating poutine and says:

“She pou on my tine til I curd”

Fitting for the Canada-based musician who’s sending out some more redemptive melodies from de stage der. But Jack J does not strike me as a poutine enjoyer based on his music alone. With songs like “Born Without a Smile”, coasting and spiralling, wrapped in white linen…I think he’d be better suited to a Hawaiian poke bowl or some shite. But actually I love this track - a fatty stand out on the Blue Desert album.

Following The Gift, a visual representation of all the different ways that acid may affect a person, RHYSICS close the show. I spent the weekend camping with these jolly little garage rockers. Their spirit is uplifting asf and it’s real refreshing to see genuine excitement and negative nonchalance onstage. Divorced Dad randomly emerges mid-set and lingers amongst the band before grabbing a mic and giving it socks. LEL. When we’re finally steaming out of the Sup, I see a figure approaching from beyond the tent graveyards. Long hair and elephant pants billowing in the wind, the figure begins to run alongside the car like a silver stallion. I rub my eyes in disbelief - it’s the W.O.W, here to impart one final slither of wisdom… his meditations on Meredith.

“Human life… Perception: dim. Condition of body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain… The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and a mist…lasting reputation is oblivion”

(Meditations, 2.17).

He collapses in a heap in the rear view mirror. I yell out a reciprocal “Awwwwwwwww CHUR!” from the backseat and close my eyes in a sweet philosophical stupor, stewing on his sentiments.