Woodford Folk Festival Dec 27-Jan 1
The decorations of Xmas linger here in the tropics, welcome to Santa's Barbecue! It's Seattle-ish on my arrival in Brisbane, a welcome cloudy drizzle. There's been a terrible drought here for months. I gravitate to a very tall elegantly suited old man holding an oud, figuring he must be for Woodford festival too. It's Christos Baltzidis from Melbourne and he and I and another half dozen musicians are stuffed into a van-oh my what a smell! Wet mud from the festival site, musty musicians after long plane rides, feet; after a few minutes I'm used to it. The fug of my people, the musicians.
Woodford is about 45 minutes from Brisbane in Queensland, a state not unlike Florida-redneck ranchers and beach hugging party children, retirees and families on vacation, a familiar social recipe (for disaster, usually). Although the ranchers have more of a grip here than in Florida, the cows are looking pretty skinny in the dry fields we pass and the money's in the coast tourist economy.
We'll be here for six full days-that's a lotta festival. I've been here two (three??) times before and each time I feel like I need to make more of an effort to see everything. The Aboriginal storytelling, the acrobatic burlesque, the greatest Irish fiddler, the Afgan tribal musicians, the self-immolating singer-songwriter, the man who plays a carrot, the electric mariachi ensemble with the Vera Cruz harp player-jeez I become immobilized trying to decide and end up at a wine bar watching the little girls twirl their batons in the dusty bazaar. Pushing through crowds is tiring. There's a relaxed state of mind that allows you to drift at no particular speed like a jellyfish in a current, but if you're trying to hit your mark across the plaza carrying your gear, then it's the sargasso sea of entangling drift.
Queensland to New South Wales Jan 2-5 2007
We get a ride to the Caboolture train station from Woodford, barely making the train into Brisbane with the help of John Henry, a young man who's obviously had a life changing experience spending a week at Woodford. He ate with the Hare Krishnas and danced with the reggae heads, volunteered for work crews, stayed up all night, lived in a tent, got in a fight with his mate and his money's all gone. Very sweet fellow-he's reading Dickens and quoting Montaigne-we offer to buy his ticket, but he wants no hand outs. But when he sees that we'll never make the train with all our instruments and crap to get over the pedway, he shoulders the bags, Steve buys three tickets and we jump on as the conductor signals the doors to close. Then he's ok, as it's a fair amount of work for a $5 ticket.
We get up bright and early for the 6am train down the coast. Queensland continues to demonstrate it's Florida-like demographic, so the train is full of anorexic hillbilly moms yelling at their kids on the way to the snack-bar and conservative old couples who packed a lunch. Does one metamorphize into the other like some kinda insect transformation??
The train turns to a bus at Casino and takes us through Bangalow (namesake of my Big Australian Hit!) to Byron Bay, where the emmisories of the Byron Bay Ukulele Club greet us with festive "alohas" at the bus stop. Dan and Sally take us in hand, feed us lunch, wash our muddy Woodford clothes, xerox my charts and deliver us to the pub where 35 ukesters young and old, with every kind of uke, from gummy-worm colored Mahalo's to koa-wood beauties are gathered, gossiping, eating giant plates of food on top of their songbooks, just a rebumbio grandote. All hail the ukulele love wave!
Next day, back on the train to Wauchope NSW, where the excellent Krissa Wilkinson, art dawg and mosaic artist supreme, picks us up and immediately takes us to vist her friend Arthur, a painter in his 80s she likes to visit, who lives in an old church out in the bush. He and his little dog offer us cake and cigarettes and we admire his house full of paintings and other art objects assembled over a lifetime of pondering and traveling. High culture at the beach, that's our Krissa!
As usual playing one of her shows, a great mix of people assemble at the arts hall: all the bush hippies and the poets and the cafe lesbians and the fishermen and the lot all mix it up and socialize in the parking lot with coolers of beer.
Krissa takes us back to her tall round house where we hang out 'till the Friday midnight train to Sydney. Our bunks are lovely-clean soft sheets turned down, fluffy towels-how excellent to sleep rolling along through the moonlit bush!
