This Is Not A Clothes Optional Beach – is the sign that greets us as we arrive at the coast of Tyagarah Reserve an hour’s walk from the Festival. Even though the fest site is alongside the coast there is no direct access to the beach. Andreas, the keen German hiker who’s my age, said he tried to crash through the bush once but it’s thick and swampy, I take his word for it, he’s climbed Mt Kilamanjaro, been to Everest base camp and likes a challenge. The lifeguards have set up flags way down the beach where the ‘clothes optional’ people are, ‘Why there?’, I ask, ‘Because optional lives matter, ha ha’, they reply. There are powerful rips and undertows alright, but the sea is gorgeous.
The RockWiz is a telly show they’ve transferred to the live stage, it’s crass Aussie humour at it’s best, talk about laugh. Lukas Nelson is Willie Nelson’s son, has inherited the same voice, it’s honest country rock and really good, I like him. Nathaniel Rateliff has a similar sound and very popular, but . . nah. I was encouraged to see the Melbourne Ska Orchestra – freakin’ incredible, what a crazy fun show. For example, the whole 20 piece band suddenly stop and all freeze for a few seconds – then we all do it, again and again . . it’s hilarious. Larkin Poe are two young women guitarists and singers in a band from the Joan Jet school of rock, but even better! Jack Johnson packs the room and weaves his understated magic with a small band and an acoustic guitar. Last, a bit of hard funk from the original funksters, George Clinton and the Funkadelic and 118db on my decibel app, it’s pumping, shouting, tribal mayhem – and way too loud.
