North West Festival Port Hedland Review
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Alex Harmon heads up to North West Fest 2014 to find out more about this incredible festival in the remote town of Port Hedland in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
Glastonbury, Reading, Coachella, Port Hedland. If I’d seen an ironic T-shirt for sale at this year’s North West Festival, I would have laid down the cash. How a small town of 20,000 people in Australia’s remote Pilbara region could attract such a stellar line-up of international and home-grown acts was beyond me. This is how I felt as I flew north from Perth. But that’s the beauty of Port Hedland. You’re forced to leave your preconceived ideas at the tiny airport carousel. And when you return, covered in red dirt, dust and sun damage, you’re never quite the same.
The seemingly bizarre location, 1600km north of Perth is where you’ll find arguably the West Coast’s biggest and best music festival. In fact, more than a quarter of the town’s population rocked up for the three-day spectacle, with a record attendance of over 6,000 people. Young, old, miners, backpackers, even the Mayor was there to watch a swag of international and Australian artists perform over a hot August weekend. Big name acts like The Dandy Warhols, Wolfmother, Missy Higgins, Illy, Art Vs Science, the Ashton Shuffle and Six60 flew in from each corner of the country, most not knowing what to expect from this dusty little town.
I had no idea either. Flying in over Perth it looked like a big boy’s sandpit filled with monster trucks and mountains of dirt. At the entrance of the town we drive past Rio Tinto’s massive salt pile, glistening white and almost blinding in the sunshine. I’m told the running joke in Port Hedland is: “why are the locals so happy? Just take a look at our stash.”
As I looked at the salt stockpile from my hotel window each morning, (squint and it could almost be a alpine mountain) I laughed to myself. It’s this self-lampooning attitude that infects the town and washes away any ounce of pretention. You could hear it in the voices of each singer who announced on stage it was their first time in town. This was usually followed by “wow, it’s bloody hot up here.”
Of course there were some “local” bands, like The Pigram Brothers who are from “just up the road” in Broome. (Thinking I could pop up to Broome was another one of my naïve thoughts – it’s a solid 600km drive). This band of seven brothers captured the essence of the festival with their honest country folk-rock, often singing about the unique energy of Australia’s North West. Tracks like Saltwater Cowboy and Dry River Bed evoked the hardened, but beautiful spirits of the Pilbara.
A joyous (and pregnant) Missy Higgins also spent quite a few years living in Broome where she wrote the song, Going North. Although she might be singing about finding herself in Broome, “under the arms of eye-less trees,” she may as well be singing about dry, barren Port Hedland. Her flawless voice and magnetic energy lulled the crowd into a Zen-like state after a long day necking cans of beers and Margaret River burgers. She was followed by Melbourne hip-hop artist Illy who got revelers on their feet, topped only by the Ashton Shuffle who brought the house down as they closed day one of the festival.
To me, some of the bands just seemed to fit into the scenery, like Brisbane-born teenager and Triple J Unearthed winner Thelma Plum. While her name sounds like a character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and her demeanor is sweet, she is anything but saccharine. Announcing one of her songs as a “fuck you to my ex-boyfriend” and performing ‘Around Here’ which has a chorus made up mostly of “fuck you”. Although she did prelude this track with a story of her young cousins for who she substitutes the song with “truck woo”. Thelma was a crowd-pleaser with lots of spark, and is somebody you would probably want to hug.
The boys from New Zealand who make up the band Six60 (go on, say it with a Kiwi accent) got a day two crowd fatigued by the heat up on their feet and swaying in the sunshine. Lead singer Matiu Walters, or the masculine Bruno Mars as I like to refer to him, wore a wife-beater and gold chain. He may look like a greasy mechanic, but he has the voice of an angel and a charisma to match. If you weren’t singing along to his version of TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’, then you’d probably had too much sun.
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Port Hedland’s population is transient. You have the FIFO workers, seafarers, backpackers and grey nomads – even the turtles come and go twice a year. You never really know who is a local, in the same way you can never really pick a person based on their appearance. In Port Hedland I meet millionaires in high-vis and talented artists sporting mullets. They all seem to drive the same cars, with big wheels and fluro stickers down the sides so you always see them coming. And everybody is just so friendly.
Yet it’s a rough and ready town. In the summer, Port Hedland is prone to temperatures in the 40’s and cyclones that tear apart houses. One local informs me if you look out to sea and can’t see the big iron ore ships, it means they’ve been evacuated and you should probably start packing up your things too. It’s a town that holds the record for the ‘toughest pub in the country’, the Pier Hotel. This pub, which looks like a motel from a horror film, got its title for being host to the most amount of stabbings in a single night – as the legend goes it was 86 including six barmaids. Yet when we drop in for a beer we are met with friendly faces, a relaxed beer garden and live music- a vibe you’d be lucky to find in a Sydney pub. I suppose after dark is a different story, but we didn’t push our luck. Here we meet miners who suffer from KFC withdrawals and drive the two and a half hours to Karratha for a fix. They don’t seem to mind.
But it’s also a surprising town where you see a unique blend of industry and the arts. The thriving street art scene has attracted artists from all over the world who have taken up residency in Port Hedland. While I was in town, Mexican urban artist Saner made his first trip to Australia to create a work of art on the main street. While Amsterdam-based street artist Amok Island was flown in to create a mural to coincide with the festival. The canvas he was given, of all places, was the local police station. It was somewhat ironic to see the local police look on with pride as he spray-painted the cop-shop. Luckily he went with a modest flatback turtle hatching from an egg, a nod to the turtle breeding ground in Port Hedland – as opposed to anything with an anti-authority theme.
The festival is so far removed from commercial trash that I didn’t even think of the spawn of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West – whose name happens to be North West – until long after I had arrived back in Sydney. There’s no space for ego in Port Hedland, I realised this when I shared the same toast and Vegemite at the hotel breakfast buffet as Wolfmother. My ears now prick at the stock market reports when Port Hedland’s iron ore stock is mentioned- although I have no idea what they’re talking about. I imagine one day I’ll make like Thelma Plum and let out a “truck woo” when they’re high.
Images and words by Alex Harmon
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