Words by Zoe Sainsbury
So we think we do music festivals pretty well here in Australia – and it’s true – we’ve got the sun, the space (*conditions apply), the excess side-boob… I could go on. Besides, there’s so many of them, all year round, that cater for such a variety of musical tastes - it’s almost impossible to miss the mark in pleasing punters.
All this in mind, I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Sweden’s longest running festivals, Hultsfred Festival, which started all the way back in 1986. It was seriously some of the best festival action I’ve ever experienced (and I’ve been around – the term “festival slut” has endearingly been thrown around the office).
Check out the full lineup at the bottom of this post & click on the images to see the full gallery of pics.
The Hultsfred experience got me to thinking, there's a few things we Aussie's could learn from our Scandinavian friends… here's 10 of them.
1.
The bands played full sets! Eg. The Cure started at 12:30am and didn’t finish until 3:30 after 2 encores when Robert Smith humbly skulked up to the mike to say “We wanted to keep playing until the sun was fully up, but if we play past 3:30 they’ll lose their liquor license”. Noel Gallagher played for the least amount of time (but then again, as he says, he is god’s gift to the world) and he still gave us a good 75mins of his time. Mind = blown.
2.
No clashes! The two main stages opposed each other and bands played in zipper formation, so you never missed a headline act. Of course artists on the 3rd & 4th stages overlapped, but since they all played such long sets, I really didn’t miss any artists I wanted to see.
3.
Organisers didn’t oversell the festival. You could pretty much make your way to the front of the stage on either side for any of the bands (bar the Gorillaz). It made for such a cool, cruisy atmosphere… and you didn’t really have to line up much for food/drinks/toilets. Australian organisers - if you're going to sell mid-strength beer, can you please double the available toilets accordingly - it's simple math!
4.
You don’t need sniffer dogs when no one takes drugs! Not one little munted pill muncher among them! Supposedly, drugs are “uncool” in Sweden… well done to whoever managed to cultivate that kind of culture. The Swedes are also massive fans of PDA… no performance enhancing substances needed either. I didn’t even have to be a seedy stalker to snap this pic…(okay maybe just a little)
5.
You can take alcohol in and drink on the campsite! Why we don’t allow this in Australia I’ll never know! You could save a lot of money on bag-searching staff and everyone still wants a cold drink once inside the grounds anyway. In the end, the only people who end up winning are the security guards who have themselves a little confiscation party at the end of the 3 days.
That would be one hell of a party…
(photograph by Alexandra Sjogren/Josefin Nilsson/Jonas Danielsson)
6.
Hotter, friendlier people – okay so there is nothing we can do about the hot bit… maybe short-term, take more saunas... long-term attempt to breed them out (or have fun trying). But by golly - we could work on our communication skills! Not only do the Swedes speak fluent English, they have to be the most approachable, helpful, unpretentious bunch of people I’ve ever met. People just come up and have a chat to you! Hot people!
7.
Fashion - I’m not sure when it became “fashionable” to stretch a pair of denim undies over rippling cottage cheese thighs… but I feel we’ve reached a point of no return at this stage. I didn’t see any Swedish dairy products on display (I won’t bring up the ‘hot’ thing again) and I was better for it. And the guys seriously know how to rock threads…
(photograph by Alexandra Sjogren/Josefin Nilsson/Jonas Danielsson)
8.
Transport to & from the festival + gear hire available. There is a company called Festival Bussen who operate all over Europe that get you to and from festivals (picking you up from a range of different locations) and hire out tents, chairs, sleeping bags – you name it. WHY DON’T WE DO THIS! You could literally rock up with just the clothes on your back and be good to go for 3 days!
9.
The Swedes can really mosh! The dust clouded pit that ensued after Serge from Kasabian put the call out gained some serious momentum! (see the photos) And it was fun! Australian security can be so unnecessarily overbearing at times, which I know is most likely the result of some kid suing organisers over a bruised ankle or the like.... it's just depressing how restricted we are these days.
10
Full strength beer and Swedish cider. That is all.
Have you been to any international festivals that shat upon ours?
Post in the comments so we can check them out! (and promptly organise leave).
