Ninjas, Squares, Birds and Bands

AGMF has come, gone and rocked like a bunch of stones. I must say it was, "SOOOOO GOOD!" (Teen Girl Squad). It was an incredible time and I am not going to hesitate in taking my time to tell you all the highlights.

Just to purge all the stupidly hilarious location jokes: Veggie Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiird, and....squares, Obese man, "This drip/is slipping/out of my arm", We love Volunteers etc etc etc (feel free to add them all in your comments those who were there).

Thursday night saw me up later than everyone else because I have just finished my Nanny prac (no more Hi5 and Boohbah). Steve, the world's coolest bass player, was hanging at our set up when I got there, so catching up was done. We spent the whole evening meeting new people, mainly volunteers to thank them for their hard work.

Friday morning and we were all finding our feet at the festival. Met more volunteers and rocked out to a number of bands. We sat around a little at some stage and played word association. Frullet, naturally, answered everything with "girls", making Luke's job quite difficult.

The mainstage event was a not to be missed event, even though some of our contingent skipped Rapture Ruckus to see Fearscape. Rev!ve, the long loved mainstage act of Lesley and me, played first with an exceptional set, followed by Rapture Ruckus, a band that turned a head or 18. Not your average Hip Hop band from New Zealand, great stage presence and enjoyable songs. Andy Hunter provided us with our daily dose of stupid dancing, Planet Shakers played loud and proud and Soulframe didn't let anyone down with a set to end all sets on Friday night. Throghout the night the one80 contingent managed to attract lots of AGMF media attention with our "We Love Volunteers" banner (by the way, if anyone has that, I'd love to have it back, I don't know where it got to)

Coming back to camp meant bedtime stories from "Favourite Stories from 25 years of PlaySchool" More talking about everything from one80 to the new tribe names to Sara's boredome that would drive her to overtake the website, to Strong Bad emails, to old tv shows to what we were doing the next day. Then we all went to bed.

Saturday meant we were up and about and those of us who had done Street Team work headed to the Street Team breakfast. We saw some famous people and there will be a few surprises for one80ers hopefully in the not too distant future. After relazing in the VIP tent for a significant amount of time it was off to Toowoomba to plague the streets with our presence.

Ian, Tiph's Heather and I went to the public toilets, and experience everyone should have when passing through Toowoomba. They're very high tech and involve lots of buttons and sign reading. Ian and I have been before, so we weren't as daunted, but Heather's reactions were somewhat amusing. The Army disposal store had a one80 going over and I decided to eventually open my own Army disposal store and sell used army stuff, but it comes with its history attached, so you can tell people that 3 people have died in the shirt you are wearing or something like that.

The boys bought swords and had some sword fights, and that's how we found out that Laura was a Ninja. And a mighty impressive Ninja too. She beat Carl, who turns out to be a super hero, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Some bands were enjoyed on Saturday afternoon, I met the Newsboys and then the mainstage took the world by storm. Compliments of Gus felt right at home on the mainstage, where they belong after being faithful the big top and theatre stages for nearly all of AGMF's history. Juliagrace did her thing, and was promptly forgotten when Robin Mark stepped up.

His rather large band brough the flavour of their homeland (Ireland) to Toowoomba in a captivating performance, and the resounding chorus, "Here He comes/riding on the clouds/shining like the sun/at the trumpet call/so lift your voice/it's the year of Jubilee/out of Zion's hills salvation comes" was on the lips of the crowd until the Home Ice cream advertisement.

Bec St James came and did her usual, which is still enjoyable, if not a little predictable after the third of fourth time. But all previous music was forgotten when the Newsboys stepped up to the microphone (pun intended for all you hardcore Newsboys fans). They did all the oldies and only did one recent one, "Free" their latest single. The perfect set. Peter Furler gave a stirring message and didn't forget to thank all the people in Toowoomba he once sold lamingtons and macadamia nuts to. First jobs aren't meant to be fun, even for potential rock stars.

The night continued as the Silent Dance party was on the cards. Unfortunately, not many people were dancing, so after making a bit of a scene and looking like a nerd, Lerchy, Sean@, Dylan and I played with my video camera being random.

Sunday morning, the rising of our Saviour, and everyone ate chocolate or something similar for breakfast. I had my mandatory one shower for the weekend. Frullet and Luke packed up and headed home early, much to our dismay. We spent much of the morning sitting around and watching thw sword fights between whoever had swords. We sang the Grand old Duke of York. We ate lunch. Carl broke a chair or 3 (he is a super gero with super human strength). We then got up and went and supported out buddies, 5th Attempt who did an incredible job, despite the fact Brendon had a Spice Girls shirt on. Red Entrance were the ones who allowed me to have my daily dose of stupid dancing.

At dinner time, Ryyarn, Lesley and I decided it was time to start forming our band "Bandage". Look out for our up-coming album "Hospital Ward" and our first single, "This drip is slipping out of my arm".

We ended up having the Hawiian Ice Shave Ceremony (such as it is), and lined up for the end of the festival. A very deserving Band Battle winner gave a very convincing performance. Jael, as usual, gave a top performance and Pillar, well, Pillar had a set beyond description. The perfect way to end the festival. So we'll pretend we didn't actually go to the Fancy Pants Ball. It was too packed to dance, so it wasn't much fun.

All in all AGMF was a roaring success and well worth the effort it took to get there. Thanks to all who came and made it so much fun!!