Getting the festival season underway in style, Groovin The Moo – one of Australia’s largest travelling festivals – has returned for yet another exciting installment.
Spread across six locations, this year’s sweet line-up went on the road across the golden land of Australia, touching down in Wayville, Maitland, Townsville, Bendigo, Canberra and Bunbury. Being a jam-packed one-dayer, the crowd was all for cramming in as much sound and hedonism as possible – dancing loosely at sunset, whilst doused head-to-toe in glitter.
First on One Stop Record Shop’s itinerary was swinging by the Triple J stage to see the American four-piece Against Me!. Laura Jane Grace is sexy at the best of times, but there was something crazily hypnotic about the way she consumed the stage in the Australian heat. “True Trans Soul Rebel” roared into action, a track that opened their set with a bang and saw the crowd’s renditioning ring back at them through the cigarette smoke and frenzied dancing. Followed soon after by their hit “Crash” – a track which was muted for the first ten seconds by the roar of the crowd – the cut was performed to sheer perfection.
The Plot tent was where One Stop discovered Melbourne-based Running Touch for the first time. An artist who grooved in a signature black painted eye mask to the sound of his synth, it was an utterly immersive experience. With dance mooves identical to those of Metronomy‘s Joseph Mount, his stage presence illuminated his performance. The sparse, strobe-lit backdrop was the perfect setting to create the trippy/jolted effect that compliments his electronic sound so well. Running Touch debuted his album A Body Slow ahead of Groovin The Moo – though already leaked – and performed the new material for the music hungry audience.
Going back in time, we managed to catch rock legends The Darkness as they took over the Triple J stage. It was an event which fired up the already pissed and dancing audience, causing a unifying buzz to chants of “touching youuuu / touching meeee” as the hit “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” reeled out of control. With Justin Hawkins bopping around the stage like the rockstar stereotype he was always destined to be (picture an electric blue body suit with just the right amount of chest cleavage on show) it was a set destined to give you those throwback feels. Oh, and let’s not forget the mid-set crowd surfing now.
It’s fair to say The Darkness weren’t the only blast from the past at Groovin. We managed to catch UK indie icons The Wombats as they headlined – and ultimately closed – the raucous Triple J stage. Though their presence may have quietened down a tad in the UK, the band couldn’t have been greeted any more warmly by the adoring Australian fans. Cue teenagers on shoulders, the crowd proved their textbook lyric knowledge as a sense of nostalgia closed the show with the help of golden hits “Moving to New York” and “Let’s Dance to Joy Division”.
