Love is in the air, so let’s breathe it in! Sydney’s Northern Beaches surfer Reggae/soul indie-pop/rock favourites, Ocean Alley, land back down in their hometown of Sydney oﬀ the sky-high success of the bands latest album, ‘The Love Balloon’ giving fans back home a chance to revel in the heights and ride it with the band.

Along for the balloon voyage, is fellow Northern Beaches mad-dog Ruby Fields, tearing’ it up like a rampaging Dinosaur with her no-muckin’ about indie-rock bangers. As well as Ruby, American basket of fun vibrant indie-pop/rock surprises, Rainbow Kitten Surprise and U.K indie/alt-rock smooth-criminals Nothing But Thieves, pull oﬀ the perfect heist stealing the energy and rating it to 11 ready for Ocean Alley!

Hold on tight and don’t drop your keys, I reckon this’ll be a sick ride!…

Unlike the massive crowd of fans cheering and racing in at full speed after gates open to the public, Ima do it a bit diﬀerently this time, just gonna take my time going through the nicely organised accessibility lane designated for patrons to enter safely, and just mosey around the vast festival set-up and see what’s on oﬀer.

As I cruise around, I’m met with a really good selection of food trucks oﬀering many diﬀerent types of cuisine from dumplings and spring rolls, pizza, burgers, chips, wraps, ice-cream and churros, gozleme, fish and chips etc. Sure it’s expensive yes, but not to the point of needing to take out a second home loan or anything like a lot/most festivals and big events. I mean, $20 for three massive decent quality chicken tenders and decent hot chips that aren’t drenched in salt and oil, or the same price for a cardboard tray/plate of pan-fried pork and chive dumplings that are freshly cooked and taste pretty good, ain’t so bad. Then there’re two merchandise tents, one for all your typical oﬃcial stuﬀ and the other seems to be more generic stuﬀ, and of course a bar with your typical over-priced grog, and porta-loos. This is all spaced out quite nicely, making good use of the available space in a way that isn’t hazardous for the disabled.

Now instead of getting into the sweaty vibes in the mosh, I’m instead actually going to make use of the accessible viewing platform oﬀ to the side next to the sound mixing tower. Even though I can’t see anything from here and feel the energy of the mosh around me, it’s nice to sit back and relax and get my friend to explain the on-stage and crowd energies for a change. My friend informs me, that unlike what I’ve experience at other festivals and outdoor concerts, the standing area in front of the stage, is split into two side-by-side barricaded sections, one for under aged patrons, and the other for 18+ folks.

Time to tear it up in the Ruby Fields for Ruby Fields up first! Ruby warms us all up with her cool cruise and at times hard-hitting, electrifying cut of indie-rock/punk. Her vocals are so well controlled and crisp with the perfect blend of fierce energy and calm melodic serenity when the song calls for them. This gives me a sense of attentive relaxation which morphs into euphoric energy in explosive rock out like in her classic hit, ‘Dinosaurs’.

Songs like ‘Pretty Grim’, ‘Tacklebox’ and ‘Dinosaurs’ which surprisingly wasn’t the finale song, set the energy precedence nicely and the crowds cheers that’ve gotten more and more enthusiastic go down bloody brilliantly up first!

Surprise! It’s now onto Rainbow Kitten Surprise! I hadn’t listened to any of RKS’s songs prior, so this is a complete surprise to me. “is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s…” I’m instantly hit with a catchy/infectious hook-driven, bouncy, feel-good mix of indie, pop and rock that does well to continue and raise the energy and early excitement that Ruby initialised. After the first song, a male voice greets us all, but wasn’t that a female vocalist? Well yes, and no. Apparently the lead singer has the best of both worlds down-pat identifying as a female. This brings a warm sense of unity and acceptance to the buzzing atmosphere, and the lead singer pulls oﬀ male and female vocals rather nicely!

As the sun starts to set, and the crowd has reached max capacity, Nothing But Thieves take to the stage to steal the show! And steal it they do for sure in my opinion! It’s gonna be a tall-order for Ocean Alley to meet this kind of energy, which is epic to peak the energy ready for the headliners, but let’s hope this blazing energy doesn’t out-do Ocean Alley. NBT’s up-beat blend of U.K stylised indie-alternative rock with mass jumping and sing-alongs from the crowd for songs like ‘Is Everybody Going Crazy?’, ‘Dead Club City’, the anthem sing-along of ‘Sorry’ and feverish energy explosion of ‘Amsterdam’, which apparently brings forth a few crowd surfers, is always a treat! (Nothing But Thieves’ performances I mean, not the crowd surfers).

Now time to swim up Ocean Alley!… That was the last bad pun I promise! Even with a brief rain-shower and the massive energy Nothing But Thieves left, Ocean Alley’s cool-vibes of Reggae, Soul, Funk, Pop, Indie and Rock although not raucous and high energy at times, harness thecrowds attention and holds it tightly! It seems the energy the previous three performances created have set a nice sustainable baseline for Ocean Alley fans, the audience is a sea of sing-alongs, dancing and girls sitting on guys’ shoulders throughout the set. The band feed oﬀ the energy, spiking it with their more energetic songs when the atmosphere requires, then dropping it for mellow chill outs. I’m loving the blend of instrument sounds on stage, with Piano, Guitar, Bass, Drums and even Saxophone accompanying the smokey yet crisp vocals riding it all, for all the hits we know and love by Ocean Alley, including tracks oﬀ the bands touring album ‘The Love Balloon’.

Nothing But Thieves were definitely the stand out act for me personally, I thought it was more of a co-headlining show, but as a whole, this show was tops! It had the best of a festival and typical gig in one, with multiple loved performances in a nice large outdoor setting without going for twelve hours and needing to race around the festival grounds going from one stage to the other.

And best yet, the sound! I couldn’t fault it at any point in all four performances! Shows like these are truly rare treats!

The end… for now.