Let’s celebrate the last day of 2007

Well, we took the opportunity of lazing at camp over a cooked breaky and some cool beats, knowing we had a big arvo/eve ahead of us! This meant that we forgot about James Morrison onstage - who we hear was an absolute stand out for Woodford 07/08. Shame on us!

By four days of rain, it also meant that we could take our time and have the hot showers to ourselves for a change - whilst trying to devise methods for getting back to camp with minimal mud impact. Sinking back up to your ankles after a shower is just “not cricket”!

(Day 5 pics of the camp site below - see Day 1 to compare)

Also, having a fantastic lineup at ‘The Grande’ venue today meant we could just set up camp there lunchtime onwards and relax ~ rather than ducking to and from venues.

Highlights for Day 5 - NYE

• Overall feeling of NYE expectancy and high energy of the growing festival crowd
• More Unicycle shenanigans, cricket on the green, Big Rory and the Giant Seagulls and other street performer scenes (some pics below)
• The Kin (US): Brothers originally from Oz, now New York, who have a charismatic stage presence and sing a mix of indie rock and soft love ballads - beautiful music. Crowd participation: The boys invite game audience members to join for their “chorus” front stage.
• The distinctive and soulful sounds of Mia Dyson (Aus)
• Moshav (US): Of US descent but raised in Israel, the band were brought up around music, resulting in heartfelt rock, folk and indie tunes.
• The Red-Eyes (Aus) (an aptly named band for the NYE timeslot?) - a solid 12-piece dub/reggae outfit from Melbourne who certainly know how to get the crowd moving.

At 11.30pm, the traditional candlelit three minutes silence ~ to honour absent friends and to think about the year past and year ahead ~ gives a nice non-commercial feel to the whole New Year’s Eve malarkey. It proves hard for some to remain completely quiet and still for the 3-minutes, usually only those who are partaking in much too much festive cheer though.

You would imagine that with a crowd the size of Woodford, the volunteers have their work cut out for them getting around the entire festival village site to hand out candles - but they are in abundance. As tempting as it may be, just take one!

Hot Tip: Burning candles drip burning wax

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Go To: Woodford Day 6 - the Happy New Year

Photos from Day 5: (click thumbnail for larger size)
Street Performers & Lantern Parade -

Mudfest - Day 1 vs Day 5 in the camping grounds

Food glorious food

When the weather is inclement, what better way to pass the time than browsing and buying from the unlimited amount of Woodford shops and of course, sampling from some of the 40 odd amazing food stalls.

Some of our Woodford favourites - Woodfired pizza, Langos, Poffertjes, Burger Bar, German Fare, Turkish Pastries - hmm, making me hungry again!

Day 4 Highlights:

• TaikOz (Aus) - unbelievably high energy Japanese styled drumming. Quote: “athletic dynamism that will leave you breathless” as might their upper body strength Pics below
• Wild Marmalade (Aus) - blending the ancient sounds of the didjeridu with grooves of the present; high energy dance music
• Maiden Speech (Aus) - 80’s inspired avant-garde poetry-pop (great 80’s costumes, themes and references) - Pic below
• Poetry Slam finals - with contestants performing short pieces and being judged by select audience members
• We saw The Go Set (Aus) for 2nd time in as many days - a mixture of celtic, folk, punk rock combining bag pipes, accordion, electric guitars and political passion. Crowd participation: J Keenan (lead singer), calls everyone down to the front, turns off the amps/pa, sits down on the stage edge and plays an acoustic. Pics below courtesy of Chris Converse
  

We were disappointed to have not been able to get in to see both The Space Cowboy, or the Comedian’s Debate. Both were well and truly packed out half hour before the performances - a sign that they were definitely proving popular.

Note: You’ll be proud to hear that by night 4 we could find our campsite even in the muddy dark We thought our next challenge should perhaps be to try catching a bus back?

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Go To: Woodford Day 5 - As we celebrate the last day of 07

Photos from Day 4:
Taikoz:

Maiden Speech:

The Go Set: