Rainbow Serpent Festival 2005 - 21.1.2005

There are many places you visit throughout the world where you can sit and pounder for hours, just admiring the beauty, the serenity, the landscape, the people and the culture. Egypt, Thailand, India, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Ireland, America, Israel, Iceland and Africa to name just a few. I had the chance to sit and ponder in my own backyard on weekend of the 21st of January. As it was Australia's turn to host the most explosive party of culture, healing, electronic music festival of 2005, to the people from all these countries. It's the Rainbow Serpent Festival.

Not did I only get to share one of the best experiences of my life with the people from all these different destinations. I had the chance to share the weekend with my friends. Forget the Summer of Love; forget Woodstock and the 25 year reunion. With the help of Green Ant, and other like minded crews, we created a party of our own. In a massive proportion.

It's been a long 12 months since I have made the trip to Beaufort Victoria. A small farming town on the outskirts of Ballarat. A town that is now use to their population growing by 4000 people each year as they welcome the friendly faces and peaceful vibe this festival brings. The locals love it just as much as we do.

On vacant block of farmland not far away, we arrive at the gate and are directed to the entrance, there waiting, was an old friend pointing us and three other carloads in the direction of our campsite, our home for the next 4 days.

There was a field of tents covering the landscape, and group of people playing hacky-sack just near by. The pound of the beat was filling the air in the distance, the lush bush only meters away, while the sun shined above. We were all ready for an awesome weekend. With a cracked beer in my hand and the tensions of the city behind us we were ready to explore.

Art installations covered the bush, and we were like insects drawn to the light as we made our way to the market area where the beats of Nik Taylor & Jet Moore were spinning the sounds of the summer.

As REM would say 'happy, smiling people holding hands' obviously it was a great night on Friday and the people where still rocking from the night before. Apparently the live set of SBK (live) rocked and Leggo Head (live) busted out some phat Aussie Psy-Trance, I heard about it, but did not witness myself. If only I was here a day before hand.

Walking through the Market Area was like a mini city, setup just for the event and the healing area had everything from massages, juggling lessons, meditation activities and special spokes people including Andriod (designer of all Rainbow Serpent and Green Ant flyers and art) Jakob Hronek (Boom & Voov festivals) and Alex Sanson (www.metaform.net.au)

The main stage area was finishing off the assembly, the 'Opening Ceremony' was about to take place and people were beginning to gather on what was to be the main dance floor area.

A magical wizard was floating around. His magical crystal balls were hypnotising everyone in his path (you had to see it to believe it), these crystal balls were floating in mid air and around his body. You look into them and see what exactly- You tell me.

The Opening Ceremony cleansed the dance floor of evil, and gave us the energy to bring everyone together and carry on throughout the weekend, a tribal dance which resembles the Aboriginal art of the Corroboree started it off.

As the night got darker, the music got louder and harder. The crowd emerged from the darkness and the light show began. Kotaro (DJ) was the first main act I saw, grinding some awesome trance rifts and fusing them in psy-trance sounds, his head was bobbing hard than the music, included in his set was a crazy version of Papua New Guinea remix, the track is timeless and have a wound up Psy-Trance version was heaven. This fused into New Orders Blue Monday (Psy version) and other well known classics with the touch of 2005 remixing.

The lightshow was Tags