NZ Musician

Four days of live music at a former agricultural college campus, 1300 indie ‘students’, more than 60 official acts plus DJs, over 40 ‘renegade’ performances, a multitude of parties and extra-curricular activities…oh and it’s BYO. Lydia Jenkin headed off to the Manawatu for four days in late January to experience the Campus A Low Hum music festival first hand.

CALH is like a great camping trip away with your mates – but some of your mates happen to be in excellent bands that will happily put on a show, and someone else has come up with all this awesome entertainment to keep you occupied. The absence of any visible security, no allocated bar areas, no queues, no back stage areas, no VIP sections, no sub-standard food stalls, no over the top branding or advertising, and no endless timetable clashes means that it feels entirely different from any other Summer festival experience.

You can have a drink (of your choice) whilst standing/sitting/lying/jumping anywhere you like; you can purchase wonderful food from the on-site catering or cook your own in the kitchen; you can jump in the car and head to the beach or the supermarket if you feel like getting out for a bit; you can pretty much do what you’d normally do on holiday, with the one provision being that you don’t behave like a total munter.

For the past four years, Wellington’s already legendary independent music champion Blink (aka Ian Jorgensen) has been tirelessly working to create a music festival that would be more than just queues and advertising and money churning corporate infrastructure. Starting out in 2007 at a scout camp in Wainuiomata with roughly 350 people, it has grown in size each year since and moved to different locations. 2010 saw it renamed as Campus A Low Hum – for the first time being held near Bulls in the grounds of Flock House (an abandoned agricultural college), and for the first time increasing capacity beyond 1000. The 1200-1300 punters attending this year seeming to be the magic number for Blink.

“I feel that the numbers were perfect. I’ve just been looking for that balance between enough people that all the bands get a decent amount of people watching them, yet not too many that the infrastructure can’t handle it. Also, a small enough number that everybody can get close-ish to the action.”

It’s not a festival designed for thousands, and this is what makes it special – Blink knows his audience, knows what they like, and places a hefty degree of trust in the fact that they will bring a laid back attitude, friendly smile, helping hand, and a decent dose of respect for the ethos of the Low Hum brand. Dedicated to his cause, after starting CALH, Blink has travelled the world attending various festivals over the past few years, in an attempt to collect more ideas about how to make a music festival pretty much as painless and as cool as possible. And he made the happy discovery that actually there’s nothing else out there quite like his Camp.

“At no event did I ever get the feeling that I could just do whatever I wanted. This is something that has been so important at Camp(us), that idea that if you want to throw a party... you can! If you want to throw a spur of the moment pass-the parcel party, why not? You want to play a show? No problem.”

He’s also an atypical festival organiser in his attitude towards money. Cool ideas for things that could happen at Camp are not evaluated on whether they will make any money, simply whether or not they are possible. The first CALH included an array of old-school party games and several pool parties, along with a craft room. Each year has seen the extra activities grow in scope and intensity, only constrained by the imagination of punters (box wars or wheel-barrow races anyone?).

“I never put money ahead of people’s comfort or enjoyment, this is what filters down to every aspect of the event. It’s the small things which make an event enjoyable and that’s what many festivals don’t understand. I try to offer complete freedom to people, they can come and go from the event as they please, they can bring their own food and beverages. There is always a ton of spaces to get away from the music when you want a break, activities to do”

One aspect very at odds with festival practice is that there is no line up announced before you buy tickets or arrive at the festival. Blink’s idea is that the audience are coming for the entire festival experience, not because there are major international headliners playing.

“The bands perform in environments that suit their sound, and they play at a time that reflects when their music works best, not according to their profile. I’m proud of the fact that I can put basically unheard of bands in typically headline type spots and it works. The simple fact that I don’t have to bow down to ‘names’ and headliners means I can format a playing order and schedule that works musically, first and foremost.”

This year’s line up included bands from NZ, Australia, USA and Sweden. While I was familiar with perhaps only half of them, every act I took in was well worth watching. Blink does know how to pick them. “I start off by writing a mega list [of possible acts], can be several hundred bands… I then try and see as many of those bands perform live as I can. Live performance is absolutely paramount. I’ve had many bands approach me whose recordings I love, but I find their live show to just not be quite there. Bands from Australia I don’t have quite that luxury with, but you’d be very surprised at the amount of bands I have approach me – easily over 100 Aussies put their hands up for the 2010 event. The other internationals are just simply people and bands I like. Thankfully, due to the nature of not having to announce line-ups, I don’t need to pick anyone currently cool or trendy, I can just pick acts I dig.”

Kicking off, on arrival every single punter was presented with a festival programme booklet – a beautifully designed, conveniently sized 100-page ‘bible’ of all the activities and acts which would be playing. Cue squeals of delight as people discover who’s playing. Not only that but we also each got a unique ‘Student ID’ card, pre-printed with your name (real or made up) and choice of picture. (If you hadn’t provided one Blink chose for you – maybe you ended up as Bill Cosby for the weekend.)

“The ID cards were a ton of work, but just something I thought would be nice for those who enrolled early. They’re also part of a project I am launching later in the year, so stay tuned for that.”

