REVIEW: Hopkins Creek 2019 Take Two
📸 Jasper Freeman
Hopkins Creek 2019 was such a success we reviewed it again…
An intimate volcanic crater doof? When I first heard about Hopkins Creek's location and ethos, the festival's idea felt out of this world. It felt surreal-like. After all, the two words' intimate' and 'crater' were qualities I have yet to experience at a doof. How would this format hold up? That's exactly what I wanted to find out at this year's fourth edition of Hopkins.
Starting from humble beginnings as a get-together of a couple of Melbourne parties and 'mateship', this year's edition was by far its biggest. In fact, it sold out faster than previous years. Although the Hopkins Creek editions were seriously challenged by Mother Nature, this year's weather was a 'fuck yeah’… just like the vibe and the music. From the moment I stepped foot at the crater, I felt the ‘intimate’ profile of the festival, instantly understanding what made this festival special. Hopkins is conveniently divided into stages, food area, chill-out zones and campsite.
Caution: Spellbinding weekender ahead
Ah the serenity…
📸 Lily Walker
Boasting live acts from OK EG, Alex Albrecht, Miris and James Harbard, the Little Morrocco space topped my ‘favourite stage and hang-out spot’ list. Under a Tipi with a hot cuppa Moroccan tea, I felt at peace with the music on offer, a sub-genre marked by analogue nostalgia sold as mindless feeds for feeding minds. Curated by Melbourne-based leaders of ambient and experimental music, it presented a serious line-up specially curated by Chomley, Analogue Attic and Butter Sessions.
This brings me to talk about the stage on the other end of the festival, Barry's Bait Shop. Can you think of any other festival bars decorated with eel traps, fishing nets, and a K HOLE DISCO poster? What about one with a wobbly pool table in the middle of the shop, cautiously held up on wooden blocks because it probably lost its balance from all the dancing? (And the pool table's fate was definitely not helped by non-stop bangers aimed at swingers wanting a good time, not a long time). Me neither, but Barry's Bait Shop has it all. Alongside its fishing theme, the bait shop is a festival bar for those on a budget. It serves bloody delicious tinnies on the rocks and 'Fountain of Youth' which is what they call coconut water.
Not only did an exciting line-up brought flavour to the crater, but food vendors also conveyed the savour. The Vegan Soba Noodle from Gyoza Records effortlessly forced punters to ditch their ready-made meals. There was also a slushie vendor positioned strategically close to stages, catering to all sugary bodily callings, and scaring its nearest contender, a frosty Slurpee.
Plus, here it’s unnecessary to plan your stages too intensely, especially since everything is a minute or two’s walk away, or shorter, depending on where you pegged your turf. But it also comes down to how lazy you are; a friend I know chose to pee into her cup over walking to the toilet stalls. Don’t shit where you eat works weird here. Given the intimacy of the set-up though, doof sticks weren’t necessary. If you want to find a mate, a simple cooee does everyone justice.
Easing in slowly but surely for the first half of the festival
Melbourne 8-piece WRV BVBY played on the first night just before things started to climax. With their own releases like ‘Magnetic Ruins’, they successfully challenged themselves by playing to a highly excitable crowd looking forward to a big weekend. The night followed with heavy-clap sets from both Adriana dropping Nathan Micay’s version of a Hindi banger, and Jex Opolis playing The Bad Touch from 1999 and a soothing yet funky Spanish groove with pulsating percussions called ‘Me Gusta’.
Saturday arvo, Little Morocco became a meeting place for arts and crafts and free vegan snacks. Someone left their wearable floral behind, so I made it into my doof choker; it’s about finding opportunities. My crew and I felt curiously creative, so we stayed until the end of the session. We were the last ones remaining to make a replicate of Hopkins out of Playdough, complete with early 2000’s Sportsters/ Brunswick dwellers, DJ decks and yellow flowers.
Post-arts sesh, I found myself at Whisky Houston’s set, easily my favourite of the weekend. TBH I was too into it to remember what was played. But I do remember Suges’ sultry heater All Over My Body’, being a particular highlight. The day doesn’t simply stop there, in fact, from here on in it was b2b power plays of artists playing across the whole festival. However, I had to have a brief nap that spontaneously turned into a 4-hour sleep.
Saturday night is (only) for hard techno
From my tent, I could hear music that sounded like a sharp knife slicing through the crater. Even in my rest state, my body moved to pulsating percussions and growling dirty bass. It was that impactful - and you know it’s good when you feel it unconsciously. Dropping massive club bangers, Hopkins described it best: Klasse Wrecks was “all class, no wrecks”.
HOT TIP: After the festival, I joined Hopkins Heaters 2019, the facebook haven to cure all your Track ID needs. There I discovered that Millú and Pjenne violated the rules of track dropping with nicely selected works like ‘Qube’’ which is tagged on SoundCloud as ‘psy-tek’. Shout out to the people on Hopkins Heaters; we need communities like this – especially if you’re sleepy at a festival during heated moments.
