Kiss My Grass 2007 - 26.1.2007
Kiss FM could not have picked a more fitting day for the 2nd instalment of the Kiss My Grass Festival. After having a blast at last year's event, I eagerly abandoned my tradition of a beach BBQ to attend Kiss My Grass, which seemed to have all the hallmarks of a 'fair dinkum Aussie Festival' - a formidable all-Aussie line-up, our glorious Melbourne weather on its best behaviour, Australian dance music lovers and artists out in force supporting Melbourne's only radio station dedicated to dance music -all at Melbourne's most popular (and I believe best) summertime festival venue, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. One of the food stalls even managed to have sausages on the menu, giving attendees the option to devour the traditional Aussie Day fare or just get a whiff of BBQ to help get them into the Australia Day festive mood.
Kiss my Grass attendees were once again from a diverse spread of ages, backgrounds and musical preferences. Many were also eager to show their patriotism by parading around donning Australian flags, dressing up as Australian icons such as life guards, adorning themselves with Aussie tattoos, and even a couple painted their bodies blue, white and read.
It could just be the resounding success of last's year event which spread the word, or the fact that it was a long weekend, or just that people love coming to the Bowl. But this year, there was close to double the amount of attendees compared to last year. The organisers did not seem to accurately predict the numbers either as at the ticket collection booth was very understaffed with hundreds of people in the line waiting for over an hour for their tickets. Speaking to a few lining up I realised the majority were purchasing their tickets that day. Unfortunately those who had made the effort to pre-book were also forced to endure waiting in the same line as them.
Upon my arrival I decided to take a short meander around the Bowl. I noticed the hip hop stage held a small but very devoted crowd. Once again I thought of how the originality and quality of Australian hip hop is just formidable. I loved the intelligent lyrics blended with deep grooves, which made me promise myself to go out and make sure I catch more live hip hop.
I was quite interested to see how Kiss My Grass was going to compare to last year, I knew it would be hard to beat. I was pleased to see the superb quality and enthusiasm the acts and artists displayed continued this year and the support for Kiss FM seems to be even greater than ever. The festive atmosphere could even be reminiscent of the early years when Summadayze first started, it was not too over the top and just the right amount of people.
The organisers once again packed as many DJ's into the day as possible, which helped to showcase the breadth of Australian dance music and the massive support for Kiss. Each act were performed a brief 45 minute set, which would have been a challenge for some considering there were a few sets with 3 DJ's on at once. Yet each act seemed to put all they had into this short time, belting out their killer tracks or well loved classics. Each stage was devoted to particular genre providing ample aural pleasure for aficionados of every musical taste.
The Tongue Kiss stage trapped me for a while with some funky, disco vocals coming from a duo consisting of a guitarist and DJ known as Polyfonik. Luckily for me I noticed they were followed by Writemix Wradio presenter, Harley Augustine. I had heard a lot about his funked up progressive set last year and am a big fan of his radio show. He certainly did not disappoint, his music strayed away<
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