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While music fans are going through line-ups, posting predictions and purchasing tickets, the new season of music festivals is slowly getting started. The inaugural Grazzhopper Festival kicked off in Geelong on a sunny Saturday and promised a line-up full of great Australian acts such as Grinspoon, Faker, Bluejuice and Operator Please and the only Victorian appearances of international artists Xzibit and The Rapture, and thanks to the decent weather and plenty of space to spread out, many took in a good day of live music.

The festival was held on the infield of Corio’s Beckley Park Trotting & Greyhound Track and provided an easy to navigate layout. The show was officially split between three stages: the indie stage, a stage that was held in a tent not much bigger than the festival’s stall holders had located closest to the entrance; the main stage, slightly bigger than a side stage at the Big Day Out with plenty of space to sit down and watch the festivities; and the big top tent, which was comparable in size with the dance tent at The Falls Festival. The unofficial fourth stage, the Bar Area was the consistently busiest of the day serving up that firm festival favourite – beer. All stages were no more than a five minute walk away from each other, so it was easy to jump from stage to stage or grab a dagwood dog or some woodfire nachos between a set.

Rocking out in front of the early was modern rock act Dora Mah. Lead singer Jeremy seems obsessed with sticking his right foot up on the railing separating the tiny stage from the just as tiny crowd, as he does so multiple times during their song hoping that the crowd will rock out with him. But when he asks if it’s too early to talk about the footy, the crowd goes silent. The main stage appears to be running late because Sydney band The Third Cycle is still on stage. Lead singer Jess Donnelan is barefoot and displaying a lot of spunk with her pop-rock tunes, but her singing sounds like someone who has just made the move from the school choir to fronting a rock band. Bassist Clint Ossington seems upset that most of the crowd watching are sitting down, yelling “Come on guys it’s a fucking festival!”

Over in the big top tent, most of the crowd is watching local MC Phrase putting it down. He’s all set up and has a live band, a DJ, and a large bottle of vodka. He displays his unique rhyming ability over Clockwork, brings out girlfriend Jade MacRae to perform on a track, and plays a live remake/freestyle of Diddy’s Bad Boyz For Life. Meanwhile back at the main stage Geelong group The Modern Legion are performing a song about Paris burning, sounding like a cross between Magic Dirt and Maximo Park. Frontwoman Steph Collins has a fine singing voice but is fairly blunt when introducing songs, saying that one song “is about fucking”.

The indie stage has MM9 rocking out in front of decent sized crowd for that stage, but still not a lot of people. They would be your standard hardcore act if it wasn’t for the sampler that vocalist Daniel Sutherland plays. The sampler adds an impressive boost to tracks such as New Killer Break but the rest of the band are just as talented. Drummer Ben Ellingsworth adds pulsating beats on top of Kerry Foulke’s pounding guitar. This is one band you will be hearing a ton about pretty soon. Back in the tent are much loved (at least by Nova) Dirty Laundry. The whole thing is a bit of a mess – you have a DJ spinning mainstream R’n’B and pop with a pair of singer/dancers contributing over the top, a lacklustre rapper doing his part and a saxophone player adding his bit in too. Patricia Patterson is trying to get the crowd to sing the hooks on a dance remix on top of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams but they are more content on dancing. There’s a dance-off on stage between the two singers set to The Presets’ My People but the whole thing comes off half-assed.

The vocalist of Horsell Common, Mark Steward, “fucking hates” everything. Everything included the fact that the majority of the crowd were sitting down, fellow Grazzhopper artists The Galvatrons, and guys sitting on the grass watching their set instead of standing. When he asked the crowd if anyone had purchased EP Lost A Lot Of Blood and a few people indicated that they did, he answered back that they weren’t going to play any songs off it. Steward may think he’s being funny, but in the end comes off like a real prick. Andy Van and Kam Denny are Vandalism who are playing a DJ set in the tent, but as Daft Punk’s Around The World spins you can’t help thinking that you are watching a school disco, as the crowd is very small and very young.

Calling All Cars are playing on the indie stage, and are about as stereotypically Aussie pub rock as an indie rock band can get. The songs are first-rate but the boys have the misfortune of having their speakers cut out on them three times during their set, twice during single Hey You. Unfortunate. After a lengthy delay The Galvatrons hit the main stage, but they don’t look quite as eighties as their music sounds. Despite being on at 4:15 in the afternoon the Melbourne boys have pulled an impressive crowd that listen to humming synths and Van Halen inspired guitar riffs. Johnny Galvatron, the lead singer is fresh faced but knows how to perform on stage which makes for an entertaining show.

