Moovin and groovin for festival’s return

THOUSANDS of people flocked to the Bendigo Showgrounds last Saturday for the long-awaited return of Aussie music festival Groovin the Moo.

The event was a relief for musicians and fans alike after two years of cancellations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Bendigo resident Isobel Houghton and her Melbourne friend Rihanna Cole, it was a particularly long wait.

“It’s really exciting because we always come together and our tickets are from the presale of 2019,” Ms Houghton said.

“It’s really cool to see something so big come to Bendigo and I think it’s really exciting for younger people to have such a cool event like this that brings international artists into the city. We’re very lucky.”

The pair have attended close to 10 GTM festivals together, and Ms Cole said it felt “so good” to be back.

“This is our favourite time of the year, we don’t care how old we get, we’ll probably come every year,” she said.

Making his debut on the stage was local talent Jem Pryse who warmed up the crowd in a lunch time set.

The young artist won a triple j competition to earn the centre stage spot, skyrocketing his career.

“It was a crazy experience, start to finish it was so exciting the whole time and playing alongside my band members, too, was so fascinating,” he said.

“My heart was pumping until I saw a few familiar faces out in the crowd which always helps. You give them a thumbs up and that really helps calm the nerves when you know that they’re there and they’re excited and supporting you.

“It’s a huge career highlight, definitely for my music. It’s for sure the biggest festival I’ve played at so far, but hopefully more opportunities like this will come.”

Pumping tunes into the late afternoon was local DJ, Tonky, returning to the festival with “all the fun stuff” after first appearing in 2019.

“The atmosphere and having everyone here in my hometown, the amount of people is fantastic. Two years of no parties has been really bad for us artists but it’s good to be back,” he said.

“Being a performer, getting the reaction from a crowd is my absolute favourite thing. After two years of none of that, I’m hungry for it.”