After nearly 6 weeks it appears as though the Dutch organisers have finally pulled their fingers out and have released the official after video.

There are literally thousands of nutters in this video, raving their tits off to some banging, hardstyle beats…. LOVE IT!

Due to take place at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium on October 31st, the festival was to entertain its audience with the likes of Offspring, Good Charlotte, Lil Jon and the legendary Wu Tang Clan – assuming of course that Method Man, RZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah et al were to be allowed in to the country that is!

Despite reasonable tickets sales (at $140 a pop!) it would appear as though the event has been cancelled due to the lack of a major sponsor which has come as a bit of a blow to those that have bought tickets. In a statement the organisers said:

“After close to 18 months development work and a huge effort on the part of a lot of people the producers of the event were not able to close the gap between forecast revenue and costs through sponsorship. “

Refunds have been offered for those with tickets which is a small consolation but before you start dialling those number you might want to consider heading over to the Festival Hall on Halloween for a special one-off performance by the headline acts….. well that’s the word on the street anyway!

Honestly people, by all means do a bit of filming whilst you’re at your fave festie but if it’s crap then please don’t bother whacking it onto Youtube. Keep it to yourself – so that you can look at it when you are old and grey and no longer able to get it up let alone bust a move on the dance floor.

Anyway, this is the best of the bunch – and it’s a bit of a gem. Art vs Science, totally smashing it, under the palm trees, to a sun-drenched audience at Parklife, Brisbane.

Shame the video wasn’t a bit longer though – anyway, enjoy!

One Hell of a New Year’s party…

Under the shimmer of the iconic Sydney skyline and bathed in the green of more grass, beautiful trees and wide open spaces than any other Sydney festival, the Domain provides the ultimate location for what is a truly unique event. With a wealth of crowd favourite headliners and essential fresh sounds on offer and by far the best sound and visuals you’re likely to experience anywhere, this is the way to kick off the new year on the right musical note. Add cocktail bars under the trees, wild and shocking films at the outdoor cinema, the best of Sydney’s burlesque scene and dozens of other surprising performances and you have the party you’ll remember all your life.

Field Day is quite simply the perfect way to welcome the new year in style.

STARRING:

• 2manydjs live
• The Presets
• Major Lazer Soundsystem
• LCD Soundsystem (DJ set)
• Architecture in Helsinki
• Fake Blood
• Datarock
• Krafty Kuts
• The Proxy
• Sinden
• Fred Falke
• Sebastien Leger
• Lyrics Born
• DJ Yoda
• Skream & Benga
• The Juan Mclean
• Amanda Blank
• Treasure Fingers
• Nic Fanciulli. Riton
• We Have Band
• Jack Beats
• & many more .

Get your tickets quick before they sell out.

Prepare to revel in the glory, colour and sheer excitement of this world-famous party and get ready to dance like you’ve never danced before.

Featuring a truly epic selection of the world’s biggest DJs, including Carl Cox, 2 Many DJs, Australian number one artist – The Presets, Infected Mushroom and Deep Dish’s Sharam, this will be a Summafieldayze like no other. For House lovers Roger Sanchez, Tom Novy, The Shapeshifters and Mark Knight are all on board, while Eddie Halliwell and Menno De Jong are guaranteed to take Trance fans above and beyond. Tech-House, Techno and Progressive fans can ride the hypnotic sounds of Nic Fanciulli, Sebastian Leger, Josh Wink and Danny Howells, while Krafty Kuts and Evil Nine are primed to drop a barrage of bass and beats on Breaks revellers far and wide. And last but not least….Juan Maclean, Fake Blood, Sinden and Don Diablo will reach deep into their bag of Electro tricks and keep mash up and Indie Disco fans screaming for more!

I’m nursing a semi-on just thinking about this……

When: Saturday 9th January 11am to 11pm

Where: Doug Jennings Park, Main Beach, Gold Coast

Tickets: Earlybird – get them HERE.

So were are now in sniffing distance of the phenomenom that is Parklife and judging by the comments that are flying around on Twitter, most people are pretty excited.

There are a few tickets left for Perth and Adelaide for those of you who have been daft enough not to purchase them already.

Check out the links below for maps and set lists.

Brisbane:

• Set times
• Map

Perth:

• Set times
• Map

Melbourne:

• Set times
• Map

Sydney:

• Set times
• Map

Adelaide:

• Set times
• Map

Don’t forget that you can catch the latest info and news here.

