Byron Wrapup Pt 3

follows on from this post

Day Three: Saturday
By now I was living the blues. Saturday's lineup didn't present as many big names as the previous two days, but I was keen to get to the fest and make some discoveries. In the end, I hung out with my cousins, got drunk, met some nice hippy girls, ate some more Langos, and had a great day.

Amos Lee
Word on the street was that this guy was worth seeing. He plays laid back bluesish tunes on his acoustic guitar, and matches it with a great soulful voice. My only criticism would be that he was a little too good. He was so talented, he made what he was doing look effortless. I want to see people suffer for their music. If you'll permit me a rather bizzare metaphore, It's like I can't get a musical erection without a bit of S&M. The blues usually gives me what I need.

Amos Lee: Too goddamn perfect

Wandering Around
Those readers with excellent memories will recall the schedule I posted in part 1 of this series. There's a bit of a gap between Amos Lee, which finished at 3:00, and the next act I saw all of, which began at 7:00. Where did these missing hours go? Well, I remember drinking, and wandering around with my cousins. I caught 20 mins of Fred Eaglesmith's set. He's a Canadian who sings country music, and has an unhealthy preoccupation with guns, trucks, trains and dogs. He sings a song called "I think it's time to go buy a gun", which is fantastic.

While waiting with my cousin Jake while my brother went to the toilet, we were, unbeknownst to me at the time, approached by three good looking females. I was daydreaming when I heard Jake say something like, 'go on, he loves it!'. The next thing I know, I receive a whack on the arse. Yelping, I turned around to see three girls run past me and into the crowd. Jake recalled the moment later on the family blog: 'Favourite moments of the fest - Three girls debating whether they should smack Andrew on the arse - I leaned over and said 'He loves a smack' - so they gave him a short, sharp whack." Love it I did.

It seems awfully decadent to pay $squillions to fly across the country (not to mention the cost to the planet in C02 emissions!) to attend a music festival, then ignore the musicians to wander around and get drunk. But sometimes you've got to take a bit of a break to refresh the musical palette. And sometimes, random girls smack you on the arse.

My brother (top), my cousin Jake (right), and two lovely girls we made friends with

Fishbone
My cousin Adam dragged us back to mojo to see these guys, who I'd never heard of. They're a black American group reminiscent of the Cat Empire, and they rock. The crowd were restless when they started out with a 10 minute, very cool jazz spoken word piece, but I was digging it. Soon, though, they launched into some high energy numbers (still very jazz-influenced), and suddenly everyone was dancing. The lead singer kept stage diving into the huge audience, getting passed round the mosh pit for minutes at a time, singing all the while. Big respect to the roadie who basically had to treat the guy's mic cable like a fishing line. When he came back towards the stage, the roadie would reel in the cable to stop it getting tangled in the crowd.

Soulman
Now I had a decision to make: did I want to check out rock legends Eric Burdon and The Animals, or stay at Mojo to wait for Ozomatli, who Adam informed me would rock? I knew that it would be a sin not to see the Animals, who are undisputed music icons. On the other hand, I was drunk and wanted to party with the young people. In the end, I resolved to head over to Crossroads, where the Animals were playing, check them out, and stay if they blew my mind. I did so and lasted five minutes before I lost concentration (I am a terrible man). As I wandered back to Mojo, I passed the Apra stage, where I saw Adam and my brother checking out Soulman. I stopped for a listen.

He's a Jamaican living in Perth, and sings fairly easy listening rocky acoustic pop. But he's got a really friendly, happy vibe, and you can't help but be won over by him. A pleasant way to spend 20 minutes.

Soulman

Ozomatli (Best crowd experience of the fest)
These guys were awesome. Another Cat Empire-style ensemble who knew how to get the crowd dancing and happy. At the end of their allotted hour, they needed to let the roadies set up for the next performance, but didn't want to stop playing. So they all jumped off the stage and started a procession through the audience - drums, horn section, singers, and girls on stilts dressed as flamingos. George and Alice will recall that a similar thing happened at the Batacuda Sound Machine performance last year; that was at Jambalaya, a small stage. This was in Mojo, and the crowd just couldn't believe it.

The band formed a circle right in the middle of the tent and started a chant. Each time they did this, from where I was standing you could hear the chant faintly at first (no mics), then it grew louder as the audience nearest them caught on. The chant would ripple back from the middle of the tent, till you could hear everyone in the tent and the people outside on the grass getting in on the action. An almost religious experience.

Ozomatli gets down with the massive crowd at Mojo

Bo Diddley
After Ozomatli I felt exhausted and energised at the same time. I stuck around to see if The Roots would be any good. The writeup in the program described them in much the same way as Ozomatli: large group with ecclectic influences including hip hop. In the case of The Roots, ecclectic meant borrowing from both Eminem AND 50 Cent. They stunk, and people started to float away from Mojo, myself included.

By then there was only one option, and that option was Bo Diddley. Half blues man, half blues legend, he's really really old but still very cool. Most of his songs are centred around how great he is, including 'Hey Bo Diddley', where he sings 'Hey Bo Diddley' and the crowd answers 'Hey Bo Diddley', and the 'Bo Diddley Rap', wherein Bo Diddley recounts his success with the ladies. A feel good end to another day in Blues Paradise.