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Day Four - Festivals, ya gotta love festivals |
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I awoke in a strange place and had to find my way back to the hotel, in the dull gray morning, 6am in a dream stumbling back to the Valley. All the drinking and Hoo-Har was taking it’s toll on the Bluies. The big festival is today so we're all pumped after a quick run around the block. We had to leave early to get there on time we were to meet someone at the Park Royal Hotel in the city and check in to our day room (I had never heard of a day room until today). Our room was very swish but we had to leave straight-away to get to the River Stage which was just around the corner, in the Uni. The festival was in semi-full swing by the time we got there and loaded our stuff in. Our dressing tent felt like a sauna, you’d sweat just standing there. Today we got our first food platter; it consisted of all sorts of goodies. Our eyes widened at the site of the silver plate filled to the silver brim with assorted meats, cheeses, olives, biscuits and caviar of such wonder my mouth still waters at the site of it in my memory. We’d made it, finally after many years of begging or stealing from the big bands, we had received our own. Today marked the new coming of the Kiss; you could even say the re-birth of the Bluebottle. There we stood dumb founded "Maybe they’ve got the wrong tent" someone said from behind me, but no not today I knew it, something clicked we were high, real high, like Farnsey in his silly ‘Take the pressure down’ era or, C & C Music Factory in their electric ‘Gonna make you Sweat’ tour. For all those struggling rock bands out there when you get the food platter you’ve made it. So after destroying the contents Richo and I played a quick game of Frisbee with the silver dish, unfortunately that was the rockiest thing we could think of doing. After a quick appraisal at the local jewelry store, we found out that the silver plate was infact a fake, this did not deter our over excitement at the plate of food. The Superjesus passed our tent laughing at us fighting over who got to keep the now broken plate, Jamie suggested we break it up in parts (very Solomon like) and hand it out individually. I got the handle.
The festival was called Disorientation Day and was held at the Uni of Queensland, the stage we had being told to play on was called the ‘River Stage’ and was off the right of the bigger stages. We would have kicked up a stink at our poopy little stage but were all still riding high due to our painted silver dish of love. When we went on there were all sorts out the front: kids with sprayed pink hair with color dripping down their sweaty faces. (Kids just a little tip: if your going to a festival your probably gonna sweat or even may get wet by the weather or those stupid sprinklers they sometimes have up in the air so don’t spray your hair with spray on color other wise you’ll look very silly and may even be made fun of. Now noone wants that do they?....) There were even one or two fairies I spotted dancing like hippies, burning in the mid-day sun. We had the El-dogo time of 1:30 to 2:00 and I’m sure most of you know people don’t show up to these festivals until at least five or so. But we gave them rock today, an ode to our food platter we played the hits. Rock jumps and much prancing and posing on stage went well, Jamie's guitar cut in and out on the first song but after that, smooth sailing. After much yahooing we rolled on through the set with sweat and toil finishing with ‘Outside are the Dogs’ the crowd went wild with applause and I thought I even heard a whistle. The heat was slowly but surely seeping my last reserves of energy away for the week, after the show I felt like a sun dried pickle (and that’s not a nice feeling). After much running around we went back to the hotel for showers, pizza and to finish the remainder of the beer. Due to my performance last night with much liquid consumed I felt ill and tired. So after a shower in my clothes and changing in to my exclusive Park Royal White dressing gown I slipped in to the double bed for much needed sleep, but Richo and Jamie wanted to watch the video channel which was playing a sappy detective movie. So there I lay in a double bed shared with Jamie and Richo tossing and turning pondering the existential worth of the Nicaraguan dollar among other things. With sleep a thousand miles away...
We quickly tired of our lush suite and took off into the
evening to catch ‘Not From There’ play. They were amazing
with samples and a wicked light show (I’d
like to apologize for using ‘wicked’ in the last sentence,
Ed.) I’d decided to beat the last remaining living
cell in my body to a pulp by starting to order beer and
what ever else, but alas by 7pm I was feeling a tad 'over
it', my eyes were sinking into my brain and my head was
spinning around my ankles. The past week had consisted of
a lack closing my eyes and a never ending almost intravenous
stream of clear, colored alcoholic liquid being pumped in
me, by me. So my body finally caved in and refused to work
for me until proper rest was awarded. It also (my
body) brought the unions in, there was a rally going
on inside my head with a squeaky clean white cell up the
front with a loud speaker: |

