The Fremantle International Street Arts Festival comes around but once a year, and is a glorious celebration of Fremantle’s busking culture. My friend Megan and I decided to go on the Sunday of a long weekend to just check out what was going on. We decided that the only thing we really wanted to see was the skeleton birds, and to just wing the rest!
It was about 12pm when we rocked up, and everything was just starting to kick off. Since our friendship is based on getting drunk together (seriously, even our Facebook “friend anniversary” video reflects this… we’re working on it.) we decided to start off the day at a conveniently located tequila bar. Did someone say sangria??
We moseyed on down the street (the entire main street was blocked off to traffic), passing big brass bands and acoustic guitarists to another bar which had just opened up in Freo – Ronnie Nights. We had a strange drink, which I can’t remember the name of, but was made of Aperol, beer and fruit juice. Weirdly delicious.
Next up we continued down the street to the National Hotel, where The Kif-Kif Sisters were performing on a big stage, so we sat down with a coconut mojito and some hot chips and watched the slap stick comedy.
One thing led to another, and we decided to get a spontaneous tattoo! A tattoo after 3 very toxic beverages! What could go wrong? We walked up to 5 Star Tattoo parlor and got a matching sun and moon tattoo. I got mine on my wrist, and Meg’s got hers on her ankle. They did a great job.
Once we finished we realised we missed the BirdMen. Sad face. We decided to walk down to Little Creatures Brewery to catch some of the action instead… but when we got to the Esplanade we were pleasantly surprised! The BirdMen! We didn’t miss them after all!
After we chased them around the park a little, we continued our journey to Little Creatures, where there was a man and a t-rex running around chasing each other. We didn’t quite understand what was going on, so we retreated into the coolness of “Creatures Next Door” and watched an amazing acoustic guitarist play some amazing covers. Once we had filled our bellies with pizza and beer, we made our way back to the main street.
We made a couple of stops along the way (of course) and did some crowd watching.
Finally we couldn’t deny it any longer.. we wanted to go back to that amazing tequila bar for some more sangria! From this vantage point we could enjoy our sangria and munch on paella while amazing street bands and Brazilian dancers passed on by.
I think you would need a few days at the Fremantle International Street Arts Festival to be able to see ALL the acts (or a more planned out schedule). It’s a beaut weekend for all the family, or a couple of lushes like ourselves haha.
