Though it’s only in its fourth year, The Golden Plains – Aunty Meredith’s little sister – has grown up quickly. While other attempts to create weekend music festivals, notably Lost Weekend and Blueprint, have floundered, Golden Plains has flourished. True, it had an easy birth following the popularity its well established older sibling into the summer calendar, but there was a risk that a second summer festival in the Supernatural Amphitheatre could dilute the love that the thousands of return punters have for their Aunty. However the pair of festivals held on the Nolan farm have now come to represent the bookends of the summer music festival season – for punters in Melbourne anyway.

So how did the summer 09/10 season end? Well, there were reformed nineties heroes (Pavement, Dinosaur Jr and The Cruel Sea ) and newer indie darlings (Dirty Projectors, Big Pink) plus Afro-beaters, storming Israeli rockers and a surprisingly small contingent of locals. Golden Plains also had a fair dose of showers, creating unwelcome flashbacks to the infamous torrential rain of Meredith 08, but while a storm officially declared one of the worst in Victorian history Battered Melbourne with enormous chunks of ice, the festival was spared from the real carnage.

A good six hours after the gates had opened to let in the hordes who had woken at ungodly hours to make the trek to the sacred Meredith grounds, the festival opened with West Sydney’s Royal Headache. The band seemed a little over awed by the responsibility of opening the festival as their lead singer wandered the stage muttering distractedly to himself. Sounding like a looser version of Meredith mainstays Eddy Current, the Headache simply got on with the business of playing their set and with a small band of fans singing along to Eloise and Honey Joy they proved to be more than worthy of the opening honours.

The rain hadn’t yet begun in earnest, but the dampest set of the day came from The Crayon Fields. Though Geoff O’Connor and his troupe of geeks are unfailingly polite and had gone to the effort of dressing the stage with mike stand vines and fake palm trees they struggled to make much of a musical impact. After the gritty set from Royal Headache, Crayon Fields’ polished sound was to clean to make much of an impression. Following a limp cover of Everybody’s Talking, dedicated to all the cowboys present, their set peaked with the title track of their latest record All The Pleasures of the World, but ultimately the fake plastic trees were more memorable than the music.

Sadly the local contingent of the day wasn’t well served by the next act either. Clairy Baby Browne And The Bangin Rackettes really like their classic southern soul rhythm and blues, but sadly their set felt distinctly like another trip down to the Night Cat to catch a bunch of VCA students larking about. They offer a decent stage show – with a trio of backing singers dressed in black, white and red – but unlike a decent soul singer there was absolutely no feeling in Clairy’s delivery. As a soulless version of Mojo Hannah leaked into the Supernatural Amphitheatre it was hard not to wish that it was just Mohair Slim spinning an old 45 of the genuinely feisty version from Little Esther Philips.

It took a bizarrely energetic show from a trio of Israeli maniacs to truly kick the festival into gear. For those in close, Monotonix offered a bruising experience as the very sweaty, very hairy band members hurled themselves into the crowd and cymbals threatened to slice eager punters faces. The word of mouth from their club dates leading up to their Golden Plains set had drawn a strong crowd of curious punters down front as the band set up in front of the stage.

For the punters on the hill it was simply a confusing pile of bodies obscuring the drums, but up close, where avoiding flailing drumsticks and giddy punters kept you on your toes, Monotonix delivered one of the most entertaining sets seen in the Amphitheatre. The drums buckled under the impact as punters surged forward to see the band briefly halting the show until Ami Shalev scrambled above the crowd to play an elevated drum solo and lead a chant of his favourite Australians. After celebrating his love of AC/DC, Men at Work, Ian Thrope and oddly Rod Laver, Shalev returned to the fray, it wasn’t long before security, rightly fearing for the safety of punters and band alike, pulled the plug on the show. It didn’t exactly offer much of a showcase for their actual music (though their albums are well worth a spin), but no one who saw it will be forgetting Monotonix set– even if it’s just “remember that time those hairy Israelis destroyed the pit?”.

Advance word suggested that The Big Pink were merely a studio act and not cut out for the live arena. That word quickly proved to be very wrong, with the group expanding to a four piece for their live shows their sound is far louder and immediate on stage than the shoe gazing heard on their debut record, A Brief History of Love. Too Young To Love and Velvet were dispatched early in the set, but Dominos was saved for the close with the crowd belting out the titular chorus. The eleven piece Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra crammed onto the state to give the Golden Plains faithful what they had wanted from Tony Allen’s lacklustre set the previous year – a set of solid Afro-beat grooves – but by now the anticipation was buzzing for the evening’s pair of slacker headliners.

With the crooked rain still lingering Pavement delivered exactly what could be wanted from a Pavement setlist ten years after their breakup. Though they neglected their final album, Terror Twilight, they strung together their finest moments even offering a back to back run of Cut Your Hair, Stop Breathin__, Summer Babe and Gold Soundz. It wasn’t the most polished performance but then, other than on their final Nigel Godrich produced record, Pavement’s slack and slanted take on the Flying Nun sound was rarely clean. The band seem to be treating their current tour, which, appropriately enough, kicked off in New Zealand, as a chance to relearn their live set and to enjoy themselves on stage. They indulged in a strange moment of syncronised guitar wielding during Grounded and inviting Melbourne music identity and BBQ chef Julian Wu to help sing Conduit for Sale!.

It was going to take something fairly special cap the night after Pavement, but luckily there was another reformed act more than capable of continuing the Golden Plains quality. Dinosaur Jr are two albums and a brace of gigs into their second wind and the difference was immediately clear. Though J Mascis may joke that the band have become louder due to age and deafness, the reason was simply irrelevant with such a tightly delivered set, filled with brilliance from Mascis. Unlike Pavement, the trio of Dinosaur’s didn’t interact, let alone joke with one another on stage, but there was no denying the thrill of hearing (and feeling) the impact of Feel The Pain or recent instant classic Get Over It as they filled the Amphitheatre.

There was more to come from the DJs before the famed Silence Wedge ended the festivities for the day, but after Pavement and Dinosaur Jr it couldn’t possibly get any better. So with Masics’ guitar still ringing out through the rain, it was time to hike home hoping to find that the tents had managed to withstand the rain.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE FESTIVAL HERE