Diary Entries From Falls Festival Marion Bay

Hitting Tasmanian soil over the summer holidays to work at festivals is an easy choice for me.

Even before the job perks, bottles of local liquor and parties that go through til dawn; I get to skip the muggy heat stink of Brisvegas and swap it for mountainous air, eye-candy natural views and don’t even get me started on the tap water! I’m a festival chaser for the pleasure of escapism; I love sharing a collective music-drenched party with strangers. My first stop is Marion Bay for Tasmania’s own Falls Festival.

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The Marion Bay Falls Festival is a coming of age festival – both for its young crowd, and for the state itself – it marks Tasmania’s biggest festival and biggest NYE party. All festivals change people, and this one brings many of its young crowd their first ever big festival party experience. For others, it’s a chance to expel the year’s pent-up stress in the fresh country air (a combination of bushland, cow poo and wafts of weed). At Marion Bay we live and breathe the Aussie love for outdoors, music, merry-making and booze. The festival is impressively green-orientated and family friendly, planted on an old cattle farm that overlooks bushland, bay and surrounding mountains. Paul Piticco (Splendour In The Grass, now co-director of Falls Fest) announces it is the best festival set-up he’s seen, and I would have to agree.

Do: Plug in those pegs – the blow-away tent count got up to 33 this year!

Don’t: Go barefoot – majority of injuries are foot-related (it’s not Woodford).

First up on the 29th we behold the Boogie Night, bringing the weird and wonderful to life. Costume highlights include glow-in-the-dark jellyfish, a satanistic Ronald McDonald and Chicken Man. Twerkshop gets young booties shaking across the Field grass, opening the festival with a demonstration and workshop that sets up punters young and old with new confidence, or in my case respect, for this strangest-of-strange dance phenomenon. A line up of ten-year olds in onesies twerking with their proud Dad is a golden sight.

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We build into the first killer set of Marion Bay, brought home by Salt N Pepa – who've defs still got it, delivering a sexy combination of dance and beats. The Twerkshop booties keep bouncing for an impressive six hours (by my count), even coming onstage to join Alison Wonderland, perhaps a little drunkenly – one girl hilariously pulled the audio plug with a particularly dangerous twerk-move. I plod back to my tent with an uncovered skill (twerking), a new costume (a felt shark) and a new-found freedom that comes with spending a whole night Disco Boogie-ing. 

Do: Bring a costume –fairy lights recommended!

Don’t: Drink all of your elaborately hidden booze/ illegals on the first night.

Day two is a day of classic Tasmanian weather. I do the outfit dance, juggling jackets, sunglasses, singlets, sunscreen and ponchos. Halfway through the day, there is mild panic when BOM calls up Falls to tell everyone to pack their tents down; a killer storm is coming. Luckily the Global-Warming Gods are on our side and we just dodge a potentially festival-killing bullet.

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That afternoon we hear of the tragic death of 20-year-old punter in Byron Bay, and our elation gives way to solidarity, hoping it it serves as a reminder to young festival goers to take care of their mates and themselves.

I settle in for a nap; listening to the wistful sounds of Vance Joy echoing off mountain tops, reflecting on the star gazing, dreamy, harmonic bands that dominate this year’s line-up. It literally fits the scene, I decide. Bluejuice (of course) give a cheeky-as-hell farewell gig, asking punters to pass up joints. On the hip-hop bent I find Joey Bada$$ least-impressive, as he finishes his gangsta set with a request for girls to ‘get their titties out for art’. Pah-leeeeeeeeease. Never to mind, the bada$$ taste in my mouth is washed out by the early hours of the morning, dancing to local DJ troupe Tyrannosaurus Dex bringing the best of the 90’s at The Village – a Woodford-esque enclave that may well be the friendliest part of the festival.

Do: Do your number two’s early in the morning – the au natural toilets get progressively funkier throughout the day.

Don’t: Worry too much about your makeup or hair – the wind is sure to mess it up anyway!

I awaken on NYE to see three kids scouring the mosh-pit rubbish. I ask them if they’ve found anything good, and a small fist proudly reveals some battered, but nonetheless valid drink tickets. “Dad pays us $1 for what we find” a young voice proclaims – good one, Dad! Thanks to a better programme, there are more kids scattered around this year, which makes the festival vibe more chill. Then again, New Year’s Eve is the final day of this Falls Festival party and faces become progressively more glitter-clad as the day goes on. Satanic Ronald McDonald re-appears, I assume to scare the balls off late-night trippers.

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By 5pm the crowd is throbbing – Tasmania’s biggest NYE party warms to boiling point. Movement bring soul to the sunset with soaring electronic harmonies. CW Stoneking gives an absolute treat of a set, playing Marion Bay Falls exclusively and getting the Field Stage shaking what their momma gave them to a Tennessee twang. A collective party best grinds, twists and twerks into 2015, while Empire Of The Sun (an odd choice for countdown) surprises us by bringing in the new year with an okay act that climaxes in golden-lycra clad dancers.

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Some fools snuck in flares (a strictly flame-free festival) that set off midnight with a bang. I have the misfortune of stumbling into the worst comedy I’ve ever seen at The Village, the first and last joke I stay for being a man falling out of his wheelchair and carried off naked. Oh dear. Never to mind, we drink and dance well into the night, finally off to make our annual resurrection beach-mission. Sharing a collective walk of shame past the Tree Tribe Café, where trip hop plays well into the first day of the year, I have to award one dude the Falls dancer award. He stands on a podium with a sign declaring "Free Fun", dancing from 12am to 12pm with a smile lighting his face the entire time. Happy New Year!

Do: Pay your kids to find you drink tokens

Don’t: Take a freshly rolled joint into the pit toilets… if you drop it, you won’t want it back (right, Dan?)

© Eden Meure

Pack up on the 1st inevitably takes twice as long as it should as brains run on limited fuel. One guy is seen pissing on his own tent. There is a line out of the breathalyzer van as punters find out if they’re staying for lunch (there are always RBTs back into town). Tasmania’s coming of age festival sees sun-kissed faces smiling through the dirt and hangovers. The car dips and weaves back to Hobart, leaving one hell of a cow paddock until the next batch of young’uns, party-people and satanic Ronald McDonalds return for whatever Falls brings next – no wait, THIS (New) year.

Written by Eloise Maree