The festival that claims the country is all about the cows! Yep, it’s Groovin’ The Moo time again and those Moos were certainly grooved… No, there weren’t actually an excess of those in the crowd, this was no Solar festival. So what do you do for the rural areas that get less live music than the cities? You give them everything at once. And what do the country folk do? Not much apparently, given that most of the tickets sold for the event were to Melbournians.

In its final stop, the now triple jumping festival hit Bendigo with its gloriously random selection of artists. It had the usual rockin’ staples, the Aussie comebacks, the pop friendlies, the international splash, and, uh… Muscles. Bendigo loved it.

In the Moolin Rouge, around midday, Melbourne lads Hercules In NY kicked off the Moo in a grand fashion. MJ meets ELO, these five were, for lack of a better word, poptastic. Electronic pop with the jacket included, HINY bolted through tracks in fine form, cementing themselves as a highlight for the few in early enough. Out on the main stage, My Own Enemy didn’t provide the same love affair. These guys aren’t giving anything new to the metal community, and screamed about whilst interchanging between their two ‘rock star’ moves – headbanging and back arching. It was hardly setting the stage for things to come. One hit and one miss.

With the following acts, the hits were on the rise, though, and it didn’t take long for the Moo to really get going. Those psychedelic rockers Tame Imapala continued their festival juggernaut, as did Melbourne’s greatest new grunge kids Children Collide. The former was easily the less exciting of the two bands – opting to jam away in their own world and milk their revival sound for all its worth, treating the stoners to what they wanted. Children Collide were incredible. Flailing about to catch the country kids up on their act, theirs was 40 minutes of sheer rock pleasure. Social Currency and Marie Marie were the highlights, as was Johnny’s usual ‘sing into the pickup’.

From one brilliant Melbourne band to the next, the almighty Drones were next and delivered their usual dish that never seems to go old. Nail It Down, The Minotaur, Shark Fin Blues and I Don’t Ever Want To Change all featured on the relatively small set list (the band opting for less songs that went for longer). In between was some less familiar interaction between Gareth, Dan and Mike, who quipped about Dan’s birthday and jokingly abused a guy standing in the bar with his drink instead of being at the front.

There was some Monkey Magic style dancing from Ezekiel as Mammal began on the next stage, but many were hoofing it back to Moolin Rouge for one of the festival’s heroes, ART vs SCIENCE. That proved the worthwhile move. There was no entering if you were late and AvS had the packed tent (and those out the back too) bouncing away and chanting, ‘Use your flippers to get down’. Basically, it was a load of awesome nonsense that the band does so well.

The crowd seemed to love the Moolin Rouge, and there were few acts in there that didn’t attract the dance focused punters. That fact was obvious when witnessing the lack of grazers in front of Okkervil River. The Texan’s seemed oddly placed in the lineup (although, who didn’t?), but they did their best to have a fun time. Will Sheff proved he can rock out with an acoustic guitar like no other, and along with the band’s surfless rendition of Sloop John B, fan favourites like Plus Ones and Unless It’s Kicks appeared.

A timetable change meant that synth heroes, Van She were now on the main stage. What seemed an odd choice at first proved an appropriate one, with the packed AvS crowd looking rather tame compared to the Van She one. As they made their way through Changes, Strangers and Kelly, I’m sure the organisers were thankful for the last minute choice given the amount of jumpers.

The first of two Aussie comeback bands, Little Birdy had a big show up, too. Katy and the boys weren’t going to disappoint their faithful, either, and delivered a worthwhile set of old tracks and one’s from Confetti. Given that album only came out a week ago, the newies received a good reception, especially Brother, which thanks to its excess airplay of Triple J made it a massive sing along. The rockier numbers reigned supreme, though, with opener C’mon C’mon and closing duo Six Months In A Leaky Boat and Bodies highlighting the set at the right times.

Architecture In Helsiki have been a consistently good live act since releasing Places Like This and tonight was no exception. With the sun down, Bendigo was freezing (Friesian, anyone?) and it was up to AiH to keep the crowd warm. With the conclusion of De La Soul in the Moolin Rouge, droves of punters suddenly appeared, demanding that they keep jumping. Hold Music obeyed the demand. Debbie (the ‘slow dance’ version) didn’t. The ratio of dance to non-dance was highly in favour of the former, though, and AiH were very well received, despite relaying to the locals how terribly the Bendigo Bombers had played that afternoon.

The Moolin Rouge was again housing a healthy dose of bodies for Brooklyn’s Ratatat. Evan and Mike were armed with guitars and proved to be the dark horses of festival, with their shadowy, psychedelic electronics providing a great alternative to the day’s more familiar sounds. Equally as favourable to the dancers as they were to the onlookers up the back, Ratatat kept everyone happy as the night continued to get colder.

If the cold was the problem, Hilltop Hoods were the solution. In their first Victorian show in over a year, the Hoods were in spectacular form as the revved the crowd easily. With a fifth album on the way, the trio had heaps of material to draw from and the set was laden with hits, including Illusionary Lines, Crowned Prince, What A Great Night and The Hard Road. They were all performed with high energy from the Hoods and the crowd alike, though Nosebleed Section certainly had the most impressive reaction from the band’s herd. Some new material was obviously going to crop up, with the latest single Chase That Feeling taking things down a notch and Still Standing doing quite the opposite. Suffa and Pressure should be commended for getting the crowd so psyched over a new track. ‘Get your hands up’ seemed to be the call of the hour and given amount of raised limbs, Hilltop Hoods were clearly the band most people had come to check out. They certainly set the steaks high for the Living End.

On that note, it appeared The Living End had been upstaged. However, it seems that wherever there’s an Aussie heavy lineup, TLE will be there, and they weren’t letting the enormity of the Hilltop Hoods take anything from their show. Catching Bendigo up on their latest, the set seemed to follow a formula of one new song to every old one. Raise The Alarm kicked things off in fine style, with plenty of “whoa-ohs”, before an early addition of Prisoner of Society got the fans down the front moshing. The new material included Hey Hey Disbeliever, Loaded Gun and How Do We Know?, whilst the back catalogue was used to grab All Torn Down, Who’s Gonna Save Us, Wake Up and, of course, Second Solution. The usual Second Solution chants took a while to pick up, though remarks that the crowd sounded like Sydney soon picked things up. All the while, as TLE rumbled through their rockabilly, a packed Moolin Rouge was giving Muscles a smile.

It’s hard to tell if Groovin’ The Moo Bendigo was a success or not. Undoubtedly, the lineup was great, albeit random, and the organisation was down pat. Complements to the set up of the Moo – the “one off/one on” main stages setup worked well from the beginning and meant groovers had the best opportunity to see most bands. Where was the problem? The crowd was a city one, hitting the road for a day in the country. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of bringing the music to the rural areas in the first place? Still, a fun day with plenty to hear meant it deserved a good rap.

CHECK OUT THE COW-ERFUL PHOTOS FROM THE DAY HERE