With anticipation for Mama Snake's set at an all-time high, she showed us mercy by not building the suspense any more than needed. In fact, she wasted no time. The opener' Heat From A Distance' jolted me to wake the fuck up. After four hours of said napping (trying to sleep on hard techno is just loud silence), like the track's title, I could feel the heat from a distance.
When I arrived on the d-floor, it was absolute chaos. It was crusaders of the d-floor in green light mode; club casualties, a techno emergency; Mama Snake and her essential underground hits delivered from her raging medical practice/DJ booth to a big grassy hole in the ground in Tatyoon.
As you would expect from someone who is a qualified surgeon, Mama Snake hustled, or should that be snaked, through her set with precision. The night was dense with tracks like 'Be My Lover'; the addicted hook of 'My Dream My Wish', and the heart-warming 'Just Close Your Eyes' which sent dancers into a trance with the refrain 'just close your eyes, forget your name, forget the world, forget the people, just close your eyes…' I could go on and on with slang romance about Mama Snake's set, but it was the sped-up version of 'Rigid', 42 minutes into her set which really sealed the deal for me. Wide-eyed, watching lasers.
📸 Hopkins Creek
Boogie on a cloud into sunrise
Sleep D AKA Maryos and Corey are considered pillars of Melbourne’s dance underground, a duo who, really, needs no introduction. Starting their set with a literal bang, they crafted a narrative that was intangible, yet instinctual, local in origin and exceptional in flavour. There was a care-free feeling about their set, an air of just letting go and playing whatever feels right in the moment. This included some of their own productions taken from their excellent recent album ‘Danza Mart’, which, as they relayed in a recent interview with Inverted Audio, features re-contextualising scratching samples in house music. They also played productions from their very own Butter Sessions label, particularly bringing the crowd into a liminal space with ‘Guy Contact’.
At 6 AM I ventured up the crater, Sleep D still going strong in the fog with a celestial house track called ‘Ghetto’. Half an hour later, I witnessed one of my most memorable sunrises to date. With serious festivity action happening everywhere, the sunrise party was bliss and straight out of left-field. (I must admit I’ve not seen the sunrise in a decade, does coming out from a club at closing hours count?). The boys from Frankston ended their incredible set with ‘Severed Head’, and all the (five) languages I speak can’t capture what I experienced.
I mean, how often do you get to boogie on a cloud?
The early morning soundtrack on the third day sat between downtempo and up-tempo and waking up to psytrance on loudspeakers from surrounding neighbours. My body screamed sleep, but my mind was having so much fun. A kind of a happy disconnection between mind and body transitioned slowly from Sleep D to Sleep Decade.
It’s like Hollywood… but with herpes
📸 Jasper Freeman
Third day’s crazy kick-ons
Dreems freestyled on the buckled wheel of life. He opened with a spoken-word piece opener by the American theatrical composer Robert Ashley, hauntingly projecting women in suffering, therapists and pills as solutions. (The song only had 33 Shazams at the time I checked). Yup, it started pretty rough and weird, but I was proud to be part of it. This was also the moment when I realised that the spelt-out letters of 'HOPKINS CREEK' sign were now 'HERPES KICKON'.
Later, Dreems switched up the mood with 'Love to Love You Baby' by the phenomenal Donna Summer, and 'It's A Fine Line' released through Edit Service 8, which samples 'The Story Of The Blues’' by Wah!. Berlin-based Alison Swing later took over the stage and captured the crowd with the one and only 'Crazy Frog'. Damn, but ringdingdingding ding dign aringdingdingding ding dingding. She also played some LCD Soundsystem and Leon Vynehall too, but I have no interest. I can't stop thinking about Axel F, life is crazy... frog.
Once again, the weather was great this year, and thankfully Hopkins wasn't affected by any tornados, except for the one and only Tornado Wallace. He thundered the crowd with DJ Assault's 'Sex On the Beach', a cheeky banger which made some tents move in suspiciously funny ways (if you know what I mean). Another DJ Assault jam, 'Nympho' spotted later in the evening suggested someone (Tornado) was a big fan. I just loved the nympho sexy vibes, which was continued with 'Phonky No 69', a definite fresh (phresh!) mood at the festival. Sadly, highs always end at some point. This time, it ended with 'Cry', decompressing the state of emotions after a stack of crowd-pleasers, old-school bangers and feel-good anthems that hasn't lost its charm. Wallace indeed went through us with memorable tornado-like destruction.
Impact-free partying
Last-day-of-the-festival mood for me was squeezing a BBQ sauce smiley face on top of my $4 hummus and beetroot relish toastie. And it was also the day to take stock of the event’s important stance on minimising its impact on the environment: from more busses to reduce the number of cars on the road, to reusable crockeries, to “no-nitrous oxide-allowed in this household” policy, and free ashtrays in the form of recycled film canisters. Campsites were clean and showed no signs of a weekender. We all had fun (read: unlimited BYO) but with minimal impact to the environment. In fact, blackened and chapped lips, nice tans and grimy wristbands were the only indications of a banging and safe ‘music and mateship’ weekend at HERPES KICKONS.