Scene & Heard

Newcastle, NSW - 13/03/22

On a beautiful Sunday in March, a mainly 35’s and over crowd assembled at Wickham Park in Newcastle for Scene & Heard, which like most events had suffered several date changes due to Covid in 2021 and 2022, for the Australian predominantly hard rock festival. Now I’m not sure what people think of this age group (remember the mainly 35’s and overstatement) but the security presence was on a whole other level !!!! With the numbers of the police force present not sure who was looking after the rest of Newcastle District, Police Dogs, Bag checks but in a new one for me security wands and pat-downs. Now MFA had attended 3 festivals in 3 days,1 in Maitland, 2 in Newcastle, and we had not seen anything like this on the previous two days so I’m not sure if this is an assumption of the “type” of behaviour of those that attend rock festivals or if there was something the general public didn’t know but it was confronting and intimidating, dropping those pre-festival excitement levels a little.

The people in attendance were happy, friendly and a generally well behaved bunch, a good mix of ladies and men but it was more jeans and band shirts than it was Glitter and Fishnets.

The lineup for Scene & Heard consisted of some of the state’s best DJs (Daft Punk Discovery, Kid Kenobi, MINX & DJ Fuel) up on the Don’t come Monday Stage adding a bit of variety for those that wanted a dance or a break from the guitars for a little while, but the big draw cards were some of Australia’s best hard rock bands on its main stage. The main stage was definitely the place to be with a who’s who of 90’s/00’s pub rock culture including Spiderbait, Tumbleweed, Frenzal Rhomb, The Porkers, Ratcat, COG, Caligula and Grinspoon,

Spiderbait’s Kram spoke to the crowd about the recent flooding across the East Coast, including his home in Queensland that he still couldn’t return too, he encouraged everyone to be kind to one another , help where you can and finally reach out to the person next you, your neighbor and say hello before launching into a massive high energy set that included fan fave’s Ol’ Man Sam, Buy Me A Pony, Calypso and F!*king Awesome.

Closing the show were the Lismore lads Grinspoon. as Phil and the band approached the stage calls for “Jamo” could be heard in unison from the punters who had patiently been waiting to hear the bands hits such as Lost Control, Just Ace and Sunday Thrills. Grinners didn’t disappoint playing everything you would expect from a best of album. Phil Jamieson created a beautiful and poignant moment with a dedicated acoustic song to ‘Sarah’, “that cant be here to hear it “ before switching back to his engaging and charismatic front man self , sending the crowd nuts again.

Highlights :

The bands proved that age is just a number with the music sounding as great or maybe even better than when it was originally released. The bands gave the audiences exactly what they wanted to hear , hit after hit after hit, which kept the crowd singing along with every word and meant that no one left Scene & Heard disappointed.

Our Rating

Public Transport: 🎫🎫.5

Venue: 🎫🎫🎫🎫.5

Line-Up: 🎫🎫🎫🎫.5

Amenities: 🎫🎫🎫🎫

Food: 🎫🎫🎫🎫

Bars/Alcohol: 🎫🎫🎫.5

Merchandise: 🎫🎫🎫🎫.5

VIP Package: 🎫🎫🎫🎫.5

Over All: 🎫🎫🎫🎫