Surfing a wave of rock

Sun 2nd Aug, 2009 in Features

Two days of music, freedom, film camping, nature on the edge of the desert…

Sounds like a film from the early seventies full of suntanned chicks in string bikinis and moustachioed dudes in beige flares right? Well, it is a long weekend music festival in the desert… lets just hope the moustaches are kept to a minimum.

The Wave Rock Weekender is now in its fourth year, and shows no sign of going out of style. Conceived by a bunch of music lovers frustrated at the commercial festivals set up to create advertising space; and cramming the most people in to maximise profits; this festival is about the music. Everything else is included only to enhance the celebration of music, nature, people and the environment. Every year there is a great vibe. People are free to roam the rock and take a dip in the artificial salt pool at the nearby resort (not to be mistaken with the natural salt lake, which the resort sits upon).

The rock is a 15 metre high 110m long wave in the face of a 100 hectare rock formation believed to have formed over 2700 million years ago. The Njakinjaki Nyungar people lived in the region around Hyden, and Wave Rock features in Nyungar creation stories. The Festival acknowledges and respects the traditional owners of the land and Don Collard will welcome patrons on the Saturday.

Only bands who are in it for the love of music are invited to join the line-up and then only musicians of the highest calibre. This makes for a diverse array of styles joined by a common ideology. It is becoming something of an honour to be asked to play, despite the fact that the bands do not get paid the same sort of appearance fees as at other festivals owing to the deliberate lack of corporate sponsorship.

It is a fantastic opportunity to mingle with national artists as they wander through the campsite. Past Wave Rock Weekender encounters included cooking up a BBQ with the boys from Kill Devil Hills, sharing a drink with Dallas Frasca and saying hello to the crew from the Audreys. Everyone is relaxed and there to have a good time.
The Festival takes over the luxury caravan park in Hyden where access to food, toilets, showers the bar, film and music is constant and never a drama. The Festival organisers even offer to run to the shops in town so no one has to leave.

To ensure that the surrounding environs won’t be raped by the sojourn of some 800 music lovers they have been experimenting with solar and LED power and have established a wave rock weekender forest in the Shire of Kondinin with the cost of planting and maintaining enough trees for a return journey to Hyden being included in each ticket price, depending on the transport option you choose.

There is a whole swag of other enviro initiatives in place which you can read about at Soul Highway. e.g. starch food containers which are fully biodegradable, but don’t eat them -They taste like old chips and cardboard. Festival-goers are also encouraged to take up the Cup Challenge; that is, using one cup for the entire festival.

It is a deliberately well kept secret because the venue can only accommodate 800 people, however we think the music lovers on Fasterlouder are exactly the kind of people who would love the vibe and surroundings, and get into the spirit of the weekend, so we’ll keep you posted of any further developments, and bring you a first hand report and gallery of the good times in case you can’t make the pilgrimage yourself.

Check out this year’s line-up here and last year’s gallery here
Thanks to Shichi for her contribution to this article.