This blog has taken me ages to get to simply because there’s just so much to write about. I guess I’ll use the time-honoured tradition and start at the beginning:
We had three days between the close of Woodford (we stayed on at the site those extra couple of days) and catching the 6am plane for Hobart. Luckily, it was just a matter of washing the Woodford stuff, restringing and then putting everything back into the bags. 6am flights are nasty. It means a 3am get out of bed. Nasty (and I’m still sorry Sarah –there really was no later choice). The flight was fine, the nice person at Virgin let us check in those few extra muso kilos without any trouble and after a wee changeover at Sydney, we were in Jackman & MacRoss before we knew it, hugging Helen and eating our beloved friands, pies and coffee. I won’t bother extolling their virtues here –just look at any of the previous blogs.
That night we played a small little gig at the Lark Distillery as part of the program launch, and it gave us a great opportunity to catch up with all our good friends and of course sample Bill and Kiera’s fabulous whiskeys and liqueurs.
We were asked back in March to perform at this year’s Cygnet Festival, and we’ve been looking forward to it since then. We played a guest spot there in 2007 and it’s just a wonderful little festival, set in the town of Cygnet in the Huon Valley, which is about an hour’s drive south of Hobart. It’s a beautiful area, lush, green, full of orchards and organic food producers. The days were hot, but the temperature dropped quite dramatically when the sun went down, and just coming off the heat of Woodford, we probably hadn’t packed as many warm things as we should have. Still, that’s what the alcohol and tunes were for! So, once again packed in to Helen’s big red ex-fire truck Hilux, we set off on adventures. We had a wee bit of a surprise as we found we were staying in the scout hall at the main camp ground, quite literally four mattresses inside a large hall. That was fine until the Scouts came in at 5am to fire up a campers’ breakfast BBQ in another section of the hall. Every so often, a uniformed lad would sneak through a door and then, head down, bolt for the kitchen to get a fork or something, then thunder back. Of course, after an hour or so, the hall was filled with a sausage-tinged haze that made sleeping (and indeed breathing) a bit tricky, so it was off to the bucket showers (I kid not).
The gigs went down really well. We had an extra workshop that we weren’t aware of (and some of the programming had been changed but not updated in the program or with us), but other than that, we had a great time. The highlight once again was Dougie MacLean. Bridget and I bumped into him on the first night, wandering around in search of some fun and we ended up hanging out. Now, this is where I come to the only real downside with the festival. After dark, Cygnet becomes…belligerent. That seems to be the best way to describe it. As we walked the High Street, we were abused from the dark (one guy told Dougie ‘Get a fucking haircut and a job, hippy,’ which we all found hysterical) and there are quite literally gangs of kids roaming around looking for trouble. This isn’t my over active imagination at work, as there were even ‘guards’ on the entrance to the camp site. It’s a odd thing, and it sparked much discussion over the weekend. You’d think that people would be happy for the custom and tourist influx (I know we spent a great deal of our fee eating at the superb Red Velvet Lounge and the wonderful coffee at the Lotus Eaters Café), but friends who live locally tell us it’s a fairly common thing in the area. There just isn’t anything to do after dark (except harass folkies once a year apparently). But enough of the negative, it really was only a small thing and didn’t impact on our enjoyment at all (although Bridge and I did walk Dougie home at about 4am –and I’m not sure if that was for his protection or the local populace…)
So, Dougie. We’d chatted about the idea of us doing a song together, and he was still keen, so we decided to have a crack at Green Grow the Rashes. We met up with him the next morning (we had a gig right after his in the main town hall that afternoon, which was perfect) and pretty much spent a wonderful morning jamming on a picture-perfect verandah surrounded by flowering shrubs and rolling hills. This was also the first time Helen got to meet him (she’s been a fan for many many years) and that was really special (we’d gotten Dougie to leave a message on her answer machine at Woodford that she’ll probably never delete). It wasn't long before Helen had spoken to Jenny MacLean and they'd agreed to come to Stanton after the festival for some chill out time. Helen is just amazing. She could sell a eunuch Viagra if she wanted to. Towards the end of the session, the subject of didgeridoos came up, and Dougie showed us this new, tuneable one he’d bought outside of Eumundi. It was great; plastic, not too heavy and sectioned so that not only was it tuneable to all keys, but it telescoped down to be very portable. And it sounded brilliant. So, pushing our luck, we asked him if he’d like to play on Travelling Man as well, which has a didge on the album, but obviously very rarely live. He agreed, the pointed out he’d not played for about 11 years (he was actually taught by Aborigines in far north Queensland during one of his tours many moons ago). So with Sarah hurriedly learning the Scots words to Green Grow the Rashes, me trying to remember the intricate little guitar runs he’d shown me and Dougie remembering how to circular breathe, it was going to be a great afternoon.
And it was. The crowd that showed for Dougie stayed for us, and we played a really nice set of originals only. I was in a personal hell because something in my guitar floor rig hadn’t survived the flight (I was hoping it was only the power transformer and not the irreplaceable EQ unit), but halfway through one of the songs Bridget cracked up. She told me later it was because she had seen Dougie off to the side of the stage peeking at the audience through his didge as if it were a telescope. It was an amazing personal experience to play on stage with him, but in such a reciprocal manner too; one of his songs, one of our songs. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
It was a great festival. We met up with Queensland friends Dave, Judy, Martin and Narelle there (for the second time) and also got to catch up with people we’d performed with before like Ethereal, Andrew Winton, the inimitable To’rags and of course Women in Docs.
There’s a second part to this blog, detailing the gigs and events that happened on the rest of our Tasmanian trip, but I think I’ll knock that up as a second entry, as there’s quite a lot still to tell.
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