It's always a treat when a long weekend rolls around, especially when the October Long Weekend brings in longer days, as the clocks roll forward & we're then treated to an extra hour of sunshine. It's amazing what an extra hour of light in the day can do for the soul! & also how a 3 day weekend can feel like just the break you needed.
The long weekend started off with a bang, as I managed to get out of work for a decent time & it was time for cocktails! Grace is visiting from NZ across the weekend for a close friends wedding so it was just nice to find a cocktail bar & have a girls night out. I've lived in Enmore since the beginning of this year & have actually always walked past this place but we found ourselves at "The Secret Garden" bar which every time I've walked past is always packed & always has really groovy songs blasting out onto the streets. Also their Rum Expresso Martinis go down a treat! Sideboob were blasting all sorts of classics such as "Music Sounds Better with You" by Stardust, a nice remix of "You Should Be Dancing" by Bee Gees, "My Love" by Route 94, "Won't Look Back" by Duke Dumont & lots of other house classics to give you a rough idea. Anyway I'll be back there again soon!
Early in the evening I was enticed by Grace & her friend Matt about going to a Techno DJ set in Club 77 on William Street. A club that due to renovations, changed hands & generally getting older I hadn't been to for quite a long while. The LINEUP once I had a proper look consisted of Deepchild (who is a DJ I've recognised since I first came across dance music; he has remixed & produced alongside a good few artists such as M.A.N.D.Y, Seth Troxler, Green Velvet & Richie Hawtin to name a few) as well as B-Man, Yakov & Overexposed. What fond memories I have of Club 77, is that it was filled most Friday, Saturday & Sunday nights with filthy electro & house music. You didn't have to get super dressed up, you could put on your best dancing shoes & an oversized shirt with leggings, once you worked your way down the steps the carpet was super sticky & seaweed was hanging from the ceilings. A big, bright, fluro pink upside down triangle was front & centre above the dancefloor & their theme group was "Starf*ckers". As renovations took hold, Starf*ckers moved down to Home Bar at Darling Harbour & since then I hadn't really been back so my curiosity happily kicked in.
After spending a couple of hours at Secret Garden Bar, we made our way in a cab towards William Street. I gave myself a curfew of midnight as I was getting up early the next day to head to Yours & Owls Festival in Wollongong. & I'm so glad that I went, the venue hadn't changed very much & the crowd were very willing to enjoy the sets. Here's just a 10second taster of how part of the Techno sets went:
After a bit of a party, I stuck to my curfew & threw myself in a cab. The best part was waking up early the next day & finding out that Grace danced on & on & was literally there till the lights came on! Go Gurl!
I was up for 7ish, as I was meeting my mate Shez at Redfern station as we decided to make a trip of it & catch the train down south to North Wollongong. It only took just under an hour & a half but hands down its one of the most scenic train trips you can do on the South Coast.
Hour & a half on the train & it gave us plenty of time to both get really excited as it's the first time in a long while that we've been to an all day Music Festival. After it poured for that first hour in the morning, we were nervous that we would be in ponchos all day & wouldn't be able to sit on the grass. But lucky for us the weather cleared up by mid morning & it became a lovely day. Not too hot to get sunburnt but with a breeze cool enough to be pleasant.
Now to sum up the technical details there were a good few things about Yours & Owls. The price for the ticket was pretty decent sitting at about $70-80 for the day, it was a two day festival but we opted for a day ticket as the lineup on the Saturday felt more in line with artists that both Shez & I wanted to see. Second bonus, the festival wasn't a super massive festival which made it feel more intimate & local, there was only two stages & we spent majority of the whole day & night at the main stage. Also what amazed me is how much technology has helped the festival experience. As soon as we went through the gate, our wristbands became our wallets for the day, so you could use your credit/debit card to top up the amount you wanted to spend & whenever you wanted to buy anything across the day you would then get your wristband scanned. Whatever amount wasn't spent, was then collected as a refund at the end of the night no questions asked. There was a shuttle bus to & from the festival from North Wollongong station, which meant at the end of the night that punters were able to get back to the station safely & with plenty of time to not miss the train. Very well organised indeed!
