Jack Meakins & Saul Revell

The Wave Rock Weekender: An Exposé

JaCk MeakinS and Saul revell

The first thing you’re likely to appreciate about Wave Rock is how hard the ground is. Whether it’s spending hours banging tent pegs into rock with Doc Marten’s – or finding out firsthand facedown, falling victim to some BCF-endorsed tripwire of a tent line – it’s a reality that forces itself onto you without restraint. We brought a mattress thinking we’d keep ourselves a few steps ahead. Turns out even Tempur memory foam causes back problems in Hyden – a sick joke that is.

The only real solace you can take in all this – and something you’ll probably repeat to yourself a couple of times over the weekend to boost morale – is that “everyone’s in this together”. The cacophonic clamour of pegs on solid rock for a kilometre around you makes for a chorus as unifying as it is utterly soul-destroying, and there was a mutual sense of both humour and despair at seeing tents grow wings and abscond on journeys in the wind. We really aren’t in Kansas anymore. Your first impression as you blearily emerge through a tent flap into the torturously bright first morning of Wave Rock is the almost incongruous stillness that pervades throughout the campsite – seemingly at odds with the frantic anticipation of the evening before. Brightly coloured flags of pink, orange, and turquoise dart in the wind as if banners of a Mongol war camp, marking pathways between camps and to various amenities. More and more people begin appearing from the campsite, going about their own morning routines. You smile and chat as your long-lost friends and acquaintances of the previous night begin to coalesce around you. Somehow, as the conversations swell and ebb around you, the hazy discontented feeling left over from the first night’s frivolities leaves you, to be replaced by the contentedness of knowing that everyone around you feels more or less the same, beckoning anticipation of a repeat performance a few hours from now. It’s that moment when you realise that this is

what sets Wave Rock apart from other music festivals, and even from other gigs.

This theme of drear unity – of an unspoken oneness – pervades the Wave Rock Weekender as much as the rock does the rust-stained earth. In one sense this was true long before the event – even long before the rock was given its anglicised designation. Katter Kich as it was known by its original custodians, the Ballardong Noongar people, was a part of a dreaming trail created by the Rainbow Serpent – a tradition that would unite people over song and dance till present day. Another sense of this stems from music itself, and its penchant for community-building – especially in an otherwise culturally sterile environment such as Western Australia. As effectively a 2.6 million square kilometre mining town, it’s hard for people in the scene not to know each other, or at least share some common yet profoundly formative experience on the streets of Fremantle. What makes Wave Rock Weekender truly magical is that it realises this in a hearteningly proximal sense. Hordes of strangers, bound by the fact they can bear West Australian music enough to front the $350+ price tag, make the pilgrimage, and leave – however transient – as friends. On our first trips, it took us a while to get used to being greeted by everyone you walked by. Waving at oncoming cars on the drive was more a dispassionate finger reflex than any sort of practice. Yet by the last morning, the line for the shower had become our closest group of mates – well at least for those soberingly frost-fuelled thirty minutes.

What’s more, there’s no real distinction between artists and festivalgoers. While West Australian music – and by extension its artists – isn’t exactly renowned for its rampant egotism or insularity, the event does very little to prevent you from accosting any artist of your choosing. We were walking the same paths as Alter Boy, using the same dunnies as Spacey Jane, and breathing the same dust as

[insert ya fav artist from the schedule here] – you get the picture. As you watch Jack Davies wail platitudes from your spot within a crowd – seemingly hypnotised – it’s hard not to convince yourself he’s singing directly at you and for you alone.

I think the most poignant sense of oneness we felt wasn’t with strangers or the artists, the land or the cold hard ground; it was with our friends, the people we already knew. In an age where Facebook exists, and knowing which of your friends will be at any given place is just a few clicks away, the oh-so-common Perth adage – ‘small world aye’ – starts to mean less and less. Encountering acquaintances and friends alike in crowds is more commonly artificially engineered than serendipitous. While of course this isn’t a bad thing, and we admit we scoured the event page to see who we could nag when finding ourselves in some far yonder ditch, the Wave Rock Weekender seems to be reminiscent of this ‘small-world’ novelty. Whether we knew they were coming or not, friends were met with pure jubilation. “What are the chances we’re all here at the same time, 300+ kilometres from civilisation?” No one could care less for the extremely obvious answer – that we’d all bought tickets.

However, this isn’t what made the weekend truly special for us. In reality, we hardly saw our friends. Beyond the cartwheel-filled hysterics of the first couple of hours, we’d only really reunite in the mornings – typically accompanied by a “where did you go?” or a “thank god you’re alive” – only to split up once more. What meant the most is that we didn’t need to be with friends to know they were there listening to the same artists, meeting the same strangers, tripping over the same tents, and sleeping on the same cold, hard rock. Each of us had our own unique, yet mutually intelligible experiences – which will be told as stories, a little like the original custodians did – years and years from now.

Report Shows Violence in Media Most Common in Commercials for Rugs

Charlie MillS has a crippling addiction to flannel shirts BREAKING: A new report published by the University of Western Australia has shown that in Australia and across the world, violent language in the media is the most prevalent when depicted in small business commercials advertising budget rugs.

The report, which aimed to identify where violent language is most common, found rug commercials that reference ‘slashing prices’ are all too common on our screens.

“It’s goddamn everywhere,” said lead researcher Greg Collinson, “what did those poor prices ever do to you.”

Mr Collinson had originally predicted that the most violent language would be found in gritty HBO dramas but was shocked to learn that violent language was most prevalent in ads for rugs and furniture at a close second.

“And why in the goddamn hell is it always slashing? Never cutting or slicing? That’s what really annoys me,” he said, with his head in his hands.

Psychologist Karen Smith said of the phenomenon: “It’s really not necessary. It doesn’t make me want to buy your bloody rugs. This is just life now, I guess.”

We approached local rug salesman and commercial extraordinaire Robby ‘Rugmaster’ Richards to ask his opinion on the report. “Of course, we use that kind of language the most,” he asserted, “the rug business is

cutthroat and slashing is the only way to get ahead.”

When asked about the language’s effect on children, Mr Rugmaster doubled down: “Slashing is a part of the rugging industry. When I was a kid, I saw my father, Ryan ‘Rugman’ Richards slash a price in front of me. It was traumatising, but it made me the rug salesman I am today. I think about that every night.”

We asked Mr Rugmaster to elaborate, but he went really silent after that. He kept looking out the window pensively.

Child Psychologist Frank Simmonds explained the impact of this kind of language on children: “When we show children this kind of violent, disgusting imagery, they begin to normalise it. Kids are going to start to think its okay to slash prices, and if they’re slashing prices, well then what else is okay to slash? It’s a slippery slope.”

UWA’s report will be presented to the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance next month in an attempt to limit this kind of violent language appearing on Australian screens.

When asked what was next for this research, Mr Collinson said: “I don’t know. Maybe researching how dumb fast-food commercials are these days? Either that or I quit and become a hermit.”