Rainbow Serpent turns 20: a weekend of boundless hedonism

Driving into Australia’s Rainbow Serpent festival we get the feeling we’re entering another world before we’ve even witnessed any of the boundless hedonism, wild costumes, art and heavy-hitting bass that are about to become our life for the next four days (five if you’re in it for the long haul).

Dust shrouds the car as we cut our way up a rocky dirt track towards the entrance as dry wheat-coloured hills dotted with gum trees and boulders create a stark landscape against the clear blue sky of summer in the Victorian bush. A single love heart dangles across the road shortly after tickets have been checked and wristbands placed – marking the shift into the unknown for newcomers and a very special place for thousands who return each year.

Rainbow Serpent, or “Rainbow”, is the centrepiece of Australia’s “bush doof” scene (a term used locally to describe parties that shun the mainstream and happen deep in the natural environment away from capital cities), but the transformative festival has evolved to become much more since its early raving roots in the late 1990s. There’s still plenty of psy-trance, but these days you’ll find a very healthy dose of techno, progressive, melodic and feel-good house, disco, funk, breaks, minimal and more. All of this alongside traditional Aboriginal ceremonies, panel talks and guest speakers, workshops, performers and endless food and market stalls.

2017 marked the 20^th anniversary of Rainbow’s first incarnation in a field near the town of Trentham, Victoria, in 1998. Now, more than 15,000 people from all over the world converge on sprawling farmland outside the tiny town of Lexton, about 150 kilometres northwest of Melbourne, at the end of January each year.

Guy J, andhim, Mathew Jonson, D-Nox & Beckers, ANNA, WEHBBA, Adriana Lopez, Eelke Kleijn, and Late Nite Tuff Guy were among the artists that took control of the festival’s vibrant Market Stage hub during its non-stop stretch of pulsating house and techno from 3pm Friday through till 7.30pm Monday.

Without a doubt, this was the place to be each afternoon (we found it hard to tear ourselves away, to be honest). The sun reflecting off the stage’s shimmering multi-coloured panels beneath a canopy of gum trees, the light, refreshing mist falling from sprinklers under a soaring shade structure and a bar slinging delicious mocktails for you to spruce up with BYO booze kept the atmosphere fresh as the music energised all weekend in the dry 30 degree-plus heat.

Meanwhile, the psy-centric Main Stage in the middle of the festival site only launched into operation at 9pm on Saturday, after an opening ceremony from the land’s traditional custodians, running for a hectic 19 hours of fire, lasers and debauchery until 4pm the following afternoon with scene stalwarts Astrix, Simon Posford in Hallucinogen and Shpongle modes, Perfect Stranger and James Monro.

Explore the back blocks beyond the Sunset Stage, which runs on either side of the Main’s explosive and compact stint, and about a dozen theme camps hosted by some of the most dedicated Rainbow-goers is the perfect late-night mission.

There’s also the Chill Stage in The Village for moments of relaxed lounging with mates, The Playground tent, serving up an off-kilter blend of live music and DJ sets, plenty of art installations to discover as you make your way around the festival site and a range of initiatives spreading positive messages about culture, sustainability and harm-minimisation measures, plus heaps more, to experience.

So, until next year, when we celebrate Rainbow’s 21^st, here are our top six moments that made us excited to be alive and at the festival’s 20^th birthday.

The community of theme sites was a haven of creativity in the southern camp that brought back the excitement of wandering through Glastonbury’s clubbing district with so many different corners to discover. Donate some drinks and your hosts will throw together a refreshing elixir to keep you dancing long into the night. From bartop raving to drum 'n' bass in the BBB tent, to Prince tributes in a galactic-themed disco club, we had a ball on our journey off the beaten track. Top points to the roaming Coco Poco Loco, which set up in the valley behind the done and dusted main stage on Sunday night. The warm red and orange glow emanating from its hanging oriental lights kept drawing us in like fireflies and the selection of bumping house held us there for hours.

Christian “D-Nox” Wedekind and Frank Beckers made the most of their time at Rainbow and festival-goers certainly got everything they could out of the German veterans. D-Nox played three hours on the Sunset Stage to kick things off on Thursday night and Beckers had control of the Market Stage from 10.30am on Sunday. We caught the duo when they came together for a heaving set in the middle at the Market on Saturday afternoon. It was the first set that packed relentless energy for us and both were having as good a time as the crowd while they dished out pulsating groove-laced house and tech-house. Everyone looked beautiful in the sand as they embraced all the colours of the festival’s name with their outfits glimmering in the afternoon sun. Probably our set of the festival.

Did we mention the Market Stage was great in the afternoons? andhim had the job from 4.30pm Sunday after Revolver residents Boog$ and Spacey Space made sure Melbourne clubbers didn’t miss their weekly dose despite being 150ks away from their home city. The German duo brought their distinctive brand of “super-house” laced with cuts from their latest Tosch EP and a cheeky drop of Around the World in Homework’s 20^th anniversary year (the same as Rainbow). German Winter closed the set as the intense Australian summer sun beat down. Two very different worlds brought together and it worked beautifully.

We’ve seen some laser and light shows in our time but the production values of what went down on Sunday night at the Market Stage were top shelf. Just as Mathew Jonson finished and darkness had well and truly descended, Extrawelt stepped up for a journey through live house, techno, acid, breaks and experimental electronica. Lasers cut through the sky creating a ceiling of light over the dancefloor that gave the feeling you were amid an industrial warehouse rave somewhere rather than the Australian bush. Later, we moved up the hill behind the stage to take it all in as Shlomo and Adriana Lopez took charge. This was our perch until 5am and the same effect wasn’t rolled out twice. Huge.

“Mad Monday” at the Market Stage is notorious for being the best party of the festival. So much so, there’s a pull quote in the program that reads: “if ‘doofing’ were a religion, Rainbow Monday would be Christmas Day.” Everyone looked amazing throughout the entire event in a vibrant mix of elaborate, ever-changing costumes, but five days deep on the last stretch, they managed to step up another gear. From raving in all white atop self-made structures, to feathered headgear straight out of Carnivale, holographic one-pieces, to just a few splashes of body paint and glitter, Rainbow’s beauty was on full display as it went out in style. Eelke Kleijn’s melodic house did its best to resurrect us one last time at 8am before a string of artists took it up to Guy J’s three-hour closer from 4.30pm.

Rainbow Serpent promotes awareness of the traditional indigenous custodians of the land the festival is held on, with ceremonies you can watch and workshops you can partake in. It also has a “create no waste” ethos, which includes hand-sorting every one for the four different types of colour-coded bins around the festival. On Sunday, The Greens political party leader Richard Di Natale joined a panel talk with emergency physician and harm-minimisation advocate Dr David Caldicott, Stephanie Tzanetis of DanceWize and more to discuss Australian policy in regards to pill-testing and wider drug policy focusing on harm reduction. It’s really cool that a political leader recognises the importance of this measure in helping to prevent drug-related deaths and actively participated in the festival in such a way. We hope the movement for change continues to gain pace this year.

Scott Carbines is Mixmag's Australian Digital Content Editor. Follow him on Twitter

Image via ZEAZY