Mojo - The Music Magazine

Episode 3: They'll be coming round the mountain...

Thursday, 8th January, Mount Buller
4:00 PM

We made it. Four hours from Melbourne, driving along some of the nicest countryside I've yet encountered in my travels on this continent. We're way up atop Mount Buller (elevation 1750 feet), at a ski resort turned rock festival venue, the premiere All Tomorrow's Parties (aka ATP) event in Australia, which - as you may know - my band Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have the honour to curate.

To get here we hopped aboard a small hired coach, the type little old ladies take for day trips to go play the slots in Atlantic City. The bus effused an air-freshener-cum-toilet-antiseptic fragrance, but the seats were comfy. But for those of us who didn't drift off in a diazepam-induced haze, little did we know what scenic treats awaited us on our journey.

We drove past the usual rural fare - you know, horses, sheep, goats - but also spotted a llama and some odd-looking thing that resembled a stunted elk (must be the meds kicking in). At one point, a big black bird (a wedge-tail eagle?) swooped past the bus, with a wingspan of such breadth that I at first mistook it for a hang glider.

The landscape was sparsely dotted with all sorts of gnarly eucalypti, with flayed, shredded bark and huge limbs on the verge of cracking off. These so-called "widow-makers" (responsible for the sudden demise of many a farmer making the rounds of his paddock) stand out in stark relief against the arid scrub. I saw at least as many stumps as live trees along with heaps of dead wood, fallen twisted branches and timber, hollowed-out trunks that looked like they been repeatedly struck by lightning all their life and various other dried out skeletal vegetative forms scattered across the creeks and gullies and endlessly rolling hills boasting more curves than a Rubens nude: all very picturesque in a classic spooky Aussie kind of way (think Arthur Streeton).

As soon as we hit the alpine zone, the landscape changed dramatically: all deep ravines and lush greenery. Suddenly the gums towered thrice as tall as they had a mile back down the mountain. The last half hour of the bus trip was spent ascending a curling, narrow road I'd hate to have to navigate in the dark. By the time we reached the Breathtaker, our festival site hotel near the summit, the trees changed again to lovely little snow gums, which I guess are pretty rare.

I don't think any of us realized how far into the country this gig was actually going to be.

11:00 PM

I don't think any of us realized how fucking cold it was going to be here either. Three degrees and dropping, last I checked. Despite the chilly air, après sound check there was a welcome party barbecue on the terrace of the local ski club, with a stunning view of the mountains. Nick was in attendance along with all the various Bad Seeds, members of The Saints, The Laughing Clowns and Fuck Buttons, as well as Barry and Deborah, the ATP promoters. Barry seems amazed but pleased that it's all really finally happening. I was amazed but pleased to find myself drinking several Jägermeister shots.

Read chapter 4. Flogging and its discontents...