St Kilda Festival

 I read in The Age about plans for the St Kilda Festival on 15-16 February.  It seemed to be a massive event with talk about 350,000 people attending, many acts and the whole suburb being closed off.  I didn't recognise many of the acts: Troy Cassar-Daly stood out on the first day (devoted to indigenous performers) while Peter Garrett fronting a new band called the Alter Egos was about the only one I recognised on the Sunday.  I decided, with Frances encouragement, to have a rubberneck at Peter Garrett (PG) on the Sunday.

It seemed that tram was the way of getting there, with information available early on suggesting a need to walk from about St Kilda Station (say 1.6 km to the main stage).  On the day it appeared that in fact the trams were stopping at St Kilda Junction meaning a further 400m on the hoof.  Despite the promise of "extra trams" when I got out to the stop it seemed that the next 16A wasn't due for 23 minutes so I might as well walk the whole 3 kms.  I suspect I lost little time, and the tram would have been extremely unpleasantly crowded.  I rate the effort of Yarra Trams to be about D -.

Walking down Fitzroy St was OK with a few garage bands playing along the way, and a few people sitting outside pubs and restaurants listening to them.  There was a stage set up beside the Espy (Esplanade Hotel) but very few spectators so I was able to get a snap of the portrait of Paul Kelly on the pub wall.

It was getting close to kick off for the PG set so I crossed the road to get down to the Main Stage.  The lower road, Jacka Boulevard, was rather full of a Hare Krisna parade.

The area in front of the main stage was rather full so I climbed up the grassy knoll opposite, reasoning that it was unlikely the set was going to be quiet.  Unfortunately the vegetation got in the way!
They did have a screen for those blocked by the trees (and someone doing AUSLAN for those whose hearing had been stuffed by earlier gigs).
So I shifted back down to the mob and eventually got a look at PG.  He was doing a pretty good job with a little talking and some pretty good rock songs.  As expected it wasn't quiet.
He wasn't quite the jittery maniac he used to be when fronting Midnight Oil but had pretty good moves for a 71 year old.
They dropped the pace down to ballads so I thought I'd done enough and headed back to the Esplanade.  I found a spot which gave a good view of the stage and mosh pit.
The City of Port Phillip had employed a couple of seagull impersonators who seemed to be getting a good reaction in the crowds.  They got a strong, but not happy, reaction from a couple of Standard Poodles which, according to the owners "don't like any seagulls".  One of the gulls trusted in the shortness and strength of the dogs' leads and squawked at the dogs leading to further barking and snarling.  Perhaps goose rather than gull?
As in the last stage of the marathon (about the 32km point) Fitzroy Street seemed like a mountain.  I caught a tram for the last km back from the Junction.
WRT to number of folk, I have attended an event (a papal mass in the Longchamps Paris Hippodrome) with 1,000,000 people.  I don't think there was anything close to 1/3rd of that number here.  I asked a group of cops for their estimate and they didn't know but quoted the 350k - suggesting poor weather early in the day might have kept numbers down a bit.  I suspect they might have borrowed a counting technique described in a book I read about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.  After a jungle firefight the US troops found a Viet Cong (VC) helmet.  To estimate the size of the opposing VC force, the spin doctors in the CIA dealt with this along the following lines (note - the numbers I quote here are my invention, but the process is as offered in my source): 

  • helmets were expensive so if the helmet was left the wearer was probably dead and his body had been taken for burial (1 VC opponent);
  • if one guy was killed on average another 10 were wounded (11 VC opponents);
  • with for each casualty on average there are 10 unharmed (110 VC opponents); 
  • in any military unit the fighters are 50% of the total force (220 VC opponents)
  • only about 5 % of the battleground was searched, due to sniper fire (at least 4,000 VC opponents).

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