MJEB's Tamworth Festival 2013 Report part 1
Howdy folks, we're back and blogging. Now I have heard a lot of scuttlebutt from a range of sources, most of whom won't want to be named, suggesting that this years Tamworth Festival was down in numbers.
I am a little wary of adding 2 and 2 and getting 5 these days (more on that later) but for my money, I think the scutlebutt is right. There was ample parking. OUCH!
Things got busy at the end of the week, but the early days of the festival were not quite as crowded as I have seen in the past two years, and that's including the year with the major floods (just before the festival, not the major floods this year during the festival..)
Once again, floods, bush fires and natural disasters were the backdrop for this years festival, although they were far enough away to simply be items of interest on the news.
Nonetheless, for our regular readers, here's some of our experiences at the 2013 Tamworth Country Music Festival:
Day 1 - On Da Road Again
With my beloved wagon out of commission and an appreciation of the risks of country road driving, I opted to rent a vehicle. My bank balance is lighter but the vehicle was Nice.
Bluetooth, cruise control, tinted windows? ALL RIGHT!
Fitting all our gear/food into the vehicle still required the Yoda-like Tetris skills of a master packer.
Behold!
Bill V, our guitar Tech, was bringing his car which was also seconded for equipment transport.
Ye Gods.
During the previous week, the temperatures had been in the 40's almost everywhere (that's 110f and climbing for all you o/s readers) and we were expecting a hot one in Tamworth.
However, the minute we head for a destination it seems to start raining. Typical bloody stormcellar weather.
We had a fine drizzle all the way up the Cessnock
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As i had the GPS, Bill and Mr Wizard were behind me following along and I spent some time lookin in my rear vision mirror to make sure they were still there.
As we passed through a low speed serpentine corner, I got confused about the GPS directions and indicated the wrong way, corrected, then turned. I looked up to the rear view mirror to check whether I had confused Bill with my indicator error and saw that they were no longer behind us. Oops, my bad. We pulled over so they could catch up and Rosie gave them a call to tell them about the correct turn when he got a strange response. They hadn't been confused by the indicator error, they had decided to stop by the side of the road.
In a fence.
Yep, that light drizzle had made the roads very slick and whilst traveling at 10 kph, they had aquaplaned straight off the side of the road into a fence.
It was that fast. One moment they were behind us, the next minute..
It was remarkable good fortune that neither Bill nor Mr Wizard were injured.
Bills Car however, is somewhat worse for wear, ditto the fence.
The poor lady whose house the fence belonged to was startled to say the least. Bill was fully insured so it's all good (as good as disaster gets) but still...
The car was drive-able but Paul couldn't get out of the passenger side and had to limbo back and forth to get in and out.
The moral to the story - BE CAREFUL ON THE ROADS - NO FOOLIN. This happened so fast and it was only a combination of low speed and good luck that no one was badly hurt.
As you can imagine, this was a little unsettling so we took advantage of the next Driver Reviver we came to for a break and a quick double check of the car.
These road side stops giving out free coffee and tea in an effort to get people to take much needed breaks for long cross country trips are a godsend. These volunteers are saving lives.
That doesn't stop me from appreciating some accidental signage humour:
We concluded that Bills Car could finish the journey but would need a new tire at Tamworth so we thanked our volunteer beverage makers and resumed the journey.
The remainder of our trip was uneventful but picturesque.
With the nifty Bluetooth feature my personal phone playlist was providing me with an enjoyable soundtrack to the drive.
Maybe not so much for Rosie. How can you not like Skrillex?
As the hours passed, the skies cleared, Skrillex thumped On ( Make it bun Dem!, LOL) and we reached the outskirts of Tamworth.
We arrived at our accommodation (Cheers Pete), parked Bill's wounded car and settled in for the night, ahead of our first gig at noon the following day.
Ah, red sky at night, travelers delight.
Day 2
This year we were back at the Albert hotel for a string of gigs and once again,t he sound system was pretty formidable. Cheers Dan!
We'd divided our shows into Day and Night sets, featuring all of the Nice stuff (we don't usually get to play in pubs) during daylight shows and doing all the faster stuff at night.
We were very fortunate to have the lovely Ms Jo Fitzgerald join us for the week and it made all the harmony songs shine. What a joy.
After the gig, it was my turn to go to the store for veggies for that nights band meal and I got some footage of the line dance classes being held in the shopping Centre :-) Cute.
That night we were invited for a BBQ at Gasmans place with some of the regular festival performers.
Cheers to Michael, Michael, Steve, Rudie, Sigi, Sean, Nicole and everyone else. what a grand way to spend an evening.
Day 3
By now the temperatures had shot back up and everyone was sweltering during the day.
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Bill is surprisingly chipper in spite of his car's status. I guess that's what good insurance does for ya huh?
Jo spotted some a great pic in a frame at the family:
"Saterday" :-)
We had a great gig at the Family and I was amazed by one audience member who explained she had flown up from Melbourne just to see us. Wow.
Also, cheers to Stephen C for dropping in to see us.
Once again, we found ourselves back at the accom in the evening settling in for some more hard living on the road.
Another semillon anyone?
We also took some time to rehearse a new song, you never know, I might even persuade the boys to let me share a rehearsal recording of it..
Day 4
What's with this weather???
Sweltering hot gives way to thunderclouds and rain again as we set out for a gig at the Albert.
It was our first Night gig at the Albert so it was time for a stronger set. First though we had to load in and I had a chance to listen to the Waz E James Band
Our good mate Steve tried signaling me with an Ozark Mountain Daredevils Sign. I just thought he was making fun of my Sunglasses.
Ok, so as per usual, we're about to start our show and the weather closes in..
Theo and Rosie were quick to get their stuff setup outside the pub.
Seems I'm always seeing rainbows :-)
But enough rainbows, quickly it was time for our first front bar set. We discarded most of the 'nice' songs from the daylight set and made a bit of noise.
Here's Jo telling a story about one that got away.
We finished the set, packed our stuff up so the next band could commence and went home for an early night so we could get up for the Steve Passfield breakfast the following day..
(END PART 1)