Back in the tent was Melbourne hip-hop crew Muph & Plutonic who with the help of DJ Bonez were laying down track after track of tight rhymes, dope beats and sweet grooves. During Wrong Bonez was playing the conductor waving his hands in the air while Plutonic Lab put down an awesome beat on his drum kit. But a jazzy remix of Heaps Good caused the song to lose some of the goodness contained in the original. With the main stage running late from earlier sets, it was a further fifteen wait before Operator Please. Keyboard player Sarah Gardiner was nowhere to be seen which meant her “so bad their good” dance moves were missing, but it was more disappointing to hear frontwoman Amandah Wilkinson’s voice. Wilkinson had no issues demonstrating low, dulcet tones but struggled to hit high notes on Get What You Want, amongst other tracks.

Electro/rock crossover act Dukes Of Windsor have amassed a large crowd for their set in the tent, and lead singer Jack Weaving doesn’’t seem to believe his eyes. They play the original version of The Others which is a tad slower compared to the TV Rock remix and you could easily draw comparisons with Starsailor’s Four To The Floor. The lead singer of Young & Restless, Karina Utomo may say she is cold due to the sudden gust of wind that is blowing across Beckley Park, but she’s looking hot as hell in a black leather catsuit. She howls her way through while prancing around the stage and occasionally performing on the crowd level. The tunes are great – full of energy yet poppy enough for mainstream radio.

Bluejuice haven’t drawn many in the tent, but that didn’t stop the Sydney full of energy. Jake Stone is wearing a bright yellow t-shirt with the body of a skeleton printed in black, while his partner in crime Stav Yiannoukas was a little more refined in cap, jacket and pants and put on a killer set of hip-hop/funk/rock tunes. Stone was clearly downing the sponsor’s product backstage (Grazzhopper Energy Drink) because he was climbing onto speaker stacks, jumping on top bass drums, and performing in the crowd. “I’m going to find a way to get to that platform without touching the crowd”, said Stone referring to a beam holding up the tent. Performances of The Reductionist and Motorcycle Accident were great but it was Triple J favourite Vitriol that brought the house down and had everyone in the tent yelling out the chorus. Easily the best performance of the entire festival, yet it seemed like so many missed it.

Trial Kennedy drew the biggest crowd all day at the indie stage, but if there were more than 200 people in attendance I would be lying. Playing alternative rock in the vein of bands such as Gyroscope, the Melbourne boys drew a rabid, passionate crowd to an enjoyable set. Continuing the alternative theme (but not sounding quite the same) was Sydney band Faker on the main stage. Opening with second single Are You Magnetic they worked their way through hits including Hurricane and This Heart Attack to a joy-filled response.

The tent was still only half full, but it was the biggest crowd it had seen all day for American rapper Xzibit’s show. The set started off with Xzibit’s two DJs hyping the crowd up by switching through the hooks of some popular rap tracks, including Mobb Deep’s Shook Ones, Snoop Dogg’s Nuthin’ But A G Thang, 2Pac’s California Love and Jay-Z’s two latest tracks – Jockin’ Jay-Z and Swagger Like Us. Finally X stepped on the stage with the crowd acting the most pumped they had all day, with him ripping into Symphony In X Major. “G-Town make some noise!” declared the DJ as bomb dropping sound effects played over the PA. The crowd bounced for track after track, many propped up onto their boyfriends’ shoulders for Don’t Let The Money Make You and Mutherfucka. He brought out Jelly Roll and Strong Arm Steady member Krondon for Saturday Night Live and kept them on stage for the rest of the show as he played single after single, Paparazzi “for my niggaz who’ve been down since ‘96”, Concentrate, Thank You and finally biggest single X. Despite the crowd wanting more, Xzibit left the stage with many of the crowd heading towards the exits following his performance.

Phil Jamieson was rubbing his hands together to show how cold he was, before blaming “Brumby” for the delay on getting on stage. Phil was sporting a different look, with a black woollen jacket, orange t-shirt, jeans and slicked back blonde hair as his band Grinspoon played the headliner spot on the main stage to a deep but still small crowd. The set was made up of hit song after hit song, playing Hard Act To Follow, Business, and Hold On Me amongst others. Before playing Radio 1, he remarked “We are going to play the song off our 1999 album, yeah we are that old”, while No Reason was given the solo acoustic treatment. Meanwhile in the tent, those fans who hadn’t gone home were dancing to a laptop DJ set from New York dance/rock outfit The Rapture, filled full of beeps and beats. Back at the main stage, Grinspoon were closing their set Chemical Heart, and I followed the many people out of Beckley Park and into the car park.

The 2008 edition of the Grazzhopper Festival was over, but was it a success? It’s hard to say. The organisers did an amazing job in assembling group of up and coming bands for the afternoon, but given the limited crowd numbers they didn’t book the headliners to sell out the place. The location was perfect and easy to get to, with the event laid out well allowing plenty of room to lie back and watch bands at any time of the day or night. It was easy to get yourself something to eat or a t-shirt, but at times there was lengthy waits for toilets or alcohol. The free parking for all festival goers was a nice bonus, and the busses running back to areas of Geelong and Melbourne seemed to be appreciated by the incapacitated members of the crowd. A job well done to the promoters of Grazzhopper, hopefully it will return in 2009.