music – in Creative Wilderness

Saturday 28 Feb. I am running around my house wondering why everything is taking so long. Why didn’t I paint my nails yesterday when I was a sloth on the lounge? A faint wave of nausea rolls over me and I know I am stressing myself out (I used to throw up after every birthday party as a kid). I breathe, shove 15 random items of clothing in my bag and speed off to my friend’s place where we will begin our journey to Sydney.

After 2 hours of singing at the top of our lungs, we reach our dive of a hotel in Parramatta and I realise I am starving. It’s lunch time. We have to leave soon. So I eat 2 minute noodles cooked precariously in a hotel coffee mug, slap on some makeup and then we’re outside in the boiling summer sun.

Once we had battled the trains (seriously, how were we meant to get to Olympic Park if it isn’t mentioned on the schedule?), we arrived at our destination along with 50,000 other makeup-clad, spiked-haired, pierced and generally delightful people.

The afternoon melted into one length of time where our feet rarely stopped moving, our muscles cramped, we shouted, sang, and soothed our throats with too much vodka and Redbull. In what felt like quick succession, we were pondering how Faith No More could still be so cool, even when they’re 100 years old, dressed all in white and performing on a stage covered in flowers like a funeral parlour; then next minute we were merrily enjoying a train ride home along with hundreds of other exhausted festival-goers.

At this point in time, I could happily call it quits and go home.

And then day 2 started. I was dreading it internally. How were my poor shaking legs going to handle another 8 hours of standing? We drive to the venue this time and park out in the open and quickly realise it is a million degrees outside. I start to feel sick. Turns out my potato-on-a-stick and a dagwood dog from the day before wasn’t a wholesome meal.

Not long after we go inside and find a relatively clear space to watch Fear Factory, it starts to rain. Not the soft, drizzling rain, but large fat, COLD, rain. It starts to pour and we are running for shelter along with everyone else, leaving the band behind to perform to an empty space. From that point on my shoes squelch with every step, my shorts don’t seem to dry and I am freezing. What better way to fix the situation than to eat another potato-on-a-stick? Maybe I’ll have a pie too.

At the end of the night, when the final song was played and the lights came on, I squinted around at the crowd as they started to dazedly meander towards the door. My legs were locked in place and my muscles once again screamed in protest. Like a herd of sheep, we shuffled out, heads down and tired, and I realised that maybe I am getting too old for this.