Triple J One Night Stand Dalby 2012
So for most of last week I was receiving daily phone calls from my interstate friends who were trying to convince me to go the Triple J One Night Stand concert. I was straight up NO. no way. Nope. Nuh uh. Not gonna happen. I don’t know any of those terrible hipster bands, it’s going to rain for sure AND it’s in Dalby of all places!!! Dalby, for those of you who have never heard of the place (which I’m assuming is most of you) is an hour West of Toowoomba (where I live), and about 3 hours West of the capital, Brisbane. I was like, end of story, not going.
Saturday afternoon rolls around and I receive yet another phone call… I told my buddy, Cossie, if he was going to wait for me to finish the weekly podcast then I would go with him. *switches phone off to record podcast* get home and there he is… so after packing extra clothes, off we went!! I figured it would at least be a bit of an adventure!
And that it was!
We found a car park reasonably close to the showgrounds, and all we had to do was follow the HOARDS of people who were lining up to get in (and the gigantic bungee bullet that was set up – no I didn’t go on it lol I didn’t want THAT much of an adventure AND I had eaten a dagwood dog!!). There were guys standing on the corners selling ponchos for $10 to the people in line for the gate, but we were like nahhhhh it’ll be right mate. FAIL. Worst decision ever.
We walked into the showground and into the mud! I had my gumboots and my Chicago Bulls jacket (which I felt entitled me to yell at
Lakers jersey wearers – they were all 15 and had NO idea who the Bulls were – Jordan would have been proud 😉 and was wearing about three more layers, that kept me pretty clean and dry… for a while.
Matt Corby’s song ‘Brothers’ (oooo a ooooo *terrible song*) was playing when we got there and it seemed as though the mud covered masses were happy – everyone was singing along! I’m guess the only people who weren’t happy were the managers of the Dalby Showgrounds… as there was no grass left by that stage, it was ALL mud. The only time it didn’t feel like you were ice skating, was when you were standing on somewhat less slippery concrete!
Got a bite to eat in the surprisingly short lines for food, while listening to Stonefield (not really my type of music – squeaky girls) who defiantly knew what they were doing, but I’m not too sure about the 80’s hair swinging… Then it was on to 360.
Now the last time I had heard anything about this guy, his name had been put on the chalk board out the front of the ‘Tatts’ (notoriously the worst pub in Maryborough) and everyone was about to show up there for a gig… until they realised that it was just some bogans attempt at a bad joke.
So off he went, and started the typical, ‘I’m a rapper and like to swear at everyone’ routine… and so did the rain. He wasn’t too bad, much like the Hilltop Hoods of whom I am a fan, so I started bopping around at the back with Cossie, waiting for our other friends to show up (150m back from the stage – that’s as close as you could get without being crushed by the 15,000 other people who were there)
And then the rain REALLY started!
And it didn’t stop.
For a solid 20 minutes (…4ish songs)
So it had been drizzling on and off since we got there, but this was solid, hurricane, glad I had my glasses because it was horizontal RAIN. (Although, since my glasses were like a car windscreen without wipers, I almost lost my friend, bumped into strangers, couldn’t see the stage and nearly fell over!)
Dancing in the pouring rain, with THOUSANDS of random strangers, to HIP HOP music, in DALBY! WTF was I doing!? It felt like I was stuck in some pagan fertility rite, thousands of people in the middle of nowhere, all dressed up like condoms (in their ponchos) worshiping and chanting at the prophet of the day.
360 cut out. Music stopped. He came back on stage 5 minutes later with an apology that there was too much water in the electrical cabling and it was too dangerous to continue. By then over half of the crowd had dispersed anyway, I was wet to the core (turns out my Chicago Bulls jacket wasn’t really water proof – thanks a bunch Jordan) but those that had stuck it out were clearly the fans. I mean, they were standing in a FOOT of mud and water – it had overflowed into my gumboots!!
They started THROWING things onto the stage! I mean, come on, if you had stood squashed up against thousands of randoms, in the pouring rain, for HOURS, and then you hear that you favourite band ‘The Temper Trap’ is cancelled…. Uh oh… Expecting a riot (and freezing our butts off), we bailed.
*I found it hilarious that ‘The Temper Trap’ was able to come on stage and apologise for a solid 5 minutes – why didn’t they use that time for a quick acoustic sesh? They also had time for 360 to come on and apologise AND the Triple J staff to come on and apologise! Geez.
It then took us an HOUR to get out of the grid locked, soaked, back streets of Dalby, as everyone made a break for the main road back to civilisation. There was bumper to bumper traffic for the next hour back to Toowoomba! But I didn’t hear of any incidents, and I made it home safe so that’s the important thing 🙂
WHAT AN ADVENTURE!
Am I glad I got dragged along? Yes, thanks Cossie
Would I do it again? Probably, but next time, buy the damn poncho!
Mastercard Level: Priceless 🙂
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