Back from the Yack, we left at 0-dark-30 this morning, yikes! But at least I'm home in time to Blog, so sit back, pull up a chair, (reverse the order of those instructions or you'll fall on the floor), grab a beverage and enjoy your Virtual Tour with the boys as we head for the Yackandandah Folk Festival (Yaaay!)

Day 1 - It's Friday, It's Friday, lets go to Victoria! Do I take the front seat, the back seat, it's Friday...

A 'work' day and here we are, in the car, doing what musicians do best.

Filling out unemployment forms? Visiting Free Clinics (scratch scratch)...Nope.

Driving!

With scenery like this, good music on the CD player (old school huh?), its a nice way to spend a Friday.

As we passed through the midway point to the Victorian border I noticed that the whole Goulburn/Yass area was unusually....green.

I'm so used to seeing that belt of NSW as orange, rust and tan. This years flooding rains have left the path down past Canberra a very healthy shade of green.

Stopping for AutoGas near Gundagai, I noticed someone had added a philosophical moment to the back of the service station sign.  When I see stuff like this it makes me wonder about the person that wrote it. A nihilistic local? The rear passenger of a car without DVD players in the headrest? An unhappy employee? Cheer up mate, it's Friday!

We rolled into Yackandandah around Dusk and found that the warnings about it being chilly were accurate.

This weekend we were very pleased to be rejoined by our Golden Roadie, back from Queensland, and his namesake, Carl, on Bass.

Carl and Carl, or if you prefer, Carl and Carl.

After a visit to the festival office to retrieve our Special Passes (ooh! Armbands! Cool) we headed over to the Yackandandah Hotel to check out our first venue for the 11pm show.

The other acts were already playing and we had enough time to catch a meal and get ready for our show.

The band playing before us was The Eastern, out of New Zealand, over here for a brief tour, but they'll be back again in May. Adam and the girls had things going very nicely and i got a moment of the end of their set.

As this is a 'Folk Festival' we had divided our sets up into a late night set, an afternoon set and an evening set, varying the choices of songs to suit the location and time of day.

For the Friday night, at a pub, late set, we opted for the quick stuff.

Oh, a special note - Our good mate and friend of the band Roscoe emailed me from the 'Stan, where he's back doing what he does. I received the email as we were walking out the door to head for the fest so I didn't get much of a chance for a reply, so I asked the crowd if they'd send a special greeting for Roscoe and they very kindly obliged:

With that introduction, we went straight into Roscoes Boogie. 

The annexe we were playing in was open air, in the plummeting temperatures of a Yackandandah night. We ended our set and just when you think the audience would want to go stand by the roaring fire in the main bar, nope, they flashmobbed the dance floor as we started an encore of Over Yonder.

Cheers to Darren, Howard, Jo, Sue and all the folks from the night. 

We headed from the pub off in search of Sue & Colins house. Sue and Colin had graciously offered to Billet the boys for the night, thank you both.

We had a very nicely appointed guest shed :-)

But nothing shows the love more than coming back from a late gig and finding Sue's home made Anzac Biscuits. Sue, you rock.

And thus the evening concluded amidst tall musicians tales, cups of tea and a biscuit or two. This is living :-)

 Day 2 - Chickens, Seal (The Bluesgrass Cover) and African Dancers!

A bright crisp morning for our second day. The group consensus was that it was cold...but not Cumnock Cold (LOL, Hi Jo!)

Our gracious hosts had chased their Rooster up to the main house to prevent his normal 4am alarm call but he was released upon our awakening. Hi Chicken.

Colin inherited a few sheds worth of stuff when he got the place years ago, its a Pickers Paradise!

Speaking of picking, Sue took Noodles (carl #2) and me for a walk and introduced us to the joys of her fresh fig tree and fresh apple tree. Sue had laid on the provisions for a cooked breakfast, including farm fresh eggs (here chick chick chick) and as the first of our two shows for the day wasn't until 4pm, it was time for Brunch.

Noodles went wandering in the fields, and came back with fresh basil, parsley and cherry tomatoes which I added to the Farm Fresh Eggs, just as they finished scrambling. Mmm good.

Mr Wizard is encouraging me to write a Band Cookbook. Hmmm...not a bad idea. This will make a great shot - scrambled eggs with herbs and fresh tomato :-)

But life isn't all about brunch. I mean, obviously Brunch is important (and remember to take your own Tabasco when on tour, kids! Another helpful hint), occasionally we have to go play music, so it was off to the first of our gigs, at the Star hotel, with a quick stop at the fesival offices.

Inside at the Star Hotel, a good crowd was gathered at the star and listening ot some great music.

The festival had lost a venue, so things got a little hectic for the rest of the day as they had managed to find space for everyone to play, but you had to be brutally efficient in setting up and packing in.

SO it was a quick lug in whilst Mustered Courage were playing some fantastic bluegrass, including a cover of 'Kiss from a rose' in Kentucky Flat Pickin' style :-)

Meanwhile, we set up off-stage...sort of.

While the boys continued setting up, I caught a few moments of Mustered Courage:

They did some fanstaic Bluegrass versions of popular songs and had some great harmonies. As soon as the 5 minute warning went up it was time to end their set and jump off stage to head for their next gig :-)

The hour we had to play included set up time, so we did a quick set list edit mid set to make sure we'd finish before the 5 minute warning. For this set we had arranged to play more of the stuff from Carl's Chair and some of the softer songs such as The Way That She smiles and end on a few of the faster numbers.

The crowd were particularly nice to us, shielding their eyes as the sun came streaming over the Marquee. They called for an encore and we had just enough time to do a quick version of Same Old Blues and then it was thank you, good night and quickly hoist everything out of the way so the next act could get on and we could make our way tot he Holcim marquee.

We had the luxury of a change over for this venue, so things were a little more relaxed

As night fell and things began to cool off, it was time for our second show for the day and last for the festival.

We began our last set, this time an even 45 minuter, which is pretty short for us and we charged ahead happily. Mr Wizard said later, 'what happened? I look up and suddenly we had a full house?'

Heh. I was so busy using my camera...I mean phone...to check that we weren't going to run over time that  I didn't get any shots of the gig, but that's OK, because as we finished up, the next band were champing at the bit to get on stage for some awesome African  drumming and I was ready to do some filming.

We would have stuck around for more, but Theo has convinced the guys to make an early start for home the following morning, so we bade our goodbyes and went back for a well deserved rest.

Day 3 - Homeward Bound 

We got up at a very non musician, but very Theo hour for the trip home. Ye Gods. Even the Rooster was silent :-)

Van packed, it was time to hit the road and enjoy the beauty of an early morning drive.

Here is your moment of Zen - 2 minutes of driving into the Sunrise on the NSW/Victorian border: BTW - nothing happens in this clip, it's what it says on the can, 2 minutes of driving into the sunlight. Ah, pretty.

What a grand weekend. Thanks to the Yackandandah Folk Festival, Sue, Colin, Jo, Val and all the folks who made it so worthwhile.

We're playing closer to home this coming weekend in Jannali. Hope to see you there!