I went to Melbourne last week. It was kind of a big deal. I hadn’t been down there for a year and a half, and whilst I always knew I would be back, something about my last trip down there had managed to clear my eyes of the magical fairy dust that charms you into thinking it really is the most wonderful city on earth, and that no self respecting alternative minded individual should even consider living anywhere else.

Just like I quite happily don’t live in Newtown, that last trip had made me leave knowing that, in terms of living the dream, its better to leave Melbourne as a place you can visit, not reside.

Confusingly, this trip down made me forget all of those rules, and strongly consider staying down there forever, but I doubt I can make that happen quickly; nor should I. I have only just moved house, and that was painful enough! The ever expanding crates of vinyl are really heavy, and so won’t be leaving the stereoside shelves for quite some time thank you very much!

I was down there to go to the Big Day Out. Let me say right now (probably a week late) that Melbourne’s version of it is appalling in comparison to Sydney’s. The dreams I had for it – a flag-draped-bogan free event, instead surrounded by ‘pale, interesting indie people’ (thank you Billy Bragg for that generalisation) weren’t fully realised, and the dust stirred up by holding the event in the car park of a horseracing track gave everyone a slightly darker, grimier complexion than the demure indie minimal sun for maximum cool tans I was kind of looking forward to. So you kind of had to focus on the music a bit as drinking was neigh on impossible – three lines that never seemed to move meant I didn’t get a wrist band for a good few hours, and then when one wanted drinks, the good-idea-for-nobody beer ticket system meant lining up twice for a drink… that had to be drunk within the caged bar areas strategically placed at being able to hear a low hum of the closest stage, but no more. The early part of the day went well though – Mountains In The Sky were putting in a great bid to be the best act in the Boiler Room that day, and they were on second. Children Collide were my winners of the Local Produce stage – though a girlfriend tells me that The Galvatrons channeled Van Halen so well, that I was a fool to miss it. And I probably was. Regardless, Children Collide certainly are one of the better bands to be keeping the grungey distorted guitar dream alive – let me say it right now I do quite appreciate a guitar-spazz-out instrumental song (probably because they are quite rare) and the boys slipped one in with aplomb…

In care you were wondering, neither the Arcade Fire or Bjork work well on a festival main stage. And Rage Against The Machine were a step slower than, you know, the way they were 15 years ago. Indeed the real revolution was to be found with the Little Britain portion of the festival – over at the Essential Stage where Kate Nash, Enter Shikari and Billy Bragg all played in a row, and had pretty much the best fun to minute ratio of any of the stages. The seriousness of the Green Stage’s Spoon and Battles and Gyroscope etc didn’t let it rate, the hip hop in the Hot House just seemed like somewhere you would stop for a song on one of your cross car-park journeys (Aceyalone was very good though). But Enter Shikari won band of the day, and the Kate Nash and Billy Bragg duets won songs of the day… And don’t look at me like that, if you don’t like Enter Shikari’s tongue in cheek, forced hybrid of cheesy trance music and screamo in perfectly even proportions, then its hardly my problem you are a little behind the times.

Anyway, as I sat yesterday watching break-dancing competitions (specifically, the popin’ and lockin’ battle heats) before I headed back to Sydney, I marveled that this town with its million pokey excellent bars, street presses in need of some help, rooftop bars with cinema screens, shops with friendly assistants, in fact town with friendly people… well… It would send me very broke, very quickly.

I’ll be down there when the weather is worse. That way the fairy dust that makes it the best place in the world might have a chance to wash out of my eyes by the time I get back home again.