The trouble with being a festival goer in Australia is that the country is so damned big. Visiting your favourite event isn’t simply a case of jumping in the car with your mates and driving for a few hours – it could quite easily take days to make the journey.

No matter – being an industrious lot, the Aussies have come up with a spanking soloution. Rather than expect people to travel to the festival, the festival does the travelling for them. Yes that’s right, at the end of each gig the festival packs everything up in to its kit bag and travels thousands of miles to the next destination. Nice.

There are several festivals that simply tour the country attracting huge crowds in cities such as Adenlaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

One such festival is the now famous Parklife.

Since its inception 10 years ago Parklife has built a reputation in delivering the very best in indie-dance, where the finest local talent rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in the industry.

More than 100,000 people rocked it at last year’s events and similar figures are expected in 2009. With performances from former DMC champion A-Trak, the Australian debut of Empire of the Sun and the fabulous La Roux this is one festival that will most certainly fill you with a sense of enormous well-being.

This year’s line up includes:

• A-Trak
• Aeroplane
• Art vs Science
• Autokratz
• Beni
• Bertie Blackman
• Busy P
• Claude Vonstroke
• The Cool Kinds
• Crystal Castles
• Empire of the Sun
• Erol Alkan
• Joakim
• Junior Boys
• Kaskade
• La Roux
• Lady Sovreign
• Little Boots
• Metric
• Metronomy
• Mstrkrft
• Shazam
• The Aston Shuffle
• The Glimmers
• The Rapture
• Tiga

Dates:

Saturday 26th September – Brisbane

Sunday 27th September – Perth

Saturday 3rd October – Melbourne

Sunday 4th October – Sydney

Monday 5th October – Adelaide

In an effort to get my message spread across all social networking media, I thought it best that I set up an Twitter account and Facebook group. I’m not quite sure what to do with them as I still don’t really understand how Twitter works but if it good enough for the kids then it is good enough for me.

So find me on Twitter and join my Facebook group and then we can all have a merry social network love-in!

Anyway, click on the links above to find the accounts.

Australia’s festival scene may be in its infancy compared to the UK’s but it is growing in popularity. The Aussies rarely need an excuse to party and their ranks are swelled by the ever-present backpackers.

The huge distances here mean the festivals have evolved in a slightly different way however.  After all, most of the Britain’s population live within a few hours’ drive of Glastonbury, V or Reading/Leeds. Here it’s a matter of a few days.

So instead, the mountain comes to Mohammed; the big festivals tend tour the country’s main cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth although not necessarily all of them.

Largely because of this, the acts themselves are packed into just one day in each city and are rather smaller than a European festival regular will be used to you.  Because of their urban locations and small size, they feel like a cross between Reading and one of the increasingly popular O2 Hyde Park gigs.

The exceptions are the Falls Festival in Lorne, Victoria, the Woodford Folk Festival north of Brisbane and Splendour in the Grass near the backpackers’ favourite haunt, Byron Bay.  Falls is the closest Australia gets to Glastonbury with multiple stages, dance and chill-out tents and stand-up comedy.

Be warned though, the weather might not always be as kind as you might expect, in 2008 night-time temperatures at Falls plunged into single digits. Draconian alcohol rules also mean that punters can’t bring their own booze on-site, forcing them to either get smuggling or shell out festival prices for three days. Police searches are much stricter, police stopping just short of stripping the panels off cars.

The one-dayers – Big Day Out, Good Vibrations, and V – are more strictly regulated.  As well as a ban on BYO, you can’t just grab a cold one and wander off to see your favourite bands.  The bars are literally caged off from the rest of the festival site, and while they might be within sight of the stages, they are well away from the action. The result of course is that everyone spends the first hour or so getting tanked up or find other means of inebriation which leads to its own problems.

This year’s Big Day Out was marred by the ecstasy overdose death of 19-year-old, Gemma Thoms, who, seeing police sniffer dogs panicked and took her entire stash. Music promoters are now calling for UK style amnesty bins.

Jo Eaton, a festival regular from London who was at Big Day Out in Melbourne admits that the strong police presence did make it lose some of its ‘festival’ vibe but admits there are plenty of positives:  “Sometimes it seems the locals are here for the beer with the music being incidental but the bar areas are a great place to meet people and there are plenty of Brits and Irish to swell the crowd in front of the stages.

“They also put the two main stages literally side-by-side and alternate the acts so there is always something going on. And of course there’s the sunshine!”

by Henry Biggs