More than 2000 people ventured to the tucked away property of Dashville for a festival boasting great music, food and atmosphere.

Baghead’s soulful, honest belters lured us from the treeline into the arena like moths to a flame.

High-energy duo Polish Club sweated their way through an incredibly loud and raw set.

The Belligerents moved like no one else and The Cactus Channel got inside every head in the crowd – without a singer.

There was no shortage of references to late pop star Prince either.

Dan Sultan’s Purple Rain was powerful and devastating.

Sex on Toast, with their matching suits and slick moves, steamed up glasses and dilated pupils like their name commands.

Oka wrapped up Friday night with a sound impossible to ignore. Pulsing beats and hypnotic didgeridoo owned the crowd entirely.

The silent disco was definitely worth remembering but the only coherent memory I can offer involves grinding to The Prodigy while everyone else swayed to Elvis. So we’ll leave that.

Punters woke to a cold Saturday morning in Dashville with a fair few relying on their stubby cooler to get through that first 9am tinny.

Some admirable folks stretched out on the yoga mats while the mere mortals, ourselves included, reached out for coffee and bacon and egg rolls from the geniuses at the Nighthawk Diner.

It was then a matter of gingerly pulling up a spot on the dewy grass and letting Newcastle funkmasters Dr Peach blow the dust off us with their brass section.

It only got heavier after that. While we wandered into town to shower and gather some form of coherency Dashville Progress Society was, apparently, blowing the roof off the joint.

By the time we got back Citizen Kay had the crowd pumping with massive hip hop.

Then it was time for a voice that rumbles the Grand Junction to its foundations on a semi-regular basis – Van Walker and the Heartbrokers.

In the words of the Junkyard’s publican himself, Jeff Lang and Walker’s combined force is the future of rock n’ roll.

The Op Shop Bop crowned a mermaid and a “Swedish hottie” as Queen of the Gum Ball and a ventriloquist dummy as King before William Crighton took the stage.

The giant with a voice to match would have made plenty of fans that night. 

While the band played local artist Indeah Clark painted a surreal landscape of jagged hills and a sickly green moon.

As the crowd chanted along with Crighton, Clark parted the crowd and carried the artwork to the bonfire – throwing it on before the paint had even dried.

It was a dark and enthralling moment under the Belford stars.

There was really only one place it could go after that – You Am I. Tim Rogers powered through a set, proclaiming his love for the culture of the Gum Ball as he finished to rapturous applause.

“What a front man,” one member of the audience screamed in my ear over the feedback. 

Hard to disagree.