Why would you put hills in a parking lot? The answer is simple for Aidan McLaren, director of The Hills Are Alive Festival, who’s bringing the event out of rural Victoria and into Melbourne for the first time.
Hills City, a miniature version of the long-running festival, will attempt to cram a Hills-worthy program into the parking lot of Richmond’s Corner Hotel.
“We’ll try to capture the Hills Are Alive festival vibe within the city,” McLaren says. “It’s not your usual gig. The overall vibe of any Hills event is really friendly and welcoming, because it grew out of a friends-of-friends, invite-only thing. Everyone’s super nice to each other. Everyone’s there to party and have a good time, but also chat to other people and meet new friends.”
For the festival’s modest debut in 2009, bands like .Hinge, Long Walk Home and Polo Club filled out a program McLaren helped splash across MySpace. Since then, The Hills Are Alive has grown into one of Victoria’s highest-profile festivals. A spot on the Hills program has been a milestone for many rising Victorian artists.
“This is the first time we’ve made it into a mini outdoor city festival,” McLaren says. “It works well with this time of year. It’s not quite summer, but everyone’s come out of winter and they’re looking for something to do. It’s a good reminder of all things Hills.”
Headlining Hills City are four-piece party-starters the Bennies, who’ll arrive with their fourth studio album, Natural Born Chillers, in tow. Other noteworthy names on the Hills City program include cosmic EDM project BATTS and fellow capslock aficionados DIET., a Melbourne five-piece specialising in new-wave-flavoured indie tunes.
Paring down the program from the 30-odd artists on a typical Hills program was a challenge, says McLaren.
Also challenging: how do you hold a 400-person late-night rave in the middle of Richmond without attracting a few noise complaints? Hills City’s solution was a silent disco, with special headphones that will let festival-goers switch from one DJ to another. Coloured lights on the headphones will show which DJs are holding the dancefloor in sway.
“You’ll be able to tell which DJ has most of the crowd at whatever time,” says McLaren. “If you haven’t been to a silent disco, it’s quite a surreal experience. It’s all these people dancing, having a great time, as if it’s in a packed, pumping venue, but it’s dead silent. It can be quite funny to watch. The Hills DJs are quite competitive with each other, and they play a lot of different genres of music, so it’s going to be interesting to see who wins the crowd over.”
Hills regulars DJ Safety, the Consummators, and DJ Baby Tones are slated to perform, joined by Real Slinger, who memorably crashed The Hills Are Alive 2015 dressed as a Ghostbuster. Well-dressed attendees can also compete in an “op-shop formal” clothing competition for prizes including free drinks and tickets to The Hills Are Alive 2019.
“We want people to get the best, cheapest, previously-owned clothes they can find,” McLaren says. “We want people to dress up and make it a great vibe, but not to spend heaps of money on it. We try to be as responsible as possible. ‘Op-shop formal’ means bringing back to life something someone has previously used.”
The unstylish will have a second chance to win Hills tickets in a piñata bash, a festival tradition. Other familiar sights for veteran festival-goers will include the Mr Burger food truck and the Roaming Poppy mobile café.
Rapid sales of Hills City tickets mean the mini-festival is likely to become a regular event. “The response to this has been amazing,” McLaren says. “Hopefully, we can keep doing it year on year and grow it into something really special.”
