Belated Valley Fiesta

I really do apologise for how late this blog post is. Valley Fiesta was a good 3 and a half weeks ago, but I held off the post for a little while because I had an exciting collaboration that was going to be part of it. Unfortunately this all fell through pretty last minute :--( so you're stuck with just me reminiscing on the event. Which hopefully isn't that bad.

So Valley Fiesta is a free annual event that takes place in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. As I only live 1 hour away from Brisbane, this was reasonably local and easy to attend. It was coincidentally on the date of my boyfriend, Harrison's birthday, so a bunch of my friends and I rented a couple of rooms at The Miro Apartments. I very highly recommend these apartments if you are looking for an affordable stay in the centre of Fortitude Valley. I don't want my words to be misinterpreted there, although these apartments were affordable, they were in no way dingy or scary, to tell the truth, they were one of the nicest apartments I have ever stayed in. I really really enjoyed our time there.

Our apartments were just around the corner from the main stage, perhaps a 300 metre walk which was brilliant as it meant we could go back to the apartment between acts.

Map of fiesta. Very exact.

Before any of the acts we wanted to see came on we went and ate lunch at this really shmancy Japanese restaurant which was expensive but super lovely. I'm sorry I cannot remember the name of it, nor where abouts it was....brilliant blogging skills.

Later on we all went and watched The Creases play which was brilliant. They had a pretty relaxed yet fun crowd and the guys performed amazingly. After their set ended I went off with a couple of my friends to this restaurant bar, where, after perhaps 15 minutes another of my friends bounded in excitedly with a photo of her and the guys from The Creases >:---( I, like many, was extremely jealous.

I then listened to The Preatures play their set from the New York Pizza directly next door (aka #1 pizzeria on map). As usual, The Preatures killed it. They were amazing live and had the entire audience in awe and in fits of excitement.

I'm not going to lie, I did watch a few songs of the amazing Dan Sultan, but I don't remember what time of the night it was. I do, however, remember that he had a really unique stage present that really captured the audience. I would really love to see Dan Sultan live in a gig of his own, so I might keep my eyes out for that.

After a quick stop back at the apartment we all made it back to the main stage in time to see Allday perform. Allday (my long lost twin) was the main act that I wanted to see, and he really lived up to my expectations. He had a brilliant on stage persona, and seems very natural and comfortable in front of the audience.
After his performance was over I was impressed to see him stand out the back of the stage an meet fan after fan, not only taking photos but also stopping and having a genuine conversation with them. Very impressive. He was lovely in person, super down to earth and didn't come across as cocky or anything.

I think a few of my friends wanted to kill me when Allday followed me on Instagram and Twitter as we are all big fans. But after seeing him perform live, meeting him, and chatting a bit on twitter, I can tell you first hand that he is a lovely, down to earth, talented musician. Obviously I do not know him well, and I am not claiming to, I am just saying that from my minuscule experience, he appeared to be a really genuine guy and talent.

All in all, Valley Fiesta was a messy, exciting, tiresome, pizza filled, blast. My friends and I had a brilliant time, and I highly recommend that if you are in the area you tag along as it's a brilliant, cheap way to watch some amazing live acts.

- Stella xxx