After the clouds cleared at Golden Plains, it was clear we were all waiting for one thing — Basement Jaxx Golden Plains
The weekend at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre (7–9 March ET) gathered thousands into a shimmering hilltop constellation, and after the clouds cleared it was clear we were all waiting for one thing: basement jaxx golden plains. Who was there: dancers, dreamers and devoted music lovers; what unfolded: a festival rooted in ceremony and a strict No Dickheads Policy; why it mattered: the grounds transformed into a communal living room under warm skies. The signal that the weekend had begun came with Nolesy’s long blink and a breath of smoke from a Wadawurrung Smoking Ceremony.
Basement Jaxx Golden Plains — the anticipation on the hill
The amphitheatre felt like another dimension as colours shimmered across the grassy bowl, and the name basement jaxx golden plains circulated through conversations on couches and under mirrored sunglasses. Sofas and vintage armchairs created an unofficial living room across the Sup, people settled in for long musical stretches and the idea of a singular climax — basement jaxx golden plains — threaded through the relaxed, sun-soaked afternoons. The festival’s welcoming No Dickheads Policy framed the gathering: it was a deliberately communal, respectful space where ceremony opened the weekend and the small signals of ritual mattered.
Stage moments, ceremony and the slow turn to evening
Early on, Public Figures supplied wiry indie rock that sent the first ripples of dancing through the colourful crowd. The afternoon softened into dreamy, soulful vocals and electronic textures that washed over the hillside; Water From Your Eyes delivered an experimental pop set that skewed slightly stranger as light fell and tides of people shifted. When Obongjayar took the stage, his vocal extremes — from delicate falsetto to thunderous intensity — marked one of the most striking moments of the weekend. Among the most moving performances, Marlon Williams and The Yarra Benders with Ngā Mātai Pūrua combined a voice both ancient and intimate with kapa haka harmonies that lent a ceremonial gravity to the amphitheatre.
Across the weekend the ritual aspects stayed central: a Wadawurrung Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country grounded the crowd in connection to the land beneath their feet, and Nolesy’s blink acted as the small but powerful signal that the festival had officially begun. These details were steady anchors as the crowd awaited the festival’s major late-night shifts, with basement jaxx golden plains remaining a recurring note in conversations about what the night might hold.
What the crowd took with them
By dusk the Sup had become a comfortable dance floor: sofas strapped to roof racks, inflatables and armchairs dotted the grass as groups created private spaces inside a huge public event. The atmosphere was alternately dreamy and ecstatic, and the weekend’s eighteenth edition felt vibrantly vivid under warm, golden afternoons. The idea of basement jaxx golden plains kept surfacing — not as a listed lineup item in the material here, but as an emblematic desire threaded through the crowd’s exchanges and the festival’s slow, communal unfolding.
As night deepened, delicate electronics gave way to powerful vocal displays and ceremonial harmonies; the hillside refracted each set into new emotional colours. The event’s balance of intimate, reflective moments and high-energy peaks left attendees carrying memories of both small rituals and expansive musical climaxes, with basement jaxx golden plains lingering as the imagined apex on many lips.
What comes next: crews will dismantle the temporary constellation on the hill while conversations about the weekend circulate among those who were there, and the festival’s rituals and signatures — the Smoking Ceremony, Nolesy’s blink, the sofa-strewn Sup — will frame future expectations. For now the image that stays is simple and repeated: basement jaxx golden plains remained the note everyone hummed as they left the Meredith bowl, a symbol of what many hoped the next turn of the kaleidoscope might deliver.
