Meredith Music Festival

The 20th anniversary Meredith, held December 10 to 12, 2010, at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre. A particularly wet spring and flash flooding in the week prior had everyone bracing for the worst, and while there was rain here and there, grey skies and strong winds, the weekend turned out fine in the end. This was the Year of the Helper Hut, with twelve of them built across the site, and the crew laid 4km of cabling to bring light to campgrounds that had long been in darkness. The set that lives longest in the memory was Neil Finn, playing solo with the audience as his band, a kid named Matthew pulled from the crowd to play guitar, and Warren Ellis surprising everyone by wandering out to join Don't Dream It's Over. Kimbra played with her band not long before the world came to know her name, and the Meredith Sky Show returned for the first time since 2007 as a crane-assisted spaceship flown out over the crowd in a blast of lights and smoke. The bill also took in Dirty Three, Washed Out, Girls, The Fall in interesting form, Clipse, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Reverend Horton Heat, Pantha Du Prince and DJ Harvey smashing the decks after sunrise on the Sunday. The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble drew the biggest Sunday crowd anyone had ever seen, and it would prove to be the final show played by Broadcast.