When we fly, Mannie and I have to check the guitar and bouzouki into the over-sized baggage area (long gone are the days of carrying our treasures onboard with us). Before the instruments disappear down the conveyer, they’re checked for explosives. A yawning security officer swabbed Mannie’s zouk and the machine started beeping. Nonplussed, he did another swab and again, the machine went nuts (I nearly wrote ‘ballistic’ there but that would’ve been a really crap joke!). On the third time it came through clean, and the guard explained they’re sometimes twitchy in the mornings. I guess machines need coffee too. But then as we went through the personal gate, Mannie was singled out for the search, and once again the swabs turned up positive. By now, we were wondering if perhaps it was something he worked with to do with carpentry, and were getting worried, but again, after a couple more runs it came through clean. The security people didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, but it was fairly amusing to me as the officer had a strong Russian-style accent, and there was Mannie with his Belfast brogue…
We caught the Port Fairy bus with a bunch of other similarly tired-looking musos including most of Shooglenifty (whom we seem to always bump into no matter where we are) and settled in for the 5-hour long, flat, brown bus ride. Thank heavens for iPods and airport novels!
Port Fairy is an utterly gorgeous town. Streets tunnelled by huge Norfolk pines, old kooky-looking buildings, the sea… It’s just lovely. It reminded us a little of Ross in Tasmania, except with the ocean. The festival itself is huge. The whole town gets involved, and for one weekend of the year this affluent sleepy seaside town is transformed utterly. The festival encompasses the town, using local venues, the main street, the surf club, church halls etc, with the central festival area taking over the vast sports/cricket ground. This part of the festival is separate, as it contains the paid venues, and it’s a bit like a country fair; big tents, stalls, performers etc, but the genius here is there’s a lot of free entertainment outside of the main event. Someone told me the tickets for this festival sell out so fast, they’re done through a lottery system. Judging by the great crowds, I’d believe it. The concert venues are great, and the organisers really go to town decorating the stages (something other festivals might want to take on board as some of the venues really did look special). The biggest of the tents looks like something out of Cirque de Solei and is really massive.
We were put up by the wonderful John & Del, in a very cosy B&B style environment. Beds were made mysteriously while we were gone, and chocolate biccies and tea bags were magically replenished. It was grand.
So, five gigs in four days. As this was our first time performing in Victoria, we really had no idea how we’d go, especially as there was a strong Celtic contingent including the aforementioned Shoogles, Nancy & James Fagan, Seamus Begley & Jim Murray, Alan Kelly, Colcannon and more.
We were just overwhelmed by the response.
Following on From Seamus Begley & Jim Murray -a tough job!
Our first gig inside the festival was so packed the MC had to come on halfway through and ask everyone to move in more. This brings me to a wonderful festival institution called the Port Fairy Shuffle. Most of the venues have very minimal seating, and patrons are encouraged to bring their own chairs (the small baby deckchair things –there’s a height restriction). This sounds clumsy, but it works very well, as for gigs like the Shoogles or The Waifs, there’s always lots of good dancing room. When asked, the whole seated audience will shuffle over to make more room. It’s quite something to behold. No grumbling, complaints, people just do it. It’s also quite odd to see folks wandering around with deck chairs slung over their shoulders. I doubt it would work somewhere like Woodford, because of the heat, but in temperate Western Vic, it works a treat! After the gig, we’re allowed to sell our cds from the side of the stage (there is also a well-stocked shop). From an artist point of view this is brilliant because it’s immediate, and despite what I thought, it didn’t get in the way of the next performer at all. After that gig, we had a queue across the floor for cds. Now this is my only negative about the weekend, but really it’s an amazing thing. We sold out of cds by the third day. I packed an entire caseload, and each of us had a load stuffed into bags. But hey, that’s a brilliant thing, and we ended up taking orders. I had an incredible moment, taking the last batch of cds into the store only to literally have them taken from in front of me one by one while I filled out the extra paperwork. By the time I had signed them in, they were gone.
The other wonderful ‘downside’ is that we are now very nearly sold out of our first pressing of albums. The second pressing will be delivered soon. It’s a very nice feeling!
We had the most amazing time. It’s an incredibly-well organised festival, and the support crews were just fantastic. Not once did we have a grumpy driver or an unhelpful person. In fact one of our drivers went out of her way to give us a guided tour of the town and the beautiful headland, and the crew even managed to organise a lift for us to Warrnambool on Monday, 25kms away (more about that and the Burke & Wills festival in another blog). We got to see a lot of great acts (in addition to those already mentioned), including Lior, The brilliant Scared Weird Little guys (I nearly lost my coffee over the country singer skit), the Waifs, Gibb Todd, Mark Seymour, The Audreys, and the awesome Nano Stern from Chile.
And the coffee was great too, although being a bit cool in the mornings, the queues were often huge!
It was a smashing weekend, easily worth the 2am departure! But it wasn’t over yet, as on the Monday, we hopped a car, a train, a bus then a hire car and made it to the extremely intimate Burke & Wills festival…
Listening to: 'Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 Soundtrack' by Bear McCreary
1 comment:
Caught you at Stage 5 and survived the scrum to buy a cd -really enjoying it. Thanks for the lovely music!! Can't wait for the next album.
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