Mildura and Sydney

Bloody hell - what an amazing couple of weeks I have had. Hopefully I can remember all of it to tell you all...

I guess first port of call was our Fringe show. Every show ended up selling out, so you can imagine every performance was amazing just from the atmosphere alone. I can't thank everyone who came enough - you all make it the special event it was. I can tell you all that we were all quite emotional after the final show on the Sunday, especially Cookie. So much so that her voice was pretty much completely gone by the end of the show, but being the trooper she is, even gave in to the request of an encore, so what did she play? 'One More Time' by the one and only Britney. Brilliant.

There wasn't much time to get all sentimental though as on the Tuesday we had to drive the 4 hours to Mildura. By this time, there was a massive heatwave beginning in Adelaide, and Mildura is ALWAYS hotter than Ads, so we were blessed with temps between 37 and 41 for the entire week we were there. However, the heat aside, we had a bloody amazing time. We had a couple of side shows while we were there before the big final night one, and we saw some awesome acts that were part of the festival as well. But the big night was the Sunday night when we played at Music Under The Stars at the Perry Sandhills. Man, what an amazing place. Out in the middle of nowhere, they set up a stage in the midst of all these massive sand dunes, and thousands of people come, with picnic rugs in hand, and set up for the evening of music. Around 3000 people rocked up, but seriously, we were so blown away just by where we were, we didn't even notice them all while we were playing. It wasn't until we finished and walked out to where our friends were sitting that we realised the scale of the crowd. It was just insane. Then Ben Lee closed the night, and he was great! I have to admit that I haven't heard much of his stuff, and hence not the biggest fan, but I gotta take my hat off to him. He performed brilliantly, and the crowd absolutely lapped it up. And all done in acoustic mode as well, with just one other guy accompanying him on keyboard. And despite some of the negative reports I had heard about the guy, he was nothing but awesome to us. Had a few nice chats with him, and that's all I can really say about it.

So we came back to Adelaide for a few days before flying to Sydney. Cookie being the hard and tough musician she is, decided 'it would be best' to stay in a 5 star hotel for a couple nights upon arrival. Hey, I wasn't going to argue with that logic. So we made ourselves comfortable and tried to enjoy it all... ;) We played 4 shows during our week there, and they were all excellent, and all totally different. We did the first two supporting a friend of Cookie's (Renny Field) which were just amazing. He is the shit. Seriously, if he's ever in your area, you HAVE to check him out. He's actually going to the UK and Europe mid year, so just something to keep him in mind.

The last 2 gigs we did were at Balmain and Manly. The Balmain show was part of a night called 'Poptarts' which is a showcase of female songwriters, and it was here that we had the pleasure of seeing a girl by the name of Sarah Humphreys. We had met her a couple nights before as she was singing back-up's for Renny's gig, but when we realised we were both playing the same show in Balmain, we just about lost it. And I'm not kidding when I say everyone should check her out. Her album (which I bought on the night) is one of the most beautiful things I have heard in a LONG time. But yes, the whole week there was so much better than I had expected. We met some of the funniest people, and I think 80% of our time was spent laughing. And I just got a call from Cookie today that she has already booked another gig for us up there in June. Good stuff! But in the meantime, we have a couple gigs here in Ads that are going to be fun - supporting Angie Hart (of Frente! fame) at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, a couple of stints up at Nepenthe Winery, and we just got a call that we're supporting Kate Miller-Heidke at The Gov, which will be a full band show. Oooh yeah!

Well that's a quick rundown of the last two weeks. Oh, one more piece of news - Alpha Video, my place of work for the past 8 and a half years, got sold on the weekend, so come mid-april, I will officially be un-employed. Awesome... so if anyone knows of any casual jobs where they would be cool with me taking some time off every now and then (hospital and music) hit me up. :)

Healthwise I'm doing amazingly well. I definitely thought that I would be suffering a bit after the trips, but my lungs have held up fine. Hopefully that will continue.

Rating: 8.5

What I'm listening to: Sarah Humphreys - Teapot Trees and Love Birds...

Oh, and I’ve put pics up from all things the past month (Fringe show, Mildura and Sydney), so if you wanna see what things have looked like for me, check em out on my Flickr site. :)