'Meredith Music Festival 2023 Review' / Maki Morita [Review]
After three days of dancing (and sinking, and sliding...) through mud to live music, it’s evident that people will turn up for a good time no matter what Mother Nature has in store for us. From 8-10 December, thousands of music lovers descended to the ‘Sup in Wadawurrung country, with gumboots and raincoats in tow, to revel in Aunty Meredith’s 31st Meredith Music Festival.
As this festival matures into its flirty thirties, it’s safe to say it has secured a place in our live music ecosystem as a kind of institution, with its own rituals and loyal community. First there’s the Meredith Eye, where punters line up for a rickety ride over the neon-lit grounds, then there’s the Meredith Gift, where those brave enough to strip bare are invited to an annual nudie run. And it wouldn’t be Meredith without the official cleaning song, which is democratically voted for by the loudest wooing offered up by the crowd — this year’s winner being Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue. Call it cult-y if you will, but perhaps these novelties are what makes Meredith… Meredith.
This isn’t lost on the artists, where alt-pop darling Caroline Polachek sensed an “animalistic, spiritual feeling” in the air, claiming that “very good things have happened here”. As a highly anticipated international headliner, Polachek’s dramatic entrance was met with much fanfare, and she certainly delivered. Transformative and euphoric while evoking a strong sense of yearning, it felt apt that her most recent album is titled “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You”.
Another highlight from my first day came in early, where I just made it down to catch Naarm-based rockers Gut Health. The 6-piece outfit stormed the stage with what might best be described as toe-tapping dance-punk-rock, keeping it furiously busy in the best way possible. Lead vocalist Athina Uh Oh’s energetic performance, supported by a thrumming bassline, tight drumming, and soaring sax solos, kept the crowd hooked.
It’s undeniably a strange time to be attending a festival, where any celebration can’t be removed from the ongoing atrocities happening in Occupied Palestine. These sentiments were echoed by Miss Kaninna, who voiced that she is in a privileged position right now, which is “a strange thing to say as an Aboriginal woman on stolen land”. She reminded us how lucky we are to live without the fear of breathing in white phosphorus, before closing her set with a heartfelt rendition of Bob Marley’s One Love. Miss Kaninna exploded onto the scene with her catchy singles Blak Britney and Pinnacle Bitch, and her powerful presence is sure to continue being felt.
Aunty Meredith is known for her eclectic programming and championing of local artists, and this year was no exception. As the night went on, I journeyed from the rockin’ Australiana of Floodlights to old-school hip-hop icons Souls of Mischief, who took us all the way from “93 to Infinity”. Alex G’s indie bedroom rock had many fans buzzing, and local act 30/70 cast us in a hypnotic groove.
There’s always a special treat (or two) at a festival, where you discover an artist previously unknown to you and decide they’re your new favourite thing. For me, this place was taken up by none other than Flowdan, whose infectious brand of UK grime was impossible not to move to. After a feverish dance to the MC’s hard-hitting beats, my energy was sufficiently spent, and I hit my half-inflated mattress (courtesy of Kmart) to try get some rest before day two.
Ah, the rain… it had no signs of abating as I woke bleary-eyed on Saturday morning. Like many, I braved the thickening mud pits in knee-high gumboots, though a handful of barefooted punters decided to surrender to the sludge. Well, if there’s any place to abandon the banal concept of shoes for a frolic in the mud, I guess it would be Meredith.
Once I waded through to the stage, proud Noongar woman and Naarm-based artist Bumpy brought a shimmering start to my morning. Bumpy’s honeyed vocals, along with the powerful support of her back-up singers, made the experience of pouring rain somewhat transcendental. All artists were beautifully dressed in the flowing, cosmic designs of local label R E M U S E, which felt like the perfect pairing.
As we cycled through the afternoon, charismatic hip hop and electronic duo They Hate Change kept us bouncing, while donning plastic ponchos “in solidarity” with the crowd. DJ Kuniyuki led us on a kaleidoscopic journey through his jazzy, ambient soundscapes, and Alvvays cast us in a haze of dream-pop. Interstitial DJ Mothafunk guided the smooth transition between genre shifts, as we grooved on the increasingly muddy d-floor.
