A little bit of Meredith in my life

     

The crowd in the Sup’. Photo by Eloise Coomber, @eloisecoomber

As I’m sitting down to write this, my brain is still buzzing from three days of intense audio-visual stimulation, sleep deprivation, and immersion in a crowd in constant motion - toe-tapping, head-banging, jumping, dancing and punching the air at all hours of the day. Now to condense the frazzle of my thoughts into some sense of the 33^rd Meredith. 

Meredith has certainly forged a loyal following over the years with newcomers and annual attendees alike delighted by what this festival has to offer. Part of this offering is a lineup that never fails to surprise, with a mix of genres, local and international acts, fresh talent and those firmly established.

Atarashi Gakko! on stage. Photo by Mike Ridley.

This year was no different. Japanese J-Pop/Tokyo Thrash band Atarashi Gakko! took the crowd by storm, building tension until the point of near frenzy and seemingly channelling the energy of supernatural beings with the strength, endurance and precision of their performance.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir gave an incredibly tender Sunday morning performance, singing in Western Arrarnta and Pitjantjatjara languages songs that merge First Nations musical traditions with those of German Mission choirs.

And then there was everything in between; Ninajirachi, Omar Souleyman, Dames Brown, Radio Free Alice… Each act hit a different note, but they never fell flat.

The Sup’ at night – confetti and lights. Photography by Jake Pattison @jake_pattison

Beyond the lineup, a large part of what Meredith offers is its atmosphere and community feel. It’s an environment that feels safe, welcoming and genuinely inclusive, to an extent that is sadly often not encountered in the outside world.  

The festival opened with a Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony, led by Wadawurrung man Uncle Barry. The impact of this moment, and the generosity, grace and humour, with which it was conducted, left its mark across the weekend.

The festival takes place in a site of incredible natural beauty – the Supernatural Amphitheatre (the Sup) – a grassy hollow sloping down to the stage, hugged all around by beautiful old eucalypts.  And what better way to soak in both natural beauty and live music than from the comfort of… your couch? Truly the greatest innovation of Meredith might be the tradition of festival goers rocking up with couches in tow and trekking them down to the Sup so that you can do just that. Bliss!

Enjoying Meredith from the comfort of the couches. Photo by Eloise Coomber, @eloisecoomber

While the couches are a luxury of the festival experience, one necessity that cannot be overlooked is keeping the punters fed. I ended up at the Tucker Tent, for an egg and bacon sandwich, and to hear about why it’s such an important aspect of Meredith’s community feel.

Martin Peters, Chairman of the Meredith Community Tucker Tent, tells me that you can think of it as a Bunnings sausage sizzle, with local community groups working shifts across the weekend to raise funds. It’s one hell of a sausage sizzle: It’s “got a tonne and a half of meat and 350 volunteers over the weekend.” The Tucker Tent has been an integral part of Meredith since the first year, and its impact on the local community is massive. “This Tucker Tent would literally have put millions of dollars back into a little community of 800 people over the years.” 

But at the heart of a community, there are, of course, people. Jackie Ferry, the Secretary of the Tucker Tent, and Martin, are both Meredith locals who have long been involved with the festival. Jackie describes her youngest daughter, now 20, as having “been coming [to the festival] since nappies.”

I can’t help but feel that part of the magic of Meredith is the layers of memories associated with the festival that accumulate year after year. Jackie shares one memory of hers, recalling having come to the festival with her own three kids, plus three others in tow. “I brought six kids. Me and six kids. And they were little, little kids. And people were coming up and they were giving me high fives and saying - ‘you’re a cool mum!’… But then these randoms would come up and say, can we put them on our shoulders? And so I'm in the mosh pit and I'm going, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5…’ [trying to keep count of the kids] and I'm going, ‘oh my God, these strange people!’ And you know, the kids are absolutely having a ball and everyone's giving them high fives.”

It's the kind of story that would be unfathomable in other contexts, but at Meredith, it feels somehow natural that that would be the way of things.  

So here's to the next Meredith, and the years of stories and memories that are to come.

Sunset at the Meredith hills. Photography by Eloise Coomber @eloisecoomber