To us, it played out in the most typical of ways; but any operation that goes on and becomes known as something really good always has a story, otherwise why would anyone give a fuck in the first place? So, there we were, in a slimy alley, drinking freezing cold Melbourne cans in the darkness of a black December evening — a few lights hanging from the back of Asian restaurants, enough of a glow for the illegal immigrants to get ‘safely’ from the back door to the sink… I reckon it was around 11… ‘If only we could move those junkie rat feasting dirty bins along David Jones’… ‘Could we?’ ‘And if only we had a show that would be so fucking thrilling that a billion people would want to go, but we’d make it for no more then a few hundred’… ‘That would be fun’… We were drunk. Happy. Again. We were having another one of those conversations you would hope to have with an old mate over drinks on a Friday... Or was it a Monday or a Tuesday? Beers and stories, it seemed that it all rolled into one and always equalled ‘we can do that!’
From the depths of the alley appeared a small gang of three — spirited and curious. We turned and looked at each other and without said, in what I recall unison, ‘Maybe they’d do it!’…‘We could ask’…Once the Avalanches decided to play (it was really very straightforward and did not require any administrative bodies, just a challenge or something... And there was a brown paper bag left by a bin I recall, although that was probably for our first cleaner who had the hardest of front line responsibilities). Once we knew that we now had to actually go forth with our idea to move the slime and put on a little street party like Melbourne had not seen since the Gold Rush. From there, we quite simply made it up as we went along. Always following what we thought was ‘probably best’ and what we thought would ‘probably really surprise’ and mixed with gallons of laughter and a few million cold ones, it seemed like a recipe that could work. It was a way to have some fun and unite some like-minded folk, we told someone… It would do things that we never thought possible and it would lead to all manner of stories that would be saved and recorded for a later date, we both agreed. In short, the night St Jerome’s Laneway Festival was conceived, it was just another night of drunken ideas being cast around the yucky cobblestones. Only, for two roustabouts from Bomberland, it was the beginning of the next part of their journey together. Who would have known? Considering both their parents had warned their sons and each other, that these two, ‘just might not be the best for each other’. But, as it goes, we were the deciders of that. And this. And there you have it.