Last day of the festival. Only one person’s tent fell down this year. The trestle tables are littered with empty boxes of Sakatas, dead UE booms, beer cans and balloons. Water bottles are basically half full of dirt at this point. We feel like shit but we’ll rally. Trolleys with the last of the grog are packed up and lugged to the main stage. Drooping doof-sticks that once stood proud are put back together with zip ties, cellotape and in the most desperate of circumstances, chewed up gum.
Paw-paw cream is passed around between gracious hands and rubbed on cracked lips. The one bottle that still has water in it soon follows, offering a brief moment of relief for throats grown weary and dry from overenthusiastic expressions of delight. Doesn’t matter if you don’t know them, we’re all in it together now. ‘No worries babe, have as much as you like’. Lighters, lip balm, panadol, bandaids, hair ties, gum, deodorant - once personal items now go into the circular economy of the dancefloor. One person cracks out the Vicks inhaler, now we’re really talking…
I have a proposition for you. You give me $1000 and in return I’ll send you off somewhere in the bush for 4 days where you won’t be able to shower, you’ll have to shit where thousands have shat before you, you’ll eat nothing but BBQ Shapes, you’ll get sunburnt, you’ll get blisters, you’ll be boiling in the day and freezing at night, you’ll laugh and you’ll cry all the while not having any reception on your phone. Sounds like a good deal yeah?
No, this isn’t some kind of Bear Grylls simulator. This is essentially what we do when we go to music festivals in Australia.
It’s almost as if the harsh and rugged terrain amongst which we grew up predestined our idea of a good time to revolve around withstanding uncomfortable conditions. As much as it is a stereotype, Australian recreational activities have always involved some kind of danger. While the rest of the world is convinced that our waters are infested with sharks we barely think about it when we go for a swim. Hiking in the summertime? Just stomp your feet if you’re worried about snakes. The UV is 13 today? Yeah I guess I should put on some sunscreen. A disdain for the overdramatic combined with an affection for the untamed has culminated in the beloved ‘she’ll be right’ manifesto that has infiltrated myriad aspects of Australian life.
I don’t consider myself a patriotic person, the dark history of this country and our government’s reluctance to acknowledge it gives us little to be proud of. But I will say that when it comes to the humble bush doof, Aussies excel in their field. In the wise words of Charli XCX ‘it’s like definitely a je ne sais quoi kind of situation’.
I never quite realised how fond I had grown of the unrefined dancefloors of my home country until I did what every young Australian does between the months of June and September and undertook my holy pilgrimage to the northern hemisphere, otherwise known as euro summer.
This year me and my mate hatched a little plan to go to Dekmantel Selectors, a 5-day music festival in Tisno, Croatia. It had all the ingredients for a good time: great weather, an unreal location, a stacked lineup and a loose security system of which we may or may not have taken advantage (if you don’t want anyone to jump the fence then don’t make it so easy! That’s all I’ll say on the matter).
After sticking our thumbs out on the side of a highway, hitching a ride and getting into the festival, straight away there were a few key differences that we noticed between the European crowd and the ones back home. The most obvious of them all being that everyone was so bloody clean. It was almost uncomfortable to see so many people look put-together in a setting that my Australian brain associated with dirt and discomfort.
The Airbnb culture that surrounded this festival meant that people actually looked good. No dirt underneath their fingernails, no ratty hair and not a single carabiner in sight. After hanging at the beach all day people went back to have a shower, like… in an actual bathroom. After scrubbing clean, people changed into their evening outfits, most of which closely resembled what I would wear to bottomless brunch with the girls and certainly a far cry from the functional festival fits from home.
Obviously not all festivals in Europe have such a luxury feel, there are still plenty where people camp as they do in Australia. However, my experience of camping at the UK’s Lost Village and the Netherlands’ Awakenings in 2022 showed me that there was a distinct absence of what we call a proper setup. No marquees, no lights, no trestle tables, just a sea of tents (half of which were falling down) and a few chairs scattered about. My impression of this laissez-faire attitude to camping was confirmed recently by an English friend who remarked that she couldn’t believe all of the campsite accessories that people brought to Victoria’s Pitch Music & Arts Festival. Couches, trolleys, paddling pools, eskies, you name it and it was there filling the dancefloor on the final day.
