The drive down to Byron was not the most enjoyable due to all the roadworks that is going on to upgrade the road capacity and the sheer mass of people heading south for the Bluesfest or making an early start on their Easter weekend away. I arrived safely and in one piece. More importantly I managed to find a really great campsite, only a short walk to the toilets and the bus stop as well as having trees on the western side to keep my tent cool in the afternoon sun 🙂
I was quite impressed with how I set up my tent and fly but I didn’t remember to take a photo till I was breaking camp on the last day which meant that the photo wouldn’t have shown much. Funny thing happened when I made it out to the festival site as in front of me in the line was my little brother’s former girlfriend with her best friend, both of whom I proceeded to see quite a bit round the festival. I thought that was funny.
Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars (myspace) (movie site):
These guys rocked, but alas I don’t have any decent photos so you. You should check them out as soon as you can, the fusion of western popular music with African percussion lines is incredible. The music also is full of meaning and stories about life as a refugee in West Africa. I could take of taken this band home and placed them in the living room and listened to them all day long. This is the music of life. They are pretty heavy tourers so you should check their website for dates and head out to see them.
Ben Kweller
ahh. Mr Ben Kweller is currently supporting John Mayer on his tour at the moment and I must admit that they are two artists that I have known about for a long time but never really gotten round to checking out their music to any great extent. Both put on a really good show. Ben seamlessly moved from guitar to keyboard from sweet sugar coated indie pop to something a little deeper.
John Mayer
Before and during his set, the crowd would occasionally break into chants of “Jessica, Jessica” in reference to his girlfriend Jessica Simpson, we all knew she was back there somewhere but we also all knew that if he did bring her out his cred would have gone down with the crowd. He certainly is great with his guitar but towards the end for me all his songs were sort of merging into one sound. Listening to a couple of his songs now though I am really digging it, so who knows.
Wolfmother were up after John Mayer and whilst many people love Wolfmother, they and The Grates are the two much hyped Australian bands at the moment that I just can’t get into at all. So I left the Mojo Tent and wondered over to Crossroads to take in some Ziggy Marley. I didn’t stay for long as my bed was calling me but I enjoyed what I heard. Luckily for me since I left before either Ziggy or Wolfmother I missed the chaos that was the buses on the first night. Which gradually became more organised towards the end of the 5 nights when we all knew where to go.