For the 10th and final time, the sun grazed the amphitheatre at the Bambra Bowl with a kind of poetic light like it knew that the forthcoming weekend would be its last.
Meadow Music Festival – previously known as By The Meadow – has been somewhat of an underdog in the Australian festival game. Like all beloved players, though, the time has come for this one to retire.
Meadow’s tenth iteration was akin to a grand final. Spoiler alert: they won.
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Punters rolled in like tickling waves on Friday afternoon, slowly filling the hill with tents and the amphitheatre with attention. Twine opened the festival with the kind of set you’d be kicking yourself if you didn’t pull a sickie at work that day to arrive in Bambra in time for the South Australian country noise-rockers.
Kaiit and Big Yawn followed with shows of epic proportions, rivalled only by the sunset that sank over the horizon of the titular meadows.
What happened next was a spectrum of sound and feeling, grabbing punters by the hand and barrelling them between the reliable eccentricities of Orb’s psych-rock to Empress Of’s electro-pop somersaults. Pureblast and Osmosis Jones wrapped the first night up with contradicting but equally captivating sets that were born of the intriguingly unexpected.
Aussie legends and international icons
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Day two arrived with an atmosphere of inevitability that indicated the end was near – thankfully, it brought with it a comfort of angelic bliss. Follow The Robin opened Saturday’s proceedings, juggling festival intern duties and a show-stealing performance.
The incomparable Think About You was a clear highlight of the day, transforming zombies disguised as punters into TAY’s newest fans. Eggy and Armlock’s back-to-back sets reaffirmed Naarm’s reputation as the birthplace of the world’s best bands, while Npcede’s cyclone of sonic experimentation in the afternoon will go down in the history books.
The Welcome to Country, led by Uncle Barry, was a salient reflection of not only the lands that we were congregating on, but the reasons we were gathered. To connect to community, to share in art and to intertwine ourselves with the environment that allowed such a momentous meeting of music to unfold.
Saturday night’s sunset slot was swapped out for a beam of delight that shone just as bright. MJ Lenderman and the Wind rolled through Meadow, shaking the entire festival alive with an hour of music that punters wished had lasted forever. Only a select group of Aussie musos could follow the glow MJ left in his wake. Enter: Proto Moro, Floodlights, dameeeela.
The adored specimens of Western Australian psych-rock outfit Pond were perhaps the only exception. They didn’t just follow, nor just shine bright – they beamed a light of heavenly bliss directly into our ear canals and our souls.
The set blessed those who bore witness with a mix of new gems and old goodies, plus frontman Nick Allbrook’s crowd surfing, flute work and all-round intoxicatingly whimsical presence. Immediately afterwards, a punter in the crowd rightly declared, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” Little else could sum up so precisely the extravagant beauty of Pond.
This is the end, beautiful friend
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Sunday’s sunrise and following triplet of eloquent sets that wrapped up the final day settled in over Meadow with an air of bittersweetness that was so potent to almost be tangible.
For many who have had the pleasure of spending a weekend at Meadow – whether it be one or five (guilty) or all ten – the sense of authentic community that the festival has created through careful curation and lineups far too impressive for an event of its capacity, this final edition was ultimately the perfect goodbye.
Australia is undeniably in a rut when it comes to our music festival offerings. Legacy players are disappearing; organisers are postponing major draw-cards.
Funding is lacking and so too are music lovers who are willing to cop the (exceedingly exuberant but understandable) cost of a ticket. A favourite festival disappearing off the face of the earth with hardly any warning and – worst of all – without a proper farewell is an experience you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
And so, despite the bittersweet end to Meadow’s 10-festival-long career, we at least were lucky enough to be there to witness it. Vale Meadow.
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