In addition, at Dekmantel Selectors this year, there wasn’t nearly the amount of… creatures hanging about. You know the ones I mean - the ones who have clearly had a little bit too much of whatever it is that they’re taking and are a little too comfortable dancing by themselves in that way.
The substance and drinking culture in Australia is definitely one that encourages people to ignore their limits, especially amongst young people. A Monash University study revealed that between 2000 and 2019, 64 people lost their lives at an Australian music festival due to drug use, with the majority of cases involving males in their mid-twenties. That evens out to about 3 people every year in that time period, proving that there exists a sinister side to Australia’s carefree attitude to a ‘good time’.
Because of the sheer number of festivals, the multitude of different countries that host them, and difficulties in reporting, it’s difficult to ascertain a concrete number of drug-related deaths across European music festivals. However, I can say from my own personal experience from attending a handful of them over the years that the crowds at these festivals seem a little older and a little wiser when it comes to their use of substances.
While Dekmantel Selectors felt like a holiday, going to a multi-day music festival in Oz feels like launching a huge mission. We have to drive hours to the middle of nowhere, set up camp sites in either scorching heat or torrential rain (why is there never an in between?!), live off chips and muesli bars, resort to ‘baby-wipe showers’, cross our fingers and hope for the best. Each trip to the stage engenders its own strategic operation. Is it front right or front left? Who’s got the doof stick? Who’s got the esky? You only have to look at the amount of people who bring walkie-talkies to see that Aussies mean business.
Objectively, Aussie bush doofs feel like a lot more hard work than their European equivalents. To me, Dekmantel Selectors had an ‘out of office’ feel where I imagine a lot of people in the crowd booked a couple days off work, got on a cheap flight and had some adult fun. So if it's so much less effort, why did I miss the gruelling preparations of home?
To me, festival prep elicits a feeling akin to waking up early for a flight. You’re tired, groggy, a bit anxious and you try to choke down some toast even though your body is rejecting eating so early. But despite all of the general inconveniences, you’ve got that fluttery feeling in your stomach and that jittery thrill of expectation that you’re about to embark on an adventure.
Packing up the car and sitting for hours in a delicately balanced maze of sleeping bags and beers. Feeling the hot wind hit your face as soon as you arrive. Trying to set up camp as quickly as possible so you can sink into your camp chair and have that first sip of your drink. Discussing the order of events for the night. Losing your mates. Finding them again. Bumping into this friend from work and that friend from uni. Having a little freakout. Calming down from said freakout. Making a dancefloor comeback of the century. Telling your mates you love them and hearing it back. Obviously you can do all of these things at any festival around the world, but the chaotic magic and breathtaking nature that surrounds those in Australia is something that I think sets us apart.
In the same way that we jump into the ocean without caring what lies beneath the surface, we dive headfirst into the morale-testing and patience-checking circus of music festivals. The Brits might share our humour but they don’t have our weather, the Dutch might have the best lineups but they don’t have our landscapes, Croatia might have the beaches but they don’t have our banter. To me (and I’m most definitely biassed in saying this) our festivals have the perfect combination of everything and the absolute mess we have to go through to get there is what makes it all the more rewarding.
And so even if we were surrounded by people dressed way too well and dancing way too normally, my mate and I brought the unhinged Aussie vibe to Croatia in our own little way. A small defiant triumph for the broke backpackers from Down Under. With torn off bits of a bin bag wrapped around our wrist to resemble a wristband and our bags full of snacks because we couldn’t afford to buy food, we might've not had a shower or cute outfits but I think we had more fun than anyone else there.
Lungs full of dust and feet covered in blisters. Sun cream mixes with sweat. Faces fill with big grins and arms wrap around mates. Tomorrow we’ll clean up camp, don’t need to think about it right now. Phone’s dead but the heart’s never felt more alive. My mates and their mates and their mates’ mates, we’re all friends now. Surrounded by those we love and an armada of eskies, who could complain? It might sound rough and we’ll feel like shit tomorrow but you best bet we’ll be here next year willing to go through it all over again.
