Your Big Day In - Splendour in the Lounge

It’s time for another round of your Big Day In festivals!

Our blog heading this week is inspired by Bill Kaddatz who named his whole festival Splendour in the Lounge, a name so tasty I immediately wanted to attend wearing slippers, a dressing gown and drinking a strong chocolate milk from a brandy glass. Bill wants his festival to take place at the current Splendour site with all of us located in front of the main stage in the amphitheatre location. The day has started off stinking hot (I’m guessing my dressing gown better be of the light summer variety) but it has just begun to cool down when the shows kick off. We begin at 4pm with The Chats because Bill wants us to experience that “band on the precipice of the big time” vibe. They proceed to blow everyone away with 14 songs in thirty minutes. While we gasp for air Birds of Tokyo hit the stage but this is the band only two albums in, just before they’ve hit the big time and been embraced by the mainstream. As Bill points out, he wants his favourite bands to be successful but there’s something brilliant and raw before they hit the big time and people that annoy you suddenly like them. I hearya Bill! BoT still manage to squeeze in their song Circles from their third album though. You can’t keep a beautiful track down! At 5.45pm Regurgitator swing onto the stage with a massive 20-song set that somehow clocks in on the hour. There are songs from every album and even some deep cuts for the true believers. They kick off their set with No Point because as Bill points out, there is no point to this festival and if anyone is going to get meta on this day, it’s the “Gurge. At 7.15pm we get The Hives in all their glory and then our headline act is the Smashing Pumpkins who wander out onto the stage and casually announce they’ve decided to perform the whole Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album in it’s entirety. And if that doesn’t blow your socks off, we’re finishing off the day with Muse. This is the version of Muse from early in their career although Supermassive Black Hole and the insane Knights of Cydonia have travelled back in time to be a part of this setlist. That’s the end of the day for most people…but for the cool people like you and me, we’re off to the Beach Hotel at Byron Bay for an after party hosted by the thinking woman’s sex symbol Paul Dempsey playing a calming set of acoustic numbers. Bill has his fingers crossed that Chris Hemsworth will join in for a cover of Immigrant Song.

To check out Bill’s Splendour in the Lounge, click on his Spotify link here.

Jo Knight has called her day Tumble Spark and has gone for a very specific vibe for her show. This one takes place at Cockatoo Island because for every performance she has seen there, it has been absorbed by the dilapidated buildings and the very rocks themselves. Part of what Jo enjoys about a festival is the quality of the journey to get to the site, the first hour of checking out all the stages and then the joy in discovering something you weren’t expecting. Jo’s line-up attempts to catch the memory of the first Cockatoo Island Festival without having to travel back in time to the music she was listening to in 2005. Her line-up goes:

Lana Del Rey

Dirty Projectors

Seu Jorge

PJ Harvey

Lido Pimienta

Steely Dan'

Pixies

To check out Jo’s Tumble Spark festival click the link here.

The final show I have here is from Connbone93 who has given me Blob Fest that takes place over three days with the Saturday being the big one. Check out his opening Friday night here that segues into a big Saturday line-up. Check this eclectic show out:

The War on Drugs

The Tallest Man on Earth

Portugal. The Man

The Budos Band

The Roots

The Flaming Lips

Janelle Monae

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

Gary Clark Jnr

Ariana Grande

Aretha Franklin

The Arctic Monkeys

Trombone Shortly

You can find the link here. Don’t forget you still have a short Sunday session to check out here too.

Thank you to everyone for sending these through. I’ve still got more to share with you and I apologise for the wait between blogs. As you can well imagine these are strange times with many ups and downs to contend with but I have thoroughly enjoyed your musical contributions. They have helped me through some darker moments in the last couple of months. I’ll make certain the next Big Day In comes out soon. In the meantime, enjoy everyone’s contributions here and keep that creative spark flourishing.

Justin Hamilton

10th of June

I swear I know the guy on the door