Homebake 08

On Friday night Nicole and I caught a much delayed flight to Sydney, and checked into our secret 4 star hotel, being The Menzies, directly across from Wynyard station.

After a quick and sturdy breakfast, we walked down to The Domain and joined the line to get into Homebake. After studying the line up and location and times of the bands on show, we headed straight to The Dome stage, for The Holidays. Having heard them earlier this year, we settled in for some shade and cute pop-rock tunes.

Up next were Dash + Will, young and cute duo from Melbourne. Pick You Up and Fighting Over Nothing were strong and memorable numbers, in their first festival gig.

We then went across to the Main Stage for Eddy Current Suppression Ring, totally crazy Tourette's like lead, who played awesome punk vocals. Back to The Dome for Little Red, who were awesome. Such a fun and engaging set - impressed me, second time around! It's Alright and Coca Cola boppy standouts, and crowd favorites.

End Of Fashion were up next, and one of my most impressive gigs of the day. Their new track Fussy was awesome, with Oh Yeah and She's Love also big tracks on the day.

Sun blazing, humid Sydney day, we then popped back to the Main Stage for British India, before visiting the food tents for dinner.

At this point we made out way to the Cinema Pavillon, for the short films on show. A couple of them I had seen at Tropfest this year, but two of the shorts we watched, Two Cars, One Night, and Mankind Is No Island, were really great.

Back outside, we were faced with a significant drop in temperature, while we saw the set of Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson. Our only overlap of the day, at the end of the country set we rushed back to the Main Stage for a funky play of Sneaky Sound System. Very entertaining, and much loved by the crowd, with big hits like UFO and Kansas City.

Making our way to as close to the stage as we could, we then saw Crowded House enchant the crowd with their much loved hits. Interesting to see the young people in the crowd sing along to many of the songs, although they did lose them with a few new tracks in a row....it was the end of a long day! Sadly, not as good as they were in Melbourne earlier in the week, but still an awesome set from a band still going strong.

What a great day of Australian music, new and established, young and older.

After getting back to our hotel, and resting our weary legs, we managed to wonder around Sydney on Sunday, taking in the Market at The Rocks, the customary sites at Circular Quay, and then much needed coffee and cafe at the Queen Victoria Building, before heading out to the airport for our flight home.