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Last Active 01-01-70 12:00 am
Joined 01-01-70
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| Blue Mountains Folk Festival
In a little place called the Blue Mountains in the bottom right of Australia is a town called Katoomba which, while mostly boring, is home to the folk festival each year which brings artists both local and as far afield as Canada which is like, pretty fuckin' far, dude. See here my experience for the day/recommendations to check | | 1 | Daniel Champagne
First act of the night was a guitar circle, which was misleading cos it was actually four dudes in a straight line on stage jammin' out. They would each take turns at an individual tune, sometimes with the others playing along a bit, then go into an all-together jam, then repeat. The players were Glenn Skarrat and James Church (together making up the duo String Theories) and veteran player Nick Charles, but the highlight of the show (and at probably half the age of every other player) was Daniel Champagne. Dude is like, 20, and he outshines like EVERYONE EVER. He also has a great voice and brings across a real emotion in his songs when he's not just doing acrobatics on his gee-tar which is always a nice mixture. Anyway, you had a setlist of originals from all artists, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits covers, but my pick of the night has to go the man himself with a cover of Willie Dixon's Spoonful (live in-studio here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAqrYN5ONhY. 8.5/10 from Rowan | | 2 | David Bridie
I chatted to Daniel after the guitar circle-line. Super chill dude who's always up for a chat, and gave me some recommendations on who to see that day (oh I will get into those later, believe me). Anyway with no artists I was familiar with playing at the current moment I did what festivals are best for and wandered over to see if anything amazing was occurring in some corner or other. What I found was David Bridie, an Aussie artist with a small but dedicated following who was playing solo with a piano. One the one hand, his set was fairly samey and repetitive which dragged him down a bit, but he had a great voice and some good banter with the audience which was a bit more favourable. Standout song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fqqS2Zhpfc. 7/10 from Rowan, extra points for banter | | 3 | Alanna & Alicia
This act was a pair of twins whose gimmick was that they could make music because they were twins. When I came in, there was a song about, y'know, being identical twins which went on about how one had bigger boobs and they could pretend to be the other on the phone. It was amusing but stank of a gimmick to cover up the fact that the music was fairly uninteresting. 5/10 from Rowan (extra points because they have a superb celloist in their band) | | 4 | Dan Sultan
Dan was the only artist at the festival to use an electric guitar, which is pretty shocking if you're a 60-year-old grumpy blues enthusiast from Katoomba, NSW, Australia. Anyway, it gave him an edge over most of the other performers of the day because he really liked suddenly strumming and SHOUTING REALLY LOUD in otherwise quiet songs to wake people up. It worked too, because the dude has a fucking terrific bluesy-growl/near scream. Also some great on-stage banter about how you should never ask people in Ireland for directions. Dan played two separate sets in the day and night - while he complained about being sick in the day he was far more exciting then, as the night set ended with about half an hour of piano songs which were largely uninteresting except when Dan SUDDENLY SHOUTED. 8/10 from Rowan, standout song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMs7-O3guM | | 5 | Leah Flanagan
Only caught ten minutes of Leah on my way to the next act, but from what I saw she was playing up the sultry angle a lot with lots of highly charged lyrics and slow, creeping tempos. Not really qualified to give a rating because I was briefly there but extra points for featuring a dude on double bass | | 6 | Andie
Andie is an eighteen-year-old local who's good friends with some of my good friends, and it's crazy to think someone our age has played in festivals with the likes of John Butler and the Cat Empire, but there you go. Her lyrics are still stuck a bit in the uhh, teenage phase, but she has a voice well beyond her years and a comfortable stage presence which is, well, also well beyond her years. 8/10 from Row, standout was (clearly) her cover of Skinny Love | | 7 | Lime & Steel
Banjo + double bass + spoons + violin and you've basically got Lime & Steel. Sound like a clusterfuck? It is, but a glorious one. When I came in they were playing a song about murder on a camel train which legitimately sounded like Nick Cave gone bluegrass in the best way possible, while the rest of their set was more upbeat blues numbers, the final one giving each band member a spotlight for a violin, guitar and spoon solo respectively. 8/10 from Rowan but I'll give them an extra .5 for being absolutely top blokes and girls who were willing to have a chat after | | 8 | Steve Poltz
This fucking guy, right here. On the recommendation of Daniel Champagne I went to see this guy I knew nothing about, and it was the greatest recommendation I've received in my entire life. As a musician, Poltz was leagues away from his contemporaries in the festival, and he mostly stuck to simple repetitive songs to get the audience singing along. His voice is plain but gets the job done well enough. But as a performer, Poltz is light-years away of every other musician I've ever seen. His connection to the audience was like nothing else - he had us crying tears of laughter within ten minutes of stepping on the stage, and by the end everybody felt like they were part of a fucking huge family. At some points he'd just stop playing to tell some tangential anecdote, but his storytelling was so hilarious that those were totally the best parts of the performance. It's hard to even put into words, just watch already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8R_zo_Z44s 10/fucking 10 from Rowan | | 9 | John Butler Trio
This was obviously the main attraction of the performance, even though it was only Butler solo and not the whole Trio. The pavilion was packed, and I mean quite literally packed to the extent that I had to alternate turns stretching out my legs with the person next to me. Either way, whether on banjo, slide guitar or just guitar, John Butler is a fucking legend. There was a glorious moment when he told us about a guitar that had been handed down to him from his granddad, and a song that he played to his grandmother called "Danny Boy" when she was sick, and then played it for us on slide guitar and I could feel the manly tears. I would say that's the standout song by a mile, but then this occurred: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYJf_ybyVo another 10/10 | | 10 | The Bearded Gypsy Band
The second recommendation from Daniel Champagne and the final act of the night. Even though my legs hurt like fuck from being packt like a sardine in a crushd tin box at the pavilion, I still trusted Dan's judgement enough to swing by these guys and thought I could just sit down for a while and enjoy the music. I got in and I swear I don't even know how it happened but suddenly I was doing a crazy-ass Irish jig to what I swear was the Benny Hill theme in triple time. I know, right? The Bearded Gypsy Band are like a wacky gypsy-jazz-folk-celtic combo, and while they have two great singers they work best when they just go for the instrumentals and make the audience rock the fuck out to some Hungarian dance beats, bro. Highly recommended, 9/10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsjH1tQI9p4 | |
Rowan5215
03.15.15 | sup | tommygun
03.15.15 | good list neg
my friend's brother is in 10 they rule | Cygnatti
03.15.15 | Whoa been like 2 years since I added BGB to the db, they finally movin up in the world? | Rowan5215
03.15.15 | tommy's alive wtf
yeah BGB I guess they're getting some traction now | Cygnatti
03.15.15 | Cool beans, they deserve it. Interesting stuff here, rowbro. I think I'll look into 9. | Rowan5215
03.15.15 | Definitely give 1 a whirl too dude is a wizard | tommygun
03.15.15 | what you want by john butler is da best song ever made | Rowan5215
03.15.15 | He has like two albums worth of better songs too which is always nice | avonbarksdale221
03.15.15 | seeing ocean live made me believe in god
sup dudes | Rowan5215
03.15.15 | tfw avon and tommy are both alive and in my thread
There is a God, Believe Me I've Seen It, He Plays Guitar so well I Can Barely Believe It | avonbarksdale221
03.15.15 | he plays drums for led zeppelin and his name is john bonham, baby!
edit: nope, he dead. | Rowan5215
03.16.15 | brutal |
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