Oscar

When I was 12 I went to see Red Hot Chilli Peppers with my best friend Dave. He was the bass player in my band at the time, Noize Pollution. We were so pumped at the show, it was my first big love show. That night we gave ourselves “smileys” so as to remember the night. A smiley is when you let a cigarette lighter heat up and then burn your skin with it. It leaves an impression that looks like a smiley face.

Grant

Hannibal Burress tried to steal my date at a show recently – that was mildly funny.

At Paradise, me and Oscar had flew in from Sydney that morning and gone straight to stage. I drank a six-pack in the car on the way up and popped a Valium. I gave away a bottle of Grey Goose to the crowd and our manager had to spend the whole show on stage stopping me from falling over. I talked the crowd into flipping me off and after my set I promptly fell asleep for four hours. When I woke up I danced ’til sunrise, when I shelved a pinga for the first time in the middle of a river with my close friend Lauren. It was…well, paradise.

At Strawberry Fields I was too high to rap so I climbed the scaffolding of the stage, demanded free weed from the crowd and did a stand up comedy routine instead. Don’t worry though, this Feb is a sober month so Good Island gonna be my meanest and cleanest, bb.

One of the most memorable gigs I’ve ever been to was seeing my m8s Habits play at The Evelyn last year. Apparently some lighting designer had just turned up unplanned and volunteered to do the lights, for the whole show the stage was shrouded in thick red light with Habits emerging and receding back into darkness as they performed. The whole club was literally transported straight to the Bronze (*see Buffy), Habits were the demons. Habits are always amazing but this was kind of a religious awakening.

I cried at a Sigur Ros concert when I was 15. Actually, it was a music festival called The Great Escape held at the Newington Armory. I also saw The Red Paintings at this weird festival so you can probably guess how old I am now from that. I remember the force of Sigur Ros’s set closer, the last track from ( ) hitting me like nothing else. If I can double dip, though, I think the first time I saw Sunn O))), when I was alone in Hamburg in 2015, was the most intense sonic experience of my life. My body was literally pulsing, involuntarily, after the show, like I’d just seen a ghost. And maybe I had.

Our most memorable show to date would be our recent set at Camp A Low Hum in NZ. We played an 11pm set on NYE in the middle of a beautiful forest, the stage was set up in the middle of a clearing and we had an audience 360 degrees around us on a beautiful clear night. We were asked to play an ambient set which was accompanied but 10 or so dancers dressed in gowns with neon lights wrapped around them. It was something else.

I was lucky enough to watch Kraftwerk when they performed at Vivid festival at the Sydney Opera House in 2013. I was completely in awe of the synchronicity of minimal sound, light and performance. Each audience member received a pair of 3D glasses upon entering the theatre and the four members stood on individual podiums in front of a giant screen, wearing suits with a reflective grid pattern. I was sitting about halfway up, and I remember looking down at the tiny bodies on stage moving in complete synchronicity to 8-bit video game visuals. I think it is the closest I will ever get to feeling like I am inside a computer.

My most memorable show might be the very first time I played a BUOY show in Sydney. Singing the songs and music that I’d made and imagined was the best feeling. It felt like coming home. A lot of my friends had come; some that I hadn’t seen in years had just rocked up, I felt so loved.

Whilst on residency in Iceland, Gulkistan (the residency) had their 20th anniversary and with it, an exhibition showcasing various works from artists from all over who’d consolidated their creativity in that tiny corner of southern Iceland over the years. While it wasn’t grand in scale or in a particularly memorable venue, something about it was so poignant and touching. The artistry and variations on how the environment affected the different disciplines was so engaging. I remember eating an Icelandic hotdog, watching and Icelandic cover band, three time zones from home just thinking, “This, this is what its all about”.