Live Review: Mountain Sounds Festival 2018
As another year rolls around, it was time for Mountain Sounds Festival to bring the magic over two days. The festival took place on Friday the 16th and Saturday the 17th of February at Mt Penang Parklands. On Friday, the theme was ‘Magic Mountain’—after not even an hour of walking into the festival grounds, I had already seen some really magical outfits. One group of friends dressed up as The Wizard of Oz crew—Dorothy, Tin-man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and Glinda. Decorations set up all around the festival included a rainbow arc, a paper Mache unicorn which unfortunately had its eyes pulled out within the first few hours of the festival starting.
The festival had four stages set up this year, the Unicorn stage, the Bus stage which was literally set up in a bus, the Electric Lady (Friday) / Caption Morgan (Saturday) stage and the Bungalow. On Friday Hockey Dad dragged the crowds to the Unicorn stage smashing out their hits while they had a slideshow containing photos of Billy and Zach playing.
Over at the Electric Lady stage, Alex the Astronaut really knew how to put on a show. Not only playing her songs but also telling meanings behind some of the songs—finding out that while trying out for an AFL team she went too hard too fast and vomited out of her nose!
One of the highlights would definitely have to be Gang of Youths set which had the whole crowd enticed by their front-man David Le’aupepe’s charm up on the stage. Smashing out tracks like as Magnolia and What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out? had the whole audience singing along and dancing away. Hot Dub Time Machine then followed on after Gang of Youths closing up the Unicorn stage on Friday. They had former Australian idol contestant Wes Carr join them on stage to sing some old classics with them. They played their set counting down in centuries until they get to 2018, closing out their set with Big Shaq’s Man’s Not Hot.
On Saturday, while Safia were about to start their set at the Unicorn stage, Kirin J Callinan walked out onto the stage and stood at the front before walking over to the side where he squatted down for a few minutes while people were wondering if this was going to be a new collaboration, until the security came and dragged him off!
Over on the Caption Morgan stage, there were bands such as The Jim Mitchells, Raave Tapes, Tropical Zombie and Pist Idiots playing. Before Pist Idiots started playing Kirin J Callinan appeared yet again on the stage, only to introduce the band this time. The headliner of the Caption Morgans stage on Saturday was The Creases who made the crowds dance non-stop while they were playing their tunes.
When Kirin J Callinan wasn’t walking around interviewing crowds or jumping up on stage with others he played his set over at the Unicorn Stage. As I was watching him perform I noticed everyone else watching him was so intrigued by his set, some people dancing and singing along and others just watching in complete awe.
Grouplove brought their energy to the Unicorn stage all the way from California, smashing out old tracks such as Tongue Tied and I’m With You and playing newer singles from their 2016 album such as Do You Love Someone and Welcome To Your Life. The energy the whole outfit delivered was completely next level, with not one person standing still for more than a few seconds at a time.
Peking Duk closed out the festival playing Saturday night at the Unicorn stage. As always they drew the crowds in and packed out the area where they played. Bringing the liveliness to their set as the crowd fed off their energy dancing the night away.
As another year of Mountain Sounds is over I’m sure everyone is already planning their outfits for next years! From seeing all the incredible bands play and all the amazing outfits the crowds were wearing I’m confident in saying this was definitely an unforgettable weekend!
See the full gallery HERE.
