Review Scene: Tent Pole Festival, Mt Duneed Estate, 4th March 2023

Charley Crockett and the Blue Drifters, brought a slice of Texas to Geelong in the form of old timey rocking country, conjuring up sounds that could easily be blaring from a country blues radio station circa 1955. Crockett combined the majestic trumpet and twang with soulful rhythm and blues as he mesmerised the audience with his cowboy good looks and southern charm. Switching between acoustic guitar, banjo and well worn electric 6 string, Crockett has ridden the boxcars across the USA and has the songs to prove it. Highlights included “Welcome to Hard Times” which was full of woe, “Jamestown Ferry” featuring some amazing upright piano  – something you don’t see on a festival stage everyday and the title track of his album from last year “The Man From Waco”.

Floodlights brought back the local focus, having one album under their belts and another in the can, delivered a soundscape of depth and beauty that showed why they are regulars on the festival circuit here in Australia. Their ability to draw in the crowd with an almost trance inducing dreampop that switches gears into edgy rock made it easy for them to gather up momentum on their set’s musical journey. Spiderbait were definitely who the majority of the crowd came to see, having been regular fixtures on the Melbourne and Geelong music scenes throughout most of the ‘90s and into the 2000s.

There were many Spiderbait Tee shirts scattered throughout the crowd with some, like their owners, looking a bit worse for wear. When the familiar trio of Kram, Janet and Whitt fired up with old favourites like “Buy Me a Pony”, “Calypso” and “Fucken Awesome” it was like visiting with long lost friends. The set was heavy on crowd participation, at one stage Kram inciting the crowd to spontaneously erupt into a rousing chorus of Daddy Cool’s “Eagle Rock” as well as the obligatory call and answer festival crowd pleaser. A highlight was “Footy”, dedicated to all the women who play AFL, something that they didn’t have the chance to join in when they released that song. Yay for Spiderbait and yay for footy!

When it comes to locals, they don’t come more local to Geelong than Magic Dirt. A lot of the people here would have spent many a night at The Barwon Club watching the evolution of Magic Dirt, led by Adalita who was as cool as ever. Their set was more psychedelic and jammy than I remembered them to be but it was great to see and hear them back on the live stage and to hear them deliver the fabulous “Plastic, Loveless Letter”.

It was almost like coming full circle here tonight as Magic Dirt were the opening act on Pavement’s 1993 tour of Australia so it was fitting that they should be the curtain raiser before Pavement concluded the lineup on Stage 1 to close out the festival. From the opening strains of “Grounded” into “Silence Kid” we were all hooked straight back into 1994, the year that Pavement released “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” which is arguably the best alterna-rock album of the slacker era. This motley band of marauders from Stockton California were down a man tonight with Bob Nastanovich having been declared out of action following a fall at the previous night’s show at the Palais in St Kilda but were not lacking in firepower as they stormed through classics including “Trigger Cut”, “Embassy Row”, “Gold Soundz”, “Range Life” and “Shady Lane” how could anyone not love this band? Vocalist and lead guitarist Stephen Malkmus was on fire with not only his playing but with his sardonic wit, remarking that the crowd favourite “Cut Your Hair” ‘was a banger on Rage’ and following “Summer Babe”, he claimed to be interacting with the crowd – just like an Instagram post! They closed the show with the epic “Fin” and were on their way.

Although it shouldn’t need to be commented on at all in 2023, there was a refreshingly noticeable gender balance with the acts on the bill at Tentpole and a good representation of young Australian bands interspersed with the international acts. At Tentpole, it wasn’t the kind of music you hear on Gold FM like your traditional winery show. These acts were all producing music that you couldn’t hear on commercial radio and now that we don’t have the TV shows we once did to support local, independent music like Countdown, The Factory or Recovery of days gone by, the avenues for getting music out to the masses are mainly through streaming services and soundtrack placement in TV and movies. The great thing about the crowd at this inaugural Tentpole Festival was that it was clearly a music loving crowd who were active rather than passive listeners. Every second person was wearing a band Tee shirt and while there were families, groups on rugs with their picnic fare and serious gig goers parked at the front of the stage, it was clear that everyone was there to hear the music as their number one priority. The bar area wasn’t overly crowded, none of the lines for food were long and there was no aggro or pushing and shoving whatsoever. This kind of atmosphere was probably what made everyone’s enjoyment of the music heightened as each stage commanded a healthy surge of punters as the music transitioned from one to the other. Musically and atmospherically, I would call Tentpole a great success. Let’s hope it is the first of many to follow in it’s ilk.