It was a last minute decision to buy Usher tickets, and I’m sure glad we did. I don’t care what people say about Usher, I still love him! I’m usually a closet Usher-fan, partly because he’s responsible for the horror that is Justin Bieber, but after the concert I’m out! Especially after witnessing him rip off his shirt after singing “You make me wanna”. God, I got goosebumps when he started singing “you make me wanna”. I recorded a bit of it in my iphone (which is actually pretty good in terms of sound quality). Would have recorded more, but I opted to watch and enjoy, rather than record and remember.

Here’s a few photos from the night:

The people in the front section were going mental! Completely mental. Someone even threw their bra at him.

Love the zoom on my camera!

Man the guy sweats a lot. He was dripping.

Confetti ending.

So happy I got to see Usher! That’s another one I can cross off my list. Yay!

Listening to his music again brought be back to High School. Oh the good ol’ times.

If you’ve been in my car you’ll know that the radio is permanently set to 105.7 – Triple J. I have Maree to thank for that, she introduced me to triple j about 3 years ago and ever since then I haven’t looked back. I actually think I’ve turned into a radio station snob. The other day I had to endure a whole day of listen to one of the commercial radio stations and by the end of the day I was seriously going to rip my ears off.

When I was explaining this to a work mate he kindly lent me a batch of his Triple J Hottest 100 albums to re-educate myself. I think he’s got pretty much all of them so I’m borrowing them 5 CDs at a time. Good music here we come!

Splendour, Splendour, Splendour… I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a couple of days now trying to figure out how to do it justice. I figured, I can’t. It was one of those things where you had to be there to get it. Words can’t begin to describe how amazing it was, and unfortunately my photos fail to capture the wonder that was Splendour in the Grass 2010.

We went to Splendour with no expectation and left totally blown away. Seriously best festival ever! I thought BDO was awesome but it really doesn’t compare to Splendour.

The Splendour experience actually started off terribly.

While waiting to enter the camping grounds one of our cars broke down. And we weren’t the only ones with car problems, along the way we counted about 4 other broken down cars. It’s not surprising considering it took us 5 hours to get it. We joined the line at about 9pm and finally set up camp at 2am. Longest wait ever!

And this is why it took so long: 23,000 campers setting up camp on the same day. (This shot only shows like 1/8th of the amount of campers)

This was our little set up, a Jucy Crib and a Bundy blowup couch.

The festival highlight by far was Florence and the machine. We made sure we got there nice and early to secure a good spot, luckily we did because it got so packed out they had to stop people from entering. If I missed out on Florence I would have cried. She really is the best live act I’ve ever seen. She wore a long white dress and was dancing, running and spinning all around the stage. She even had a harp on stage! I’m hoping Splendour will release a DVD of the festival because I’m keen to see Florence on stage again.

Another highlight was when two of my festival favourites The Temper Trap and Mumford and Sons were on stage together. Mumford join the Temper Trap to perform ‘Down River’ – sheer gold! When I listen to the live recording of that song on Triple J it seriously brings a tear to my eye.

I heart Mumford.

The thing about Splendour is each and every act put their all into their performances. They gave it their all AND they hit the notes. Top acts were The Temper Trap, Ben Harper, Passion Pit, Hot Chip, Band of Horses, Mumford and Sons, Wolfmother and of course, Florence.

After living in the splendour bubble for 3 days and 4 nights it was hard to come back to reality. You’d think I’d be sick of G and Anna after living with them in the tiny camper but come Friday night we were keen to meet up to reminisce, I think we were suffering from Splendour withdrawal. If I never go to another festival again, I’d be sweet. I don’t think any other festival can top Splendour in the Grass 2010. The line up was amazing, the weather was perfect, the acts killed it and the venue (Woodford) was fantastic! Splendour 2010 really was the best festival experience ever.

Check out the photos on the Splendour Flickr page or the Triple J page. They did a much better job at taking photos that I did. Most of my photos are just a hazy blur.

I was right, it’s a great album. It still has the same Eskimo Joe feel, but they’ve added another level to their sound. Take their latest single, Foreign Land for example. You still have the same Eskimo Joe melody (which we like and love) but they’ve upped it by adding an exotic, almost tribal like, instrumental.

This versatility is evident in their new album, It’s not all just rock music. They’ve thrown in some slower mellow songs, some anthem like songs and one song – Let Me Down – sounds like something from the 80s, which is always fun. When you hear it you have the sudden urge to wear hyper-colour and dance in the street.

All in all, its a very good mix. Loving it.

Iron and Wine have an entire album (8 songs) that they’re offering as a free download from their website. I’m not entirely sure why they’re doing that, but I’m not complaining. It’s free and totally legit. I remember the first time I heard Iron and Wine, it was their song “Boy with a coin” and I remember thinking it was crap. But I grew to like it, it only took 1 repeat and it started to grow on me. I was something different, I guess you would sort of class it as folk music. I don’t think I actually like folk music (not that there’s anything wrong with it), but I really like these guys.