Almanac Music: The Over the Hill Blues

Are you in? For sure, came the instant reply but that blitheness hid nagging doubts. It’s been a long time, not at all match fit, have the times a’changed too much?

 

Picked for the away trip, taking on the Summer Salt Music Festival at Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast. A roster of Australian bands—Josh Pyke, The Waifs, The Whitlams,  Fanning Dempsey National Park, Missy Higgins and John Butler. A full day in the sun on a shadeless reserve, exposed in all kinds of ways with nowhere to hide. Not even from your old boss skip one who also made the well-grooved trip from Canberra to the Bay along with thousands of other mid-ranking public service/hard rocking types.

 

The last outing was epic, exacting, a test of endurance and fortitude, a feat never to be forgotten, but twenty years ago. The 2004 Byron Bay Blues Fest, a week of sun and storms, sleep deprivation, over-stimulation and astonishing sounds, was attempted only after years of dedicated conditioning, promptly lost with the arrival of the first born a few months later. So, time to lace up the old guernsey once again but would it even fit?

 

Oh, ye of little faith. Effortless it was, like slipping on a glove. Got a good possie in front of the stage, lined up the mandatory folding chairs (picnic blankets verboten) in a defensive formation and protected it from foot traffic with the esky strategically placed and passively aggressive body language. Runs for refreshment and relief with timed with natural lulls in the crowd’s motion. Watching humanity unfold in open display from the corners of sun-glassed, soft eyes.

 

There were moments, though. Josh Pyke kicked off in full glare of the noonday sun. Your confessional singer songwriter type, his act was polished but with an energy and intimacy more suited to a dark and dingy pub than the whited-out tracts of Mackay Park. Sun stroke threatened but the sea breeze picked up. Then The Waifs hit the stage and the crowd picked up too. The veteran outfit is led by two sisters from Albany WA and a guitar ace from Moruya, just down the road from the Bay. They bestowed a procession of musical gifts: beautiful blood harmonies, virtuoso performances on electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin, and harmonica, knitted together in complex, evocative stories sung in pure old-fashioned Strine. The best was ‘Bridal Train’, a foot stomping tearjerker about the sisters’ grandmother travelling east in WWII with other girls from around Austraya to marry her Yankee saila.

 

The freshening easterly blew in high clouds and The Whitlams. Their set began with a mystifying, to this ex-Vic anyway, potted history of 1970s Sydney (who is John Sattler and what happened to his jaw?) but then came a reassuring reprise of their hits. Frontman Tim Freedman, a bit shaggier but hardly changed from the quirky 90s, ran through the gears like he was Oppy, each song building to finish on rocking grooves, ‘I Make Hamburgers’ and ‘You Sound Like Louis Burdett’ (who is he?) the bangers.

 

Fanning Dempsey National Park, the new act for Bernard Fanning from Powderfinger and Paul Dempsey from Something for Kate, kicked off with a couple of songs from their new album. Very nice, slightly unexpected, heavy on the electronic beats and keys. Naturally, the old songs got a guernsey, too, much to the crowd’s delight (and relief, no doubt). The rousing, familiar opening chords of ‘Wish You Well’ got the crowd out of their folding chairs and chopping the sky in unison. The set ended with Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’. Wasn’t bad.

 

Dusk brought on hunger pangs and Missy Higgins. Poor timing. Intense introspection and solipsistic ‘narratives’ competing with the race for pizzas. Hard to digest, really. Anyways, enough said. Post-prandial John Butler was superb. Another one from the west, fizzing with funky energy, backed by bongos and the usual skins, he cranked out amazing sounds from his guitar and punctured bloated targets with his spiky lyrics. Extra vehement barbs for the WA mining industry and their pliant politicians. A long acoustic guitar instrumental, introduced with a riff on the benefits of prayer in times of despair, slowly grew into a shimmering fugue, his hands racing up and down the instrument in his lap sending out distorted lamentations. A dirge to purge the mind. Sublime. Perfect ending to a perfect day.

 

The Summer Salt tour wends its way throughout Australia for the next month or so.

 

 

To read more by Matt Gately click HERE.

 

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