Festival Review: Splendour XR Made Me Feel Like A Happy Sim!
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Ahhh yess! Music festivals! If ever you want to know humanity, please go to a music festival. There you will witness our penchant for drama, escapism, and our deranged belief that we will actually wear our over-priced merchandise all the time. While Splendour XR did not have some of my fave, human highlights to festival-going, I cannot say that it DID NOT provide a trip.
I think what most made me giggle about Splendour XR is that it virtually captured how gloriously weird and electric music festivals can be. Of course, there will be a half-naked guy with a bunny mask, and, of course, you will create and avatar to match him as you both walk to the Aurora show. THEY EVEN DID THAT! Run by Sansar Events, and based off the very real Aussie fest, Splendour In The Grass, it was hard not to feel like a Sim trying to run to see Khalid, but wondering if you had enough Simoleons to buy digital taco beforehand. Franky, it was the avid details that made the performances feel more than like a concert; it was a Gameboy fantasy.
I know this sounds foolish, but I am notorious for my comparisons, and as Tayla Parx brought her own production, The Killers killed, and Holly Humbertstone sweetly sang from her room, I thought I was in in the PS3 version of that Graduating Class of 2020 event. Remember… 2020… when every artist performed, on MSNBC, as an entire generation received their diplomas via Zoom? There was something modernly cool, nostalgic, and oddly retro about its virtual aesthetics that allowed the event to be standout on how the pandemic has changed our world, but oddly given is access to people that, otherwise, would not have been able to see these artists: either live or in Australia.
Whether artists were popping onto your screen like a Star Trek character warping in or watching yourself pass by porto-potties to catch Jungle on stage, I fell in love with Splendour XR’s ability to make you feel like you were in something special and no less than your normal. Moreover, it became a surprising platform for new/ rising artists. While I am a STAN of Charli XCX and Denzel Curry, it was rising artists like, Wafia, Sinead Harnett, Vera Blue, and Griff that really stood out to me because, in real life, they would have been the first acts of the festival: the ones that play at 1PM when we know everyone arrives at 5PM. In really life, I always felt bad for the openers because, in typical, human fashion, when they become ultra famous everyone will be at their headliner. Yet, as Coldplay’s Chris Martin explained in an interview: they were always there playing…. It’s just no one came to their stage. As a festival-goer, I stay for the WHOLE FESTIVAL, and proceed to enter a 3-day coma after because it is exhausting. Yet, Splendour XR was just exuberant, and gave you the visual space to actually hear people you wouldn’t in real life.
Did Khalid do amazing? YES! Did I find out about a band called King Stingray, and have been playing them ever since? Yes! For me, the latter was the biggest surprise, and why I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you buy the Splendour XR Relive tickets, which are until August 1, so that you can not only experience the show but enjoy it as a preview of some of the biggest artists to come and ones that you just really need right now. Overall, the performance were great, but I can genuinely say they were bettered by the strange newness of being an Avatar watching human being serenade you. To Buy Splendour XR Relive Click Here.
