Three out of four weekends in March we attended music festivals in NSW and Victoria. Interesting how we take away something different from each one, and how different they all are, in so many ways. Reflecting on that, we did a little comparison chart of our impressions as follows (I may have retired but my analytical brain is still working!)
We had a pleasant two day drive down the beautiful NSW south coast to Cobargo and got settled in the campground in time to see one of the opening acts at 4pm, Margaret and Bob Fagan. Margaret used to teach at the Montessori pre-school that Amy and Helen attended, so it was nice to speak with her after the show. Somehow their music always makes me sad; they deliver powerful messages. It was then full-on concerts (12 in total that day) until midnight. Great musicians, comedians and satirists. With the layout of the festival stages it was possible to take in parts of two or three acts per session time depending on how we liked them. It was always possible to get into every show.
Day two started for us with a visit from another couple who also own an Explorer motorhome like us. Unlike us, they had been up for hours so had a coffee while we had breakfast. Its like being in a club and most Explorer owners seek each other out on the road so makes it easy to find new, like-minded people to hang around with. Our first session was the all levels ukulele workshop with an American guitar wizard, Richard Gilewitz. Being keen we sat in the front row. It was way beyond us but interesting and informative. At the end I told him I found it confusing that everyone recommended different ways of strumming etc. He said it was his way or the highway!, and did give reasons why his approach was better. They expected 18 people at the Ukulele workshop and had over 60 there. After that we attended another 12 sessions and finished close to midnight again. Managed to fit in a 5pm drinks session with our Explorer friends and just bought pizza at a stand for dinner so we didn’t miss much.
Made a big effort to get to the starting 10am sessions on Day three and ended up seeing six sessions before we left around 3pm that afternoon. The festival was fantastic and we continued to enjoy new artists every session/every day. We met a few of the organizers and were really impressed with all the volunteers – so friendly and helpful! It was a well-run event, great musicians, good camping on the festival grounds and good take away food options, and we had fabulous hot weather to boot in a beautiful, green valley. What’s not to like!
Following that festival we headed to Melbourne to catch up with a few friends. Had to modify our route to avoid the bush fires (forest fires) in Victoria. Enjoyed a pleasant evening and driveway camping with Kathy and Graeme in Frankston South. The next day Kathy gave us a wonderful tour of the Mornington Peninsula. Had a nice dinner visit and more driveway/street camping with Stephanie and Ron, plus coffee with Jackie and lunch with Margaret. After that round of socializing and driving the van through Melbourne, we headed to Warrnambool to rest up before our next festival weekend. Enjoyed a good sleep in, some shopping in Warrnambool and the hot spa before bed (we’re now staying in caravan parks with all the extras we can get).
We thought we got to the festival early so we could get a good camping spot and look around the town before the festival opened at 5:30pm. Alas the camping was already quite crowded but we were happy with our spot.
Saw the opening ceremony and our new friends, The Naked Waiters (ukulele show) plus another 5 shows and got home around 11pm. The festival was a big production and popular events got full quickly, so we needed to employ new strategies to see the ones we wanted to see. Better to see shows that showcased 6 – 8 performers so we got more variety, and get there early for popular sessions, like Kasey Chambers (who we enjoy and got to see again). On day two we saw 6 shows, attended a book launch with our ‘friend’ Greg North (we met him at a few of his shows) and did a Uke workshop, so had an early night, with a 10:30 finish. Bought Greg’s book of limericks which inspired a new focus for me.
The theme of the festival was Woodstock (held 15th August, 1969) and the headliner act was Melanie who performed at Woodstock 50 years ago. So we took drastic measures to get to see her (including having afternoon naps). She was on at 8:15pm and we sat in the relevant tent from 4pm (to 1am) watching all the acts in that tent and moving up between acts so we were in a good position to see Melanie, and even then we were quite far back. But it was worth it and I was singing Melanie songs for two weeks after that. She was impressive and told lots of good stories, and following her the festival also had a session which gave all the background to how Woodstock was done. They had different acts sing the songs that were sung at Woodstock. All good fodder for our vintage!
After a good sleep in, I woke up and inspired by reading Greg North’s book, I wrote three limericks (copies follow at the end). We managed to go back to the festival and take in one final act before we went back to Warrnambool and have a rest/recovery day. Port Fairy was a good festival and an experience of a how a good, large festival works.
Our final festival in the series was completely different, and chosen due to the timing and location. We attended the Horsham Country Music Festival, along with several hundred other grey nomads (seniors) in caravans. Even though we were in the showground we had a nice spot by the river. We made it for the opening evening sessions. Key memories from that night can be summed up succinctly – yodelling and truck songs!
It was a four day festival but with only 12 performers we decided to do some other touring and focus on the key concerts. The Tribute Concert featured the songs of Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, John Denver, Dusty Springfield, Slim Dusty, Dolly Parton and Roy Orbison; which gives the flavor of the festival and was well done. In every concert there were people getting up and dancing at the front, and they were all good dancers. So much so that it was intimidating and took three days for us and others to get up the confidence to join the dancing.
We saw the feature concerts on the hot, sunny third day and the evening finale (which featured all the performers up on the stage) As we’d seen each performer 3 or 4 times, we decided we’d had enough and could skip the last day.
A separate blog will cover the hiking and touring we did on this trip, but I’ll finish this off with my three limericks.
FESTIVAL INSPIRED LIMERICKS
Here we are at another music festival
Running round like a bat out of hell
So many good acts to see
There’s no time to eat or pee
Am now tired and don’t feel so well.
I once played my uke at Port Fairy
Initially the class it was scary
The Naked Waiters were fun
Even with their clothes on
So now I can play and be merry
Inspired by Greg North, the bush poet.
A clever word man, who didn’t show it
Saw him in 3 different places,
Enjoyed all his various faces
Am now writing limericks, altho’ he doesn’t know it.
PS – he does know it now as I sent it to him!