& onto the fun stuff! So once we made it through the gate, we topped up our wristbands & headed straight to the main stage. The day started with Eves Karydas who drew in quite a large crowd. At first listen Eves reminded me of Dua Lipa as her songs had lots of energy on the stage & you could feel it catch on into the crowd. She hopped from one side of the stage to the other, in this bright coloured skivvy & high waisted jeans. Her songs were synth rich & boppy which was a great way to start the day.
We then found a slightly shaded spot on the right hand side of the stage to sit & chill. Just in time for grime legend Kwame to land on stage. The mood was lifted even higher as Kwame jumped & bopped across the stage, getting the audience to jump up & down with him as he rapped his heart out. Then to my surprise as I forgot this artist was on the lineup Angie McMahon strummed her harmony guitar & sultry moods in a red power suit. Which leads us into this weeks song!
What I love about this song is out of all the songs I heard on Saturday this one was my favourite & most memorable. Then when I did some more research across the weekend & realised it was about feeling tired. I loved it even more. I've heard this song on the radio a few times, but had forgotten the title of it so it was so good to find a song that you've been searching for!
What is easy to decipher about this song is that we all have moments where motivation gets to us & lacking motivation gets in the way of doing the important things. Especially after a long weekend I've enjoyed doing a whole lot of relaxing. Also who doesn't like PASTA?! Pasta is one of my favourite things to cook, it's easy to get a lot of ingredients left in the fridge & make yourself some awesome pasta sauce. I have a huge thing for olives & chilli so when I make a pasta sauce I always make sure that olives, chilli & always a HEAP of garlic are chucked in. Anyway enough about the food Pasta is such a fun sounding song as well. The tempo sends you into a rush & all you want to do is rock out & jump around to this song! I'm obsessed!
PHOTOS TAKEN BY SASIS PHOTOGRAPHY
After Angie McMahon then Slumberjack delivered a fun half hour set full of dance bangers to get the crowd jumping around again. Then after Slumberjack it was one of the artists both Shez & I were most excited about seeing Vera Blue & her songs were just as amazing live as they are recorded. I was most excited about hearing Hold live, as well as Regular Touch, Lady Powers, Mended & Settle. Her vocals are just through the roof & like I mentioned last week unfortunately Flume didn't join her on stage to sing "Rushing Back" which is a shame but its more Flumes song than Vera Blues.
Sneaky Sound System then danced their way through the stage just after the sun setted for the day, & it was the best throw back artist. Sneaky Sound System still after all these years have produced banger after banger but for me more so it was purely nostalgic. As when I first was going out clubbing all their songs were just so much fun. The first time I saw Sneaky Sound System was before I was old enough to go out as they were a support act to Robbie Williams at the SFS in 2006. At Yours & owls they played all the bangers such as UFO, Pictures, Big, I Love It, Kansas City & We Love. Absolutely loved it & they even chucked in UFO the Van She Tech Remix for good measure!
Ruel was next on the bill & I'll tell you that you have to keep reminding yourself that this guy is only 16! I remember the first time I saw Ruel he was only 14 soon to turn 15 & he was a support act for Angus & Julia Stone. I've shared him on Play it Forward >> & titled him as "an artist to watch" as he has such a mature sounding voice, full of soul that you would think that he had experienced so much pain. I still believe that & I loved hearing his tracks "Dazed & Confused", "Younger" & "Don't Tell Me" to name a few. Our bodies were ready but after Ruel, Amy Shark graced the stage with a big "A M Y S H A R K" spelt across the stage. I lost my cool pretty early as she started with "Weekends" which is my all time favourite song from her, then onto crowd faves such as "Adore", "Drive You Mad" before ending with "I Said Hi". To end the night Golden Features then came on & played some dark dance music, so we watched more than half of his set, had a final boogie before slowly making our way to the free shuttle bus back to the station. All up I'd say it was an amazing day & I'm so glad I went! I might see you next year North Wollongong!
Now here's to a four day week! & so far thats all my gigs for now!
Hope you all have a great rest of your week & remember to fill it up with awesome music!
Cheers
Amy