It’s Official: Rowing A Boat In The Mosh Is The Next Big Festival Meme
Well, it's better than a bloody shoey.
There are some people in the world who go to music festivals to enjoy the quieter pleasures life has to offer. They take along their friends, have a quiet drink or two, chat between sets, and generally sit up the back, soaking up the tunes and the vibes.
Then there are people who go to music festivals to lie in the mud and build a fucking insane row boat out of their sweat-drenched, sun-battered bodies.
Clearly, the patrons of this year’s Good Things festival tended to fall into the latter category. United under the leadership of the mighty Thor (AKA a particularly committed gentleman wearing a Viking helmet and armed with a plastic hammer), a whole gaggle of Good Things-ers lay themselves down on the floor and started churning away.
The effect is both strangely intimidating, and weirdly cathartic. It’s like a Youtube soap cutting video on steroids; all frantic, rhythmic movement. It’s not the first time we’ve seen the boat row take place either: just last month a crew of industrious punters gave it a red hot go in the middle of Blanke’s set at Spilt Milk festival. Somehow, we don’t think this will be the last we see of the trend.
Of course, in terms of group activities that Australian festival crowds like to partake in, a churning row boat is actually pretty tame. For some reason, we as a collective nation can’t get over loose behaviour at shows: we love everything from the humble (absolutely, definitely bad for you) shoey, to the tried and true crowd surf, to the old-fashioned stage invasion.
On the stranger end of the mass behaviour that takes us over when live music’s playing, this writer once attended a Japandroids show that was interrupted by an honest-to-God slow dance (even the band didn’t really know how to react; lead singer Brian King called out, ‘What exactly happened there?’ when it was done.)
In any case, if ever you need to be reminded of the true power of the Aussie festival spirit, give the below video a spin. Falls Festival punters, you’re up next.