Once night had fallen, German electro legends Kraftwerk lit up the ‘Sup in neon robot suits and glowing synths, delivering an act that was conceptually admirable but, in this reviewer’s mind, disappointingly humdrum. A suite of highly curated visuals took us on a ride up the autobahn and threw us in a futuristic computer simulation, while the band members didn’t stray once from their rigid, robot-like personas. Kraftwerk’s futuristic synths didn’t feel quite as ground-breaking as they probably did in the 70s, but the current members are undoubtedly keeping an incredible legacy alive.
Up next was Sneaky Sound System, who dialled up the energy with a healthy bout of noughties nostalgia. To my surprise, I soon learnt that my own lyrical depository contains many a Sneaky Sound System hit, leading me to understand the true and great power of the sing-a-long banger. Threaded through original hits such as UFO and Pictures were classic samples from the likes of Daft Punk, giving us a taste of the duo’s long-running club night, Sneaky Sundays.
While I reserve a certain fondness for the 2000s — the peak era of Motorola flip phones, MSN, Rage, and problematic American high school films — it also remains a time fraught with this country’s race problem. Growing up in Cronulla during that period would’ve been no easy time for any Person of Colour, let alone an Arab kid, which was precisely the experience of Egyptian-Australian DJ and producer Moktar.
Moktar emerged in the AMs with a phenomenal set, delivering his distinct combination of club music and traditional Arabic instrumentation. Moktar’s music feels like a cathartic reclamation of culture, and a journey through the myriad influences that make up his world. Across two hours, he seamlessly dipped from folk melodies to eclectic vocal samples and the complex rhythms of Arabic percussion, making for a unique journey that was the absolute highlight of my festival. The crowd was ebullient, fluttering Palestinian flags in the air and cheering wildly for his closing remark, “Free Palestine!”
I finished off my night — or should I say morning — with another joyous set from Eris Drew and Octa Octa, who kept us dancing all the way till sunrise. As the clock struck 6.30 AM and the first rays hit a little too bright on us battered troopers of the festival, I called it a day… well, before rising three hours later for a weary Sunday morning pack down.
Dusty, hungover, and caked in mud, my thought-process on the drive home mainly involved a warm shower and bed. Another thing that did cross my mind, however, was how privileged I felt to witness so many performances over the weekend that emanated with rich emotion. Perhaps the stage offers a means of communing in a collective feeling, I mused, whether that be joy, rage, grief and all the other feels. In a time that feels especially tender, it was affirming to witness some artists using their platform to stand in solidarity with Palestine. For me, this year’s Meredith was a reminder that music is about community, and that there is a unique power to showing up in our numbers and connecting through a live experience.
Article written by Maki Morita
Photography by Charlie Foster
Thank you for reading this article. Before you leave the page, we’d like you to take a moment to read this statement. We are asking our readers to take action and stand with the BIPOC community who fight and endure the oppression and injustice of racial inequality.
Here in ‘Australia’, Indigenous people are the most incarcerated population on Earth. Countless lives have been murdered by white police, white government policies and this country’s white history, institutionalised colonialism and ongoing racial oppression. Racial injustice continues today under the phoney, self-congratulatory politics of ‘Reconciliation’ and the notion that colonialism is something that must be denied and forgotten, an uncomfortable artefact of the past.
Feeling guilty is not enough. We must take action, pay the rent, educate ourselves and acknowledge that empathy and sorrow for past actions is insufficient if this does nothing to prevent our current reality from extending into the future.
At the same time, we are living in the midst of several worldwide genocides, including the genocide of Palestinian people by the Israeli state. The West is complicit, so-called Australia funds the state of Israel. We stand with the nightlife community in Naarm to join the worldwide call not just for an immediate ceasefire to end the current genocide in Gaza, but also the occupation that has been oppressing and displacing Palestinians for 75+ years since the 1948 nakba. Use your voice, call/email your MPs, attend the weekly rally. Every week until Palestine is free.
From the river to the sea. Always was, always will be.