Fair enough (to a point), but none of that excuses or explains the abuse she dished out.
It reeked of an artist who is just over it. And it was a breach of the compact between artist and fans: we’ll stand around for hours, maybe in heat, maybe in rain, we’ll queue for drinks and toilets, and you, in turn, will dazzle us, and make us feel we’ve seen something special.
Manson breached that deal, and the Good Things Festival audience responded in the most Aussie way imaginable, rocking up en masse with beach balls in hand to the next day’s show in Brisbane.
Meanwhile, at about the same time Ballgate was going down in Melbourne, an inflatable alligator was being passed around the crowd at Meredith. No one seemed too perturbed as it bobbed its way between rave totems, held aloft so that those in need of a pee could find their way back to their crew in the vast sea of punters.
As ever, the No Dickhead Policy was in full swing. It’s neither formal nor enforceable, but it’s the foundation of the Very Good Vibe that permeates Meredith and its sibling festival Golden Plains.
The music is important, of course, but it’s the crowd and the atmosphere that really makes a festival great. Walking around the Supernatural Amphitheatre (the Sup) on the weekend, I spied a heavily pregnant woman rubbing her belly and dancing, I saw the crowd part as a man got down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend (the crowd erupted when she accepted), I had a long chat with the daughter of an old friend, and I struck up a random conversation about the 1960s Japanese TV series Samurai with a woman from Ballarat. It was all so much fun.
The letter K sits atop a doof stick at Meredith Music Festival in 2025, in honour of Kieran Gregory, who died in April of cancer. Credit: Eliza Southgate
I’m a newcomer to this world, having attended my first festival only in 2023. I went alone, and made friends on the Saturday night with a group of people I had never met before. And I have camped with them in the two years since.
They’re a gorgeous bunch, welcoming, funny, smart, and absolutely determined to make each year’s gathering an event to be remembered. And this year, they turned it into a celebration of Kieran, a long-term stalwart of the crew who sadly succumbed to cancer in April, aged just 44.
There was a life-size cardboard standee of Kiz, as he was known, which made its way into the crowd for a while on Saturday afternoon. There was a wall of Kizisms, some of his favourite sayings. There was an AGM – the first – dedicated to his memory. There was a cocktail party and cheese platter on Saturday in his honour, and a dress code in his style. There was a doof stick in the shape of a big hand-crafted K, lit up by LED lights and held proudly aloft into the wee hours.
Special, K: The doof stick partied long into the night at Meredith.Credit: Eliza Southgate
Over three days, there was a lot of laughter and a few tears and a general sense of abiding by the tenet of WWKD – what would Kieran do? Mostly, that translated into having a good time. Looking out for your mates. Treating everyone with respect and kindness. And not being a dickhead.
And absolutely, positively, definitely not doing your nut over a frikkin’ beach ball.
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