Two decades into its run as everyone's favourite music festival, Meredith is approached with high expectations.

Dealing with the weight of these expectations is no easy task, but through a combination of practical decision-making (mix surprise obscurities with sure fire crowd-pleasers, make sure the right band is on stage at the right time) and novel practices like actually listening (then thoughtfully responding) to punter feedback, Meredith's organisers manage to nail it every year.

This careful management – along with knowing when to keep it simple and not fix anything that isn’t broken – means transcendent experiences occur at random moments all weekend, and the sea of faces around you are happy ones.

Maybe more than anything else, Meredith delivers simply by leaving you with the feeling that everyone involved cares more about giving you a good time than making money selling you $8 hot dogs and a $10 UDL.

2011 was its 21st year. Here's how the party unfolded.

FRIDAY
Tasked with kicking off proceedings, Melbourne tykes King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard ripped through a set of exuberant garage rock, ending with a cracking cover of “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. For a crowd who’d just negotiated the drive and the queues and the tent pegging and were now standing, cold can in hand with the sun defying the weather forecast, King Gizzard were perfect.

One of the bands of 2011, Unknown Mortal Orchestra were the first act to showcase the Supernatural Amphitheatre’s awesome sound with a psych-tinged set that managed to be both sharp and tight and loose and sprawling. A night later they went on to conquer the Northcote Social Club (and take acid given to them by a fan mid-set).

Kurt Vile and the Violators' Australian club shows have been met with raptures but unlike UMO, their Meredith slots was dampened by uneven sound. Judging by the streams of late-arriving punters the Violators soundtracked a lot of people’s welcome to Meredith, but looking at the crowd’s movement it seemed the band weren’t able to hold everyone’s attention. ‘Baby’s Arms’ was a beautiful moment saved for the very end, at which point everyone fell in love with the man/his hair/each other (in that order).

On paper, 8 till 9 on the opening night could have been a tough spot to fill for an instrumental act like Explosions in the Sky, but they lit the place up, rewarding those with the patience to hear out their sprawling jams, and the novelty of watching a band without a cocky vocalist holding the spotlight was refreshing. Enthralling, intense, life-affirming post-rock. Their uninterrupted 50 minute set was occupied with layers and layers of instrumentation, magically built up and broken down.

Friday’s hit-for-six highlight was provided by Barbarion, a Melbourne metal act described by a friend as “like Airbourne, but completely unmarketable.” What they lack in youthful good looks, Barbarion more than make up for in pyrotechnics, lusty sing-alongs and the pure awesome power of six gigantic blokes dressed like characters from Asterix and singing about storming the ramparts as a wild haired guitarist carved widdly-woo metal solos while flames shot from the head of his axe. And the singer prowled the stage with an actual axe. Next time they play the Tote, Barbarion are guaranteed three times the crowd, if only to see how all those flames fit on a smaller, indoor stage.

Maybe after they left the smoke-covered stage with a “cop that, Meredith!” Barbarion had left Ladyhawke nowhere to go. Or maybe it’s just they’re yet to fully hone their live chops. The sound was fine, the band was tight but even hits like “Paris is Burning” and set-ender “My Delerium” were strangely uneventful live. The feeling Ladyhawke was actually just Pip Brown and a bunch of ring-in session musos was compounded by her saying “Hi everyone, I’m Ladyhawke,” and not giving the other blokes on stage a single mention. 

Future of the Left sounded brutally engaging enough to lure us back to the stage and we’re glad we bothered. After pummelling the Supernatural Amphittheatre back in 2003 in Mclusky Andy Falkous’ proved that since then he’s only got better. FOTL's spiky, passionate and anthemic post-punk was the perfect antidote to Ladyhawke’s by-the-numbers set.

Gang Gang Dance lacked atmosphere and were perhaps too experimental to get the late night crowd going, or maybe they just didn’t have enough bass. Although vocalist Lizzi surfed her way around the amphitheatre, trying her best to convince the rest of the band to join her (which they didn’t, but to be fair, who’d play the tunes if they did?), they were the soundtrack to a thousand punters heading back to their tents. 

