It's Spring! The sunburnt land is somewhat greener as we travelled to Bathurst and Oberon for a the weekends gigs. 

With our Golden Roadie away for the weekend, we were forced to resort to a 'hired' van (sigh). I had thought  maybe we could just get a station wagon to carry the gear...Foolish Young Jedi. Fortunately, caution got the better of me and I grabbed a Van...here's the result:

Thats right folks, 6 cubic metres worth of capacity and we were almost up to the roof. Yikes!

I especially like the model name of the van:

You betcha, with Carl S. away, who else was gonna load it? Thank god I was an avid Tetris fan, cos that took quite some doing (COME BACK CARL WE MISS YOU...and your 1.5 tonne carrying capacity)..

 Once again I was obliged to recognise that we can only do what we do thanks ot the assistance and love of so many friends. We were lucky that our good mate Dave (Vertical) was willing to take on the roadie duties, Bless Your Cotton Socks, Dave, we couldnt have done it without you.

Although we were missing 1 Carl, we were joined by another Carl, in the form of Carl Alwert on Bass for the weekend. Carl did an outstanding job of mastering three sets worth of material in a short space of time, enough for me to christen him 'Noodle's' as he's ready in 2 minutes :-)

Here's Carl taking a forward position during our 2MCE interview on Sunday:

We packed our gear Friday night and headed up to Bathurst mid day Saturday.

I took the Bell's Line of Road and Dave took some shots of the increasingly green countryside. I mention every few blog posts that one of the best parts of doing this gig is the opportunity to see some stunningly pretty NSW countryside. SIt back and enjoy the greenery for a moment:

Now for our Australian Audience, you'd all know the Rugby was on this weekend (more crying about that in a moment) and as we arrived at our Deluxe Accomodation. we found access to the most important thing - the Rugby Channel. Although the reception left something to be desired.

After settling in, we headed for the Bathurst RSL where Steve C and his lovely daughter Jamie came to hang out and give us a hand. Steve will be on Bass with us next weekend at the Bald Rock and was incredibly helpful with the sound desk for the night. Cheers Steve!

Saturday night was the first time I tried the new Multicore/Stagebox and it had a small labelling issue with the 6 and 9 channel outputs labels reversed, which caused me some degree of nuisance value trying to figure out exactly what the heck was wrong with it. I spent more time than logic warranted as I couldnt believe a brand new unit would have a dud channel out of the box.  Eventually I relented, swapped channels and with Steve and Dave manning the sound desk, away we went.

A shout out to Leanne, Simon, Tim, Sean and the folks at the Bathurst RSL for a grand evening.

With the gig done, it was time for another Tetris Repack of the van and then off for a well deserved rest.

The next day we were due for a recording session with 2MCE, but first we took advantage of the reccomended Bathurst Breakfast Spot and visited Elies cafe for the Big Breakfast, which in fact, was so big, it took 2 people finish Dave's

Rosie was stoked to find his favourite coffee style available! Macchiato anyone?

With nourishment aboard, we headed off to Charles Sturt University and 2MCE for a Live reocrding session.

A huge thankyou to Mark, Keith and Mal for spending their Sunday in the studio.

Of course, fitting a 5 piece band into the Studio requires yet more Tetris skills. Theo spent a little time working out where to put the drum kit.

I was able to watch Mark, Ketih and Mal (conventiently in name order) tapping there feet and bopping along as we ran through 11 songs, including some of the stuff that will be on the next album. I'm not sure how many tracks will make it through to the broadcast, but when it's done, I'll post a link. It should be on air in a few weeks.

During a short break, I went to the special place that drinking too much tea sends you to and thought it was worthwhile noting that the Graffito on the walls of University Bathrooms is decidely higher brow than the average pub :-)

We send our profound gratitude to Mal, Mark and Keith (in a small world moment, Paul used to get his Sitar strings from Keith back in the day, spooky...) for all their efforts and we look forward to hearing the results.

With the Tetris Mobile Repacked (AGAIN! Carl come back!) and the GPS programmed, we headed for the Shakespeareanly-titled Oberon for an evening gig. Dang, that was another gorgeous drive.

In the main room, you can win this:

Rosie asked how they got it in there. I suggested they told some school kids it belonged to the Principal and let nature take its course :-)

With the sound gear worked out and the correct channels identified, setup was a breeze and it turns out the Multicore makes things a lot neater. See, no Spaghetti wiring everywhere!

Note, the empty Mike spot is where'd I'd be, but 1: i was doing the sond check and 2 someones gotta take da pictures :-)

With setup so quick, I had a chance to go see some more Spring in action in the grounds of the RSL:

and a moment of Street Sign Censorship:

Heh. If you dont know where you are, just tell them you're at the corner of Snapped Off and Jagged :-)

Now the Sunday gig was hard. Not because of the crowd (they were both receptive and appreciative), not because of the Sound system (all working fine)...but because....The Wallabies were playing the All Blacks!

The game started around 2nd set time for us and it was all I could do to remember my bits, wiyt half an eye on the videoscreen. However, after a few unanswered points from New Zealand I quickly turned away and concentrated on the playing to keep my mind off the matter...

A big thanks to Kylie, Jamie, Grahame Lorraine, Scott and the Oberon locals. Although we didnt win the meat tray (Argh) or the Rugby (Noooo!!!) we had a great night and look forward to playing there again soon.

As darkness deepened, it was one last game of Van Tetris and then the long and Windy road home .

We're back on deck this weekend at the Bald Rock, which is considerably closer, we hope to have your company at one of our gigs soon!