A weekend of euphoria

This weekend was Earthcore, and it was fantastic!

Earthcore’s an ‘electronic music and lifestyle’ festival, and was held this year in Undera, Victoria, which is a small town in the Goulburn Valley, 20km North-west of Shepparton. It featured a lineup of artists including Shpongle, Hallucinogen, Regurgitator, Propellerheads, and Juno Reactor (who were incredible).

The atmosphere was unbelievable – The place was buzzing. Everybody was very thoughtful and affectionate (brushing past someone usually triggered a bout of back-patting), there was barely any rubbish, and only happy people everywhere one looked. If only the rest of the world was like that!

So we drove up on Friday, in two cars, meeting in Seymour to get supplies. Daniel nicked the map and led the rest of the way, with Celeste and Shari; Michael and I followed in my car, which was a good chance to reconnect with Mike – It’d been a while. There was a bit of a rush to get there, as Daniel had a DVD of some VJ stuff he’d made (see here, here, here and here), which was to be screened at 3pm. We arrived with half an hour to spare, and Daniel, Celeste and Shari flew on ahead to organise things. Michael and I stayed in line, and eventually passed through. It was a 10 minute almost-4wd drive through the dust and open woodland to the site, beside the Goulburn river, and already quite packed. Michael and I drove around looking for a good campsite, through the makeshift town that was the camping area. We found a spot with some afternoon shade, and left the car and a partially setup tent there. Even at the campsite, which was 5 minutes walk or so from the main area, the air was throbbing with pounding bass, accompanied by the buzz of insects and screetches of cockatoos overhead. We headed out on foot to look for the others, who we found in the marketplace, at ‘Holy Cow’, a cafe lounge, with rugs and cushions on the floor for lying around on (which came in very handy for periodic crashing).

So, we sat around, picking grass seeds out of our socks for a while, and then wandered around and took in the atmosphere; had a very-much-needed beer inside the circus tent (otherwise known as "Circus Beserkus"). The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying some music, dancing at the Hydra stage and in Circus. The stages were covered with soft sand, which felt great between the toes, and was perfect for dancing barefoot.

A huge storm passed our way, late evening; the brilliant flashes across the sky provided an enormous strobe, and the booming thunder formed a counterpoint rhythm to the pounding bass coming from the enormous speakers on the stage. We ate our fill at the Hare Krishna on-site, which was unbelievably good food, in very large portions, and watched drenched, excited co-festivalees come and go. We chatted for about an hour with a man called Gopal, one of the friendly volunteers at the Hare Krishna, a Kiwi living in an Ashram in Melbourne.

We headed back to the campsite for some rest, and piled into my 1.5 person dome tent, in the absence of any communal camping area. Cosy!

The rest of the evening was spent dancing, to Batta, True Live, Propellerheads.

Mid-day Saturday we all emerged and dug out some food and drink from the eski in the boot of my car. A swim in the river cooled us down, as the temperature was climbing quickly. Many others had a similar idea, so it was quite a social event.

The bass pound which was becoming so familiar (like a bio-rhythm) started up again at 3pm. We joined in for the Shpongle set at 5pm, a wonderful 2 hours of groove and shared euphoria. The others found a ‘Happy High Herbs’ stall, and bought themselves some mostly-legal goodies. More dancing to other assorted DJs followed, until our stomachs led us back to Hare Krishna.

We chilled for a while back at the campsite, piled into my car for warmth. Much of the rest of the evening was a blur of pulsating lights, thumping speakers, the press of hundreds of warm dancing people (which was good, as the temperature was plummeting). A wild, frenetic Hallucinogen set got the adreneline pumping. Celeste, then Shari and Michael retired for the night (Shari and Michael had grown more and more affectionate during the evening), and Daniel and I pressed on.

We crashed for a while around 3 am at Holy Cow. Daniel slept for a while, but I felt the pull of thumping bass, so I headed off to the Main Stage, where ‘Lab 4′ were playing a mind-blowing, wild live set. The energy was huge, and people were dancing wildly; Flashing lights and a multitude of green lasers played over a forest of waving arms and massive grins.

Daniel emerged soon after, and we all stomped, jumped and grooved our way towards dawn, never remaining still too long, to fend off the cold of the early morning. Tsuyoshi Suzuki followed Lab 4, and a high-energy set played on while the sky gradually lightened.

More people joined the core group of hardcores as the morning progressed, and the sun appeared as Juno Reactor started at 6:30 am. An incredible fusion of tribal music and electronica (‘Goa trance‘), they played for a fantastic hour and a half.

After Juno, standing up was becoming a problem, so we all grooved our way back to the campsite for a mid-morning siesta. I found it was much too hot inside the tent, so I laid a towel out on the ground, with a pillow, a camp chair over the pillow, and a sleeping bag over the whole lot to keep the sun off. We all got a few hours of sleep, and gathered around for a lazy lunch of focaccia, salad, tomatoes and humous which Daniel and Celeste had made.

Mid-afternoon, we packed up the tents, piled back into the cars, and set off for Melbourne, in convoy.

See photo album for more Earthcore pictures.

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