Fact: At 3am, when all you want to do is dance badly, dubstep basslines perfect. Mark Pritchard is a producer who knows this better than most and his Harmonic 313 set of old-school jungle and bleeding edge bass music went down a storm, to the point where the crowd tried to continue the vibes using cardboard boxes and bits of furniture when the Silence Wedge began (take that, silence).

SATURDAY
With the overdue retirement of Combo La Revelacion from Meredith’s bill, it was left to the Ballarat Municipal Brass Band to tick the box marked “endearingly naff.” While their attempts at banter veered from cringeworthy to simply baffling, the charm of their “theme from Rocky” was undeniable.

As every festival is now obliged to reserve a spot for floor-tom pounding hipsters, Meredith went with Oscar + Martin. Wise choice. Where Ballarat’s Municipal Brass Band seemed to hold amusingly varied opinions on the time-signatures of their various songs, O+M eased into Saturday with perfect rhythm, and began the day proper with earnest good fun (although their ironic Beyonce interlude may have been one hipsterism too many).

With slicked-back hair and retro shirts, the Rechords delivered country-inspired songs about girls with perfectly pitched harmonies, swigging from flasks for added ‘50s authenticity.

Commanding and dangerous, Adalita captured the attention of festival-goers simply because she's Adalita. Although requiring a little help with some guitar parts after slicing her finger open in a blender incident a few weeks ago (see? Dangerous), Adalita held everyone captive through the force of her personality and the affirming power of her songs. Bringing Dean Turners’ daughters on stage, hearts melted as the two kids took turns jumping over the Geelong rock godess as she lay on stage, wringing layer on layer of feedback from her guitar. 

OFF! did exactly what they promise on the tin, delivering a set of blazing, angry two minute punk songs interspersed with punk sermonizing from dreadlocked frontman Keith Morris. Bloody awesome.

Graveyard Train killed it at Golden Plains earlier this year, and Meredith was no different. Kicking off with the bandleader apologizing to anyone who came across the spew he’d left in the top paddock the night before, the North Melbourne country stomper’s lusty, rollicking drinking songs of loss and pain were so life affirming they had punters holding footwear to the sky. 

It’s likely the only reason Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears didn’t get The Boot is because it’d just been given to Graveyard Train. Coming at 5.30 in the afternoon, they were a shot in the arm. Blazing garage rock with a three piece horn section providing the sort of visceral wallop all good horn sections should, and kicking off what just might be the best Saturday night lineup in years.

Mudhoney sounded and looked so much better than you’d hope it was almost alarming. The years seemed to fall away from Mark Arm and his mates as they prowled the stage, screaming, driving and strutting through their hits like 1994 was just last year. The years have also been kind to Iva Davies, who took out the award for Man Most Psyched to Be Here, and was rivaled only by the Ballarat Municipal Brass Band for dorky banter. All shimmies, excited little leg kicks and shiny shirt, Iva led Icehouse through a hit-filled set. Although there were six band-members on stage, like Neil Finn last year Iva really only needed the crowd. Even the wag who’d answered the opening “How you doing Meredith!” with “younger than you!” was singing along. 

Icehouse’s sparse, clean sound lost the crowd on the less known songs, but given their catalogue is part of the national consciousness, they had us right with ‘em.

Arriving on stage with a similar sense of occasion, drama and swelling synths as Icehouse, within seconds of Cut/Copy emerging it was clear they are a very different band to the one that first played Meredith in 2005. Their set may have started the same way as Icehouse, but their dense, driving sound seemed so much more alive. We loved Icehouse, but this is how we want pop music to sound in 2011. A few years of worldwide festival shows have turned frontman Dan Whitford from an eyes-down knob twiddler into a magnetic showman with a great voice, and when the rain started hammering down during “Lights and Music”, he simply made us dance harder.

