Chapter 3, part 5

Groovin’ again.

GROOVIN’ THE MOO! IT WAS GROOVIN’ THE MOO!

For those unsure of what it is, that’s North Queensland’s big annual music festival. I did a comic about it and everything. Go search the archives. Start here: strip 13

I attend at least once a year.

Man, it was bitchin’. Silverchair were insanely weird, Funkoars were ballbustingly awesome and Muph and Plutonic? They were heaps good! There were a bunch of others, but those were the main three for me. Silverchair were seriously freaking weird. I shall now call them Bewilderchair.

So anyway, this year Hobart wanted to dress up for Groovin’ the Moo. This is because he loves the reactions he gets. That’s why he’s president of the newly formed Townsville Cosplay Society. (More on that when I blog about Free Comic Book Day.)

The problem with that is that Groovin’ the Moo is an outdoors event in Townsville. It’s fortunately not the height of summer, but it’s still goddamn hot. So his costume was… shall we say, uhh… simple. An Iron Man shirt, an Iron Man mask, an Iron Man repulsor ray, and an Iron Man chest… thingy. Heart ticker thingy. In the comics it’s the Uni-beam. He didn’t even wear red shorts or yellow shorts or anything like that. That was the entire costume.

And people loved the hell out of it. Holy crap, all day we were taking photos with people who wanted a photo with Iron Man. Some didn’t even want a photo they could then take and have all for their own. They just wanted me to take a photo on my camera of them with Iron Man. Iron Man was everywhere in my photos for Groovin’ the Moo. Even when he wasn’t supposed to be in them. Bastard.

I told Hobart at the start of the day that no one would care about his shitty costume, because, well… every bastard was in costume. Plus a lot of bastards in costume put a hell of a lot more effort into it than he did. But you know what? He was a total star. It’s the mask — the mask just totally sells the thing. It makes him instantly and easily recognisable. People actually know who Iron Man is and think Iron Man’s cool.

Now I shouldn’t pretend that Hobart was the only person in costume on the day. There were a tonne of them all over the place. There were Smurfs (there’s always Smurfs), Masters of the Universe, DC heroes, three separate sets of Power Rangers of varying quality, tigers, kitty cats, Athenian goddesses, Sailor Moon… god, so many different costumes. My favourite of the day is pretty easy to isolate. Friggin’ Skeletor:

I really liked the Mario Brothers too. Because I’m a geek, when I went to take a photo of them I didn’t greet them by saying hello. No, I greeted them by humming the Mario music. Fortunately, rather than thinking this was just freaky they laughed! Woo! Geek communication.

Sailor Moon was also pretty awesome, just for the way the costume is so practical, and adapted for Townsville’s environment.

The event was great. Apart from seeing some great bands, here’s a list of some of the awesome shit that happened at Groovin’ the Moo.

• I got to hang out with my younger sister who was up from Mackay for the event.
• I got to see Muph put on a yellow hat someone threw up on stage.
• I played tiggy (tag — whatever you Americans call it) with Sailor Moon and a jail inmate.
• A whole bunch of people complimented me on my awesome beard.
• An underaged kid asked me if I could hook him up with some drugs. I could not.
• I folded 12 cranes with paper I found laying around and gave them out to random people.
• Oh yeah, I also gave out a crapload of business cards.
• Toilet maze!
• I took a tonne of photos pretending that I was in Doom. More on that at another time.
• One word: Skeletor.
• My hat kept acquiring new things, by the end of the night it was outrageous.
• When Daniel Johns threw his bottle of water into the crowd I nabbed that sucker! It now belongs to my sister.
• I gave out a crapload of my business cards too.

I should probably tell you about a couple of the encounters I had. I gave a card to someone dressed as a hippy, and some random girl who was getting a photo with the hippy desperately wanted to know if she was CARTOON WORTHY! I gave her a card too, and took her picture. Is she cartoon worthy? I dunno, but she sure wanted to be. Am I cartoon worthy? Am I cartoon worthy? So earnest. I think I’ll draw her as a monkey. An earnest monkey.

There was also this underaged kid who was… off his nut. I mean, he was on ecstasy. I’m not just guessing, he flat-out told me as much. This kid was awesome and sad at the same time. He came up to us in the crowd for Muph and Plutonic and complimented me on my beard and suggested I should grow it into dread locks. Then he asked me if I had any hook-ups for various drugs. At this stage I was a little lost and was just nodding along, especially when he asked me if I knew about any after parties. It’s about then that he noticed Hobart and just wigged out — IT WAS IRON MAN! Now this kid was cartoon worthy. Being completely unprofessional I’ve included a photo of him bellow.

While I was going to get myself a dagwood dog Hobart noticed three girls with Transformers T-shirts. All the same T-shirt. A lot of people do themed costumes at festivals. Well, these three were all dressed in Will Simpson art. Dude. I love that T-shirt. I could never get one that would fit me, but Hobart told me that, dammit, I should take a photo of those girls. So yes, I chased after three girls, running full tilt to get a photo of an image on their chest. Uhh… yay me.

Some things had changed at this Groovin’ the Moo from the previous two. There was a new venue this year. So no giant tree. But that also meant there was no dust — there was actually grass at this venue, not just dusty, dusty ground. The new venue was also much bigger, which made it easier to crowd navigate. Girls are awesome at doing that, let me tell you. If you ever want to get deeper into a big croud look for the nearest line of girls, and hitch your ride to their wagon — so to speak.

This year there weren’t orange and green bands. There were blue and red bands. For the first time I managed to wear my band all day — but mostly just because it was much better constructed than last year, so it was harder to pull off.

Oh yeah, and at one point I wore the Iron Man mask. It was hilarious with my long hair an beard, let me tell you. Actually. Let me show you:

As you look through the Groovin’ the Moo photos I’ve posted I suggest you keep in mind the concept of the bonehead. A bonehead, in modern parlance is… well… let me get someone else to explain it for you. Who better than the Chaser?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDL6emxYzDo
Basically it’s people who get into camera shots, photos, etc, and act like a bonehead in the background. So many people were boneheading me. Look out for them in the background of, well, any number of photos.

There’s not much more to say. I had a really good time, and I took more photos than I’ve ever taken in my life. Expect an interlude eventually based on this year’s Groovin’ the Moo.

–Andrew S.
(Oh yeah. I have one more photo to show you. Check out this girl’s insane costume:

I actually asked her if she had any sort of contingency plan, in case the costume just got to be too much, and she said no. I have no idea if she survived the day. I’m going to assume she died.)