Bluesfest 2011, Byron Bay - Australia

Every music lover knows glastonbury festival and/or montreaux jazz festival, at least he heard the names of these places. So who in the northern hemisphere has heard of the Byron bay blues fest? Honestly, who knows where or what Byron bay is? This is what bob Dylan must have asked himself for the last 20 years or so, too.Since when 1991 the first bluesfest happened, one of the organizers, peter noble, asked mr Dylan the same thing again and again: would he please play at the Byron bay bluesfest? Every year peter noble’s question got the same answer: won’t come .never heard of the place.the master doesn’t play in places he never heard of. Where? What? He must have been asked so many times since then that finally he agreed to play there .that was easter 2011.

Byron bay is on the most easterly place of Australia. There is a light house that was built in 1901 and a lot of hippies who started coming in the sixties after the whalers, meat and diary factories had closed down. The surfers and hippies are still there.so are Lots of restaurants, caffees,a hare Krishna restaurant, that makes a fantastic dhal bad,lots of fancy boutiques and beachwearshops, hotels, guesthouses, resorts, motels accommodation, the place was packed, full to the brim, when we arrived at about nine o’clock in the evening. Young and a few not so young everywhere, skateboard girls, streetmusicians, slow cruising cars, ice cream parlours and neon lights,24 hour supermarkets, bicycles and rollerblades, cars with boats on a trailer, old volkswagenbullies, lovingly restored!

In the schoolholidays in the early sixties we drove to work in things like that! Evryplace we asked for a bed, same answer: no room, no bed. Luckily we had bought a cheapo tent for the nights and a taxi brought us to an out of town camping ground. The daily rent for each of us was more than the average monthly income of a working man in Cuba. It was a coldish night in our small tent. A shuttle bus took us to the festival ground , next day around lunchtime. The driver went on the highway, big led screen lights with running script informed every driver they were approaching the festival. Now that seemed planning. It got better. After we left the highway after only a short drive, every roundabout had a powergenerator with a high, tall light for the night and signs to make the approach easy and congestion superfluous. Give them an a for logistics and planning. Nobody got lost, nobody had to ask where what is. It still got better. Of course we only had a computer print out for a ticket. It worked like a dream. We got our plastic wrist bands, strong, won’t wash of in the three days. Won’t break, quality. Last pull that it doesn’t come of, in you go, mate. Had to hide my cough medicine.

They shook our water bottle to observe the bubbles forming, could have been sth stronger than water. My cough medicine was save. But I saw a coloured guy who had to turn around and he was padded down like a suspect in a Hollywood movie. Whats the big deal? Ozzis are not so different from ossies? Living in berlin, I learned about the ossies, ozzis surprised me. It’s a festival. But time has passed and when we first went to rock festivals you slept in your sleeping bag in front of the stage, there wasn’t even a photographer’s ditch in the early days. Hardly any security. Only the stage and the music and the audience.and joints and chillums and pipes Music till the early morning and mud. Nothing like that here. I heard it was the first fest in Byron bay since the beginning without rain and mud. I don’t know about the rest of it. Three monkeys, see no bad, but heard a lot of good. Where do you start? I didn’t hear or see the monkey man, toots and the maytalls. I did not see aaron Neville and the blind boys of Alabama though or because I have discs of all of them . Joe and I we heard trombone shorty and we agreed that that was soooo good, it was worth it just coming for him. Trombone shorty and the new Orleans avenue. Boy that trombone can roar.

right at the end of the tent we stood and he gave it to all. when you start at six, like he did , you develop some lung volume and capacity, I guess. Who plays trombone these days? And there he was in his black jeans and sleeveless undershirt and tromboning like an elephant, except that he looks rather like a 10 000m runner than like the elephant he plays about. We heard mavis staples , the queen , the preacher, ohh yes, save me, I let you save me, lead me to the water, wade in the water, wade in the water children, wade in the water, there’s no trouble in the water. She calls elvis castello over and he joins for a song. More of him later on, tomorrow. Mavis can rock the crowd. She’s the high priestess on the stage. And the audience is with her. She fills that nice blue and white and huge tent with her presence and her music and voice. … Irma Thomas had to work hard. She had to work harder . big crowds like here In Byron bay…it seemsed that’s not her usual audience. Her music is better contained in a smoky (bar)room than on a stage with cinema size screens on each side . nice seeing and hearing her. Thanks.

Ruthie fisher and the family band, how wonderful, all these big girls and not so big ones and playing blues like leadbelly thought them, or bukka white, or they just made it all up themselves and forget about howlin’ wolf, it’s ladies night now. A friend had sent me a cd with los super seven, and who should we stumble across in the other tent? Just too many artists, so much music. No won der joe said quite early that he can’t take anymore. He’s just ten and a half years old. He had a burgher from one of the delicatessen (never saw so many delicatessen cramped together on any street but here) german wurst, thai schnitzel, indian rice, Australian burghers, French fries, What have you? A coffee with my cough medicine. Joe and me came back from a waterfontain place and to avoid some mud walked past a beer ausschank. Immediately someone rushed up to me and correcting my behaviour because I was with a minor and we walked closer than three yards or meters or inches or feet or whatever to a beer delivery place. WHAT? Excuse me , I am from Germany, I do NOT understand what you are talking about? Ozzi rules!! That is a game were you can do nearly anything to your opponent just short of killing him .ozzi ozzi , oi oi oi. Most people are foreigners somewhere. We walked up and down , stood at some small tents where the may be future and yet not so famous played and had a good time there. Met a swiss businessman selling textiles made by himalayan tribeswomen., thai, laos, Cambodia.knew everything about the area.

Where do you live? I live in Solomon islands. Where’s that? Never heard of. Just a short two hour flight from Brisbane. Never heard. In the evening we heard the zen cowboy and his bluegrass band: peter rowan. Four guys on the stage, no drums butl string instruments only, bass, banjo, mandoline, guitar.and what a noise they made…..waiting for the breaks and the silence , but what was done around it was exhilarating. Not scream, shout whistle good but heart-warming good, satisfying string noise that went right to the centre .less is more. Less noise ,less action, less trying to get one over. For me the best. I heard their cds, I knew some songs, the navaho torquoises, Was it my imagination, was it the moment? It sounded better than recorded stuff.was it magic? yes. It was so quiet. Everybody just waiting for that next note………