Much as we marveled at Cut/Copy’s transformation into party machines, for the next hour, Grinderman made us forget everything that came before. Nick Cave’s control of an audience would be frightening if it wasn’t so entertaining. Cave howled, yelped, ranted, screamed, strummed and stomped for an hour in an ageless display of intensity, with Warren Ellis a perfect foil on guitar and occasional violin. Constantly at the barriers, egging the crowd on, Nick Cave wound up their set by announcing Grinderman was over. “We’ll see you in ten years, when we’re older and uglier,” he announced, before striding from view.

Clouds stole any thunder from the lunar eclipse, although Angus Sampson managed to whip up some enthusiasm for it by asking everyone “to please be upstanding for the national anthem of the moon,” which (of course) turned out to be “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

The 1am slot is a crucial one, and rumours had been flying that the Juan Pablo Family Hour was actually the Avalanches. They turned out to be either Yacht Club DJs or (more likely) one of the Cut/Copy lads and a Midnight Juggernaut. Whoever was behind the pink wigs, they were pretty bloody disappointing. The Meredith crowd is nothing if not generous, but everyone’s bang-up-for-it-ness was muted by the Juan Pablo Hour’s pointless mashups and artless train-wrecking of crowd pleasers and wedding-party standards. We’d already heard between-band djs play “Great Balls of Fire”, and when Juan Pablo wheeled it out for the third time that day, it was time for bed.

Those who stuck around for Big Freedia were treated to a cavalcade of – and there’s really no way around saying this – of ass. As a friend of Everguide said next day, even one continuous shot of an ass on a screen would have been less ass-focussed than Freedia’s set. Having recruited backing dancer’s at Wednesday night’s Toff in Town show, Freedia and his/her dancers provided bootylicious good times.

It was left to Virgo Four to bring some civility back to proceedings, which the Chicago duo did with no small amount of style. At 3.30am, their pure, lovely and incredibly funky live house set was a tonic for sore ears and fried minds.

New York DJ Tim Sweeney closed out the night with the sort of set the Juan Pablo Hour should have been taking notes through – a tight, skilful mix of always surprising (and surprisingly funky) disco, prog rock, boogie and house music. Meredith could probably put the Swanston St busking drummer on in the 5am slot and still have people dancing, so hats off for filling it with such a killer dj.

SUNDAY
We have to admit we don’t get Dave Graney. Maybe we were just a bit too tired and emotional, but Dave and his Lurid Yellow Mist played a set of, to put it kindly, music to pack your tent to. 

Frank Fairfield, on the other hand, was a stone cold killer. A dapperly-dressed, fine-mustachioed purveyor of plaintive, incredibly played country twang. Just him, his banjo, his fiddle and his guitar, Frank won the hearts and minds of everyone wobbling through the Supernatural Amphitheatre at 11am on Sunday.

After Frank’s modest brilliance, Abbe May brought some sass and swagger to Meredith’s tired denizens. A rock vixen with an incredible voice who reminded us of Adalita, Abbe and her band deserve to – and will – conquer hearts well beyond their native WA. 

Eagle and the Worm helped us put off the real world for another hour with their exuberantly shambolic good times, before Matt Sonic and the High Times brought proceedings to a close with some well-placed guitar wizardry. Those left (and there were plenty) were thoroughly enjoying themselves until he spent a whole ten minutes giving a biography on each member of his band. Lovely of him, but perhaps unnecessary.

So what was different this year? Here's a few trends we noticed.
Toddlers. Lots more little 'uns getting about. Hats off to their parents, we say. Probably sounds like a good idea on paper, but looking after a tired and fed up four year old at a noisy and overwhelming music festival a long way from home can't be fun. Still, all the kids we saw - even the lost ones - seemed to be having a great time.

A younger crowd. Obviously the kids mentioned above would have skewed the average, but even without the sub-teens, this year there seemed to be a lot more youthful exuberance, which lead to...

More dancing. Particularly between-bands dancing. For the most part, between-act DJs killed it, particularly on the Friday. Particularly whoever played that killer version of "Like A Rolling Stone."