Blink is also adamant that CALH remains advertising and sponsorship free (including the programme), wanting to prove that it’s unnecessary to bombard festival goers with brand associations.

“I really hate advertising and sponsorship at festivals. It’s absolutely everywhere, any spare space where a logo could go is usually filled up with some sort of media partner, booze company or youth interest product. One of the most perfect moments in NZ music history was when Kody Nielson (The Mint Chicks) got a chainsaw out and destroyed the advertising billboard blocking the bottom half of the ‘essential’ stage at the Big Day Out.”

It’s all part of the belief that music lovers who come to CALH are smart enough to think for themselves. And he is generally right – this is a crowd hungry to learn (appropriate really, given that we were at an old school).

Roger Shepherd of Flying Nun fame was scheduled to speak at the ‘Breakfast Club’ on the first morning. I assumed attendance would not be high given the 10am start, but I was wrong. About 150 keen campers packed into ‘Fenwick Hall’ to listen to Shepherd (see the article on page 6 for more on his moves).

“I was stoked with the turnouts for these lectures,” Blink laughs. “The idea of the Breakfast Club actually stemmed from some of my favourite video footage of a young 16 year old Charlie Ryder (pre Bang Bang Eche) at Camp 2007 watching Disasteradio’s 10am set and eating his cereal while swinging his legs from a table. It was the cutest thing, and I’ve ever since wanted to have something happen in the morning (less intense then a Disasteradio set), that people could attend while having their breakfast.”

Official band performances kicked off around 10.30am each day, continuing one after another on the four stages (one in a barn, one in an empty swimming pool, the large stage set up in a field and a small portable set up) until 2am. (Two half hour ‘study breaks’ were integrated). These were overlapped by scheduled and unscheduled performances in the ‘renegade room’. Basically you could be entertained all day, every day, for over 14 hours if you so wished.

It’s truly difficult to play favourites, but some of the stand out performances for me were from Melbourne post-punk noise popster’s Witch Hats on the field stage, precocious Auckland upstarts Bandicoot in the pool, enigmatic Wellington trio Secret Knives entrancing in the barn and Christchurchians Tiger Tones whipping the pool stage into a frenzy with some pummelling beats. Mississippi’s Dent May performed perfect pop songs with only a ukulele and accompanying singer with percussion. San Francisco pop-darlings The Dodos were on stage as the stars came out and the incredibly intense Daedelus transformed the pool into another dimension with his video backdrops… and that was just the first day.

Watching this issue’s cover stars So So Modern deliver an electric performance of their new songs in the deep end of the empty pool, accompanied by flying pool toys on day two was unforgettable. Connan Mockasin delighted with his usual eccentricity (accompanied by Liam and Elroy Finn), Cut Off Your Hands performed a stellar set which harked back to their Shaky Hands/Blue on Blue days, and Dan Deacon turned his noisy dance pop set in the pool into a fully interactive community event. Polka Dot Dot Dot, The Ruby Suns, Jens Lekman, Gaywyre and Die!Die!Die! all provided ‘mind melting’ moments on the marathon third day.

And this list ignores the surprising renegade shows or plethora of extra-curricular activities happening. There were class photos, an epic basketball tournament, an art exhibition, mix-tape swap, Orientation Party (firmly un-ironic, with multi-coloured lighting, smoke machine, classic DJ battles of pop hits and some colourful dancing), some PE classes, Roller Disco (the most hilarity ever had in that gymnasium I would wager), and let’s not forget Jazztronomy, the Leavers’ Formal and the exceptional food.

There was even a memorable impromptu dance party in the barn on Sunday night after the Roller Disco finished at 3am as, like little kids, we just didn’t want to go to bed yet. Fortunately Dan Deacon was on hand with his DJ laptop, and conga lines, arch-ways and high volume sing-alongs ensued.

I would wager this was possibly the most organised and expensive CALH yet – excellent gear and massive set ups, meticulous sound engineers and a tightly run schedule made it seem far less ‘DIY’ than I was expecting, and likely more seamless than previous events.

“I’ve just found the right people to work with, good engineers who make things run to time. Also, I think bands have generally got the point that 30 minutes is enough. Sometimes bands get a little carried away in the spur of the moment, and it’s those times where I have to make tough decisions... As long as it’s only one or two bands a day, that run a little overtime, it’s no big deal. Part of the point of the ‘study breaks’ is that we can use those times to catch up and get back on schedule if need be.”

As ideal as it all may be for the punters, it is no walk in the park for Blink who micro-manages every aspect. It takes a toll both personally and financially. He’d always maintained that Camp would only have a life span for three years – then as amazing things continued to happen each year he became convinced that he couldn’t just let it all go. However as the financial implications grow (damages and for the first time theft will drain his funds up to $10k this year), and the clean up takes longer each time (crawling around on the grass for days picking up bottle caps and rubbish can be a little soul destroying), his trepidation at continuing Camp increases.

The Catch 22 is that he has created a legendary event, and there will be howls of protest if he tries to back away.

For lovers of indie music CALH is possibly the most fun you can ever have over a four day weekend, and will definitely rank among the best festivals you will ever attend – everything else somehow seems less satisfying afterwards. The only question I am left with is why on earth I didn’t attend the first three? Long may it continue… just don’t tell too many other people about it.