The Very Best Eats and Beats at Splendour in the Grass 2016

In the week leading up to Splendour in the Grass 2016, we dared to dream of blue skies and mild weather. The Bureau of Meteorology warned us the weather in coastal regions can be changeable but in the end we proved that if people want it enough, we can influence the weather with our thoughts alone.

In the middle of winter (and after last year's Splendour in the Mud disaster) the last thing we planned for was balmy, 26 degree days and pleasantly crisp nights, but that's what we got (cue frantically buying up sunscreen, bucket hats and water vessels from highway petrol stations).

Australia's biggest winter festival (and one of the country's biggest festivals in general) has become a well-oiled machine in recent years (for the most part, but we'll get to that). This year's lineup, from legends The Cure, Sigur Ros and The Avalanches to newcomers Kllo, Sampa the Great and Jess Kent, was more varied than ever — with a strong local flavour and something for every age group. This seemed to solve a lot of the timetabling problems as well as they produced one of the least clashy schedules we've had yet (praise be).

But the weekend wasn't without incident. On Friday night, and to a much lesser degree on Saturday and Sunday night, long bus delays and general anarchy at the bus rally points saw off-site punters waiting for hours in the cold to get home and they were not happy about it. After social media erupted on Friday night and Saturday morning, Splendour released a statement the next day saying, "We had a significant change in the number of people getting dropped off and collected ... which threw our traffic plan into disarray." And they did fix it, eventually. Monday morning wasn't much better, thanks to a few bungles on the freeway. Camping punters waited in car lines for up to seven hours trying to get out of the campsite when they would really rather have been in bed. We only hope they sort it out for next year.

Luckily, everyone was pretty well-behaved — and the po-po were pleased with our collective behaviour, citing only 323 drug related arrests (less than one percent of attendees) across the entire festival. Snaps all round, everyone.

So what of the nosh and mosh scene for this year? We chomped and stomped our way through Splendour 2016, here's a little snippet of the best bits.

EATS

Like many festivals, the food lineup at Splendour is getting better each year and truly deserves a heading of its very own. Gone are the days spent subsisting on stale chips and soggy hot-dog buns, the SITG food offering is gourmet AF. Sydneysiders were suprised to see a recreation of The Unicorn pub right in the middle of the festival, from the brains behind Mary's, Porteno and Young Henrys. This pop-up pub would mark the entrance to The Very Small Suburb, with fellow locals Gelato Messina, Doughnut Time and Bourke Street Bakery peddling their wares to hungry punters.

Single O, coffee roasters from Surry Hills, enjoyed lines around the (makeshift) block because if there's one thing hungover folk need, it's real coffee and lots of it. They were joined by Noosa's ever popular Nimo's Schnitzels, Sydney's Tsuru food truck serving up their fluffy pork belly bao buns, Govindas famous vegetarian fare (kofta balls will bring you back to life after a big one), best-in-show winners Brazza BBQ from the Gold Coast with their Brazillian chow and French fry cones, and everyone's favourite Hungarian festival treat, langos.

And for dessert? Australia's insanely popular Doughnut Time even got their holey mitts on a Splendour stand — and it was bloody popular. Or you could have stood in line at the giant pink inflatable poo emoji (hilariously titled Mr Poopie by Cool Shit artists Hungry Castle) and grab a toilet ice cream. You heard me.

But the real MVPs? Get Toasted, Byron Bay's OG toasted sandwich food truck, cranking out their insane mac and cheese toasties. The GT team served up their crispy, buttery life-saving sandies with more chirpiness and kind words than anyone has a right to expect at midnight on the third day of a festival.

Hot tip for next Splendour, don't waste time with supermarket snacks — save up and ready yourself for a culinary tour of the festival grounds.

Dro Carey

BEATS

THE CURE

What can be said about the Cure apart from lines of love-heart eye emojis? They're a band almost beyond critique and their tenure as the most relevant, long-serving players in rock is still deserved. Their physical vessels may have aged, but Robert Smith's voice has not and they're still as tight as a drum. They casually slayed a 2.5-hour set, breaking only occasionally and briefly to suck down essence of youth (and water, maybe). Tears flowed freely and  'Friday I'm in Love' was screamed to the stars.

THE STROKES

The Strokes played their only Australian show at Splendour and rounded out the first day of the festival with the veteran ease you'd expect, mixing fan service with some of their newer cuts and of course, encoring with 'Last Night'. If there is a better way to fall asleep than with Julian Casablancas' voice reverberating around your head, we haven't yet found it.

THE AVALANCHES

The Avalanches were the legendary wildcard of the lineup — and one of the most anticipated sets of the whole event. They haven't played a festival in over a decade and while the group has rocketed back into prominence recently thanks to their huge comeback album, Wildflower, they're as yet untested in the modern context. The result was little bit thrown together — including, y'know, lyrics read from an iPhone for 'Frankie Sinatra' — and there's something a wee bit unsatisfying about a sample-based show amongst a sea of live music. But we still loved it. Depending on how close you stood to the sound desk could have affected your experience, and we hope more intimate shows are ahead for this iconic crew.

SIGUR ROS

Icelandic angels Sigur Ros may have been the quiet hero of the whole festival. They didn't perform at the amphitheatre (which is a slight, in our opinion), but the Mix Up tent was more intimate and, thanks to a well-timed clash with Flume, the crowd was slightly older (imagine a lot of actual lighters in the air, coffees clutched to sensible skivvies and wet eyes). They brought their technical prowess to bear alongside their dramatic showmanship (there was a spine tingly-dingly moment when main man Jonsi held a sweet note for an inhumanly long time) and it was spectacular. They played a medley of their well-knowns and not-so-well-knowns to a backdrop of captivating, trippy visuals — quite possibly some of the best visuals of the festival, or were we just exhausted and emotional? We'll never know.

JAMES BLAKE

James Blake's music was made for festivals, not necessarily for the headbangers or kids who just want to see Flume, but for everyone who was after some texture in the lineup. Blake packed out the amphitheatre and from behind a synth, delivered his brand of crisp, complex, emotional music. His live show was impeccably timed, building in rhythm and intensity before unloading goosebumps on the crowd with feels-heavy hits 'Limit to Your Love' and 'Retrograde'.

Kllo at the Tiny Dancer Stage

UP AND COMERS

The SITG lineup always delivers some quality (and we mean quality) local talent. In fact, the pointy end of the lineup, usually housed at the Tiny Dancer stage, proved some of the most enjoyable surprises of the weekend. Melbourne cherubim Kllo destroyed the Tiny Dancer stage with their tight beats and clear vocals (their catchy AF single 'Bollide' sent shivers up collective spines).

Brisbane boy and electronic muso Feki delivered a banging, dancey set, very different from his usual chill, and had the TD crowd frenetic at dusk on Sunday (check out his souped-up remix of James Blake's 'Retrograde' here). Melbourne producer Paces was joined by Guy Sebastian (can people stop robbing Shannon Noll of his due already?) to perform their Like A Version cover of LDRU's 'Keeping Score' (check out this vid of LDRU getting into it side of stage).

While it's a disappointing to see only one woman and one female guest vocalist (Santigold and Avalanches guest vocalist Eliza Wolfgramm) in the first dozen acts on the lineup, the women who did make it absolutely nailed it. Big, official props to Melbourne's Sui Zhen and Banoffee, the OG babes Tegan and Sara, Courtney Barnett, Sampa the Great, Little May, Brisbane darling Emma Louise, Ngaiire, Kacy Hill, Lucy Cliché, Montaigne, Jess Kent, Wafia and all the other women grinding to make it in the music industry — you were splendid.

Images: Luke Dalton.