Live Review: Grass is Greener Festival

After a slight thunderstorm and a cloud of doubt in my mind, blue skies start to emerge above the city of the Gold Coast. Just in time too. Home-grown boutique music festival The Grass is Greener is about to start.

Hosted in the waterfront site of Broadwater Parklands, the festival’s line-up is huge. Travelling to the event I struggle to wrap my mind around it. How am I supposed to fit it all into a single day?
 
I arrive mid-afternoon. The sun is scorching, but already the field is flooded with people. I push through the piles of bodies and head straight towards the Grass Arena to check the first act on my list – Mallrat. 
 
Grace Shaw is looking sweet as ever. Dressed in a hot pink flower-print dress, she’s radiating dream pop vibes. Even amongst the sweat, sunburn, and festival drunkenness, her dream-like aura has the crowd starry eyed. As she bops around the stage, they mimic her energy, swaying in time to soft electronic sounds.
 
After this it’s time to take a walk down memory lane. I’ll be honest, The Veronicas the sole reason I came today. And I don’t think I’m alone. With the field before the stage where they sisters are set to appear filling with more and more people by the second, I’m almost certain the two are everyone’s secret obsession.
 
With ecstatic confidence and striking choreography, these ladies look fierce and maybe a little more risqué than I remember. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the media recently,” one of them tells the crowd, “but we’ve been bad girls... so we’ve got our bad girl outfits on.” Dressed head-to-toe in black skin-tight clothing, the Lisa and Jessica have the crowd in a trance. I channel my seven-year-old self, as they play hit after hit including ‘Take Me on the floor’, ‘4ever’ and, of course, ‘Untouched”. As orange flames burst from of the stage, I feel this may as well be the peak of my day.
 
I take a breather from the sun and try find some shade, if any... I feel conflicted as to whether to take a trip to the bar, but the aftermath of waiting in the lines, quickly change my mind. I plonk myself down next to the numerous people huddled around the shade of a tree and get set for The Kite String Tangle who’s set eases me into a follow up set from Crooked Colours.
 
This trio are the perfect act to keep dancing through the blistering heat. Swift melodies and unusual percussive sounds shape a fun-loving atmosphere. As the sun finally begins to set, the warm peach tones of the sky act as a seamless and all-natural visualisation.
 
Up next is Amy Shark. Signature block letters begin to spell her name upon the stage. With countless hands swaying in the air, Shark swiftly transitions the crowd into the night with songs filled with raw emotion.  Smoke machines explode as she delivers the hits in her pop-orientated style; Shark’s pure confidence has the crowd chanting the lyrics back in unison. Despite a few technical errors and a brief loss of lighting, Shark continuously powers through the set. Her non-stop energy draws the biggest crowd yet.
 
I then venture off to the other side of the field and catch the last half of The Aston Shuffle. Even when viewed from the top of a distant parkland hill, The Housewarming stage is immense. With huge screens either side, the stage lights up with the increasingly large crowd beneath it.
 
Heading back and forth between stages, Hermitude catches my eye with their fast-paced dance tunes and beams of orange lights. A groove-train infused with an electronic-dance style, not one person is able to keep still during their set.
 
With the end of the night in sight, I am faced with a conflicting decision. Do I finish the festivities with Peking duck or Tyga? As the decision weighs heavily on my mind the answer arrives: “Why not both?”
 
I start out with Peking Duck, a two-man DJ outfit that have the audience brainwashed with their overpowering electronic style. Anthem after anthem and remixes of top hits arrive, as bodies glide throughout the crowd. Vivid images on the projection screens glow over them.
 
Still grasping my head around the fact that a small-scale festival managed to score Californian rapper Tyga as a headliner, I head on back to see what all the fuss is about. He is 20 minutes late, but the audience is unfazed. His persona is crafted in confidence and, at least for me, at times ranges too far into sexism. Barely clothed girls dance proactively onstage while suggestive visuals of women flash behind him. To say the least, Tyga knows how to throw a party.
 
He ends the night with world-wide hit ‘Taste’ as fireworks erupt into the sky above us. Just as we thought that was the night’s end… who doesn’t love an encore? Repeatedly reminding the crowd how much he loved Gold Coast girls, Tyga pumped one last song, a cover of Cardi B’s ‘Bodak Yellow’ and bringing roughly 20 women from the audience onstage to dance with him.
 
I leave feeling completely overwhelmed but satisfied by the sheer magnitude of The Grass Is Greener. Rarely do artists of Tyga’s stature visit the Gold Coast. With festivals like Grass Is Greener (and SandTunes later this year) it feels like this is something which is quickly changing. Not only does an event like Grass is Greener represent that the Gold Coast is becoming an international hotspot for Hip-hop’s biggest acts, it’s also proof that the city is cementing itself as one of the best of Australia’s festival locations. 

Words by Chloe Magee 
Photos by Dom Gould