Airwaves Festival, Nambour Showgrounds, July 10th/11th

Review by Ashlee Clow Photos by Photography by Chris

Do you hear that? It’s live music!

On the 10th and 11th of July, many of our favourite local artists step foot on stage for the first time in months at Nambour Showgrounds to attend the Airwaves Festival - Australia’s first Drive-in music festival.

Put together by local music heiress Cindy Jensen and her army, ‘Buskers by The Lake’, brought overwhelming joy to a starved live music lover of every genre, back out listening and grooving to live music once again... But this time it was a bit different.

Instead of a whole crowd singing, dancing and sweating it out up around close together, everyone managed to keep the social distance expectations in tune by bringing their cars! You read that right, Australia’s first ever drive-in ‘Pop up’ music festival has gone down in history on the ovals of Nambour Showgrounds.

The punters sat on the top of their cars, some piled up in utes, or if you were lucky to have a VW Kombi or convertible, the experience was a little more cozy. Pillows and blankets were a major necessity on chilly Nambour nights and a choice of pizza, tacos or hot coffee delivered right to your car was also on offer. Many chose to bring their own though with chips and full eski’s while others set out blankets and chairs with baskets of cheese and wine.... then we had the real hardcore outdoor festival glampers with gas burners and fridges. There was also the promoters ‘Red Bull’ who were getting around all night handing out free Red Bulls and kept the grooves going with DJ Sophie Durbidge pumping out beats between sets.

Sunny Coast’s favourites, Toxic Fox opened the festival with an epic set of indie/rock, blowing everyone out of their cars and onto the grass to feel that long awaited bass beat to the body! Following up was local Sunny Coast songstress Sahara Beck who lit up the stage with her breathtaking vocals mesmerising us all. But it is was overwhelming favourites ‘The Dreggs’, with their jaw dropping set that made the whole crowd go mad crazy, singing and dancing their hearts out to every single word. In their finale they brought on stage their youngest crowd fan, 7-year-old Ollie to announce and sing with them the last song of the night.

The second night took off with a powerful performance from Brisbane band Being Jane Lane, leaving nothing but energy pumping and sweat dripping off everybody’s face. On top of that followed the popular Bugs! These guys hit us all with an amazing wave of some Aussie Pop/Rock getting everyone up and at it hyped! Which leaves the headline act for the night, and probably the weekend, a local punk rock band who everyone knows and loves, The Chats... There was no familiar mosh pit scene that these guys are atone to but it gave the opportunity for guitarist ‘Josh Price’ to jump off stage and jam to flashing headlights of parked cars... Don’t think I’ll ever see that again at a music festival!

After the craziness and restrictive life of isolation, lucky punters who came along were finally relieved to feed their love of live music with ‘Airwaves’ Drive-in music festival. In the last week I have heard a lot of, “wish I was there”, well organizers say this wont be the last and I believe we just may have experienced the new normal.

Day 1.
Toxic Fox