Great Weather! Brilliant Music! Whole Lotta Fun!

Setting up camp early was a great move, and I was soon surrounded by a new Woodfordia ‘family' of folk from Byron Shire, Cairns, Sydney and Darwin.
We stretched tarps over a sitting area and put together a communal kitchen. Tuesday dawned fresh and sweet setting the tone for a week of mild comfortable weather.

My first foray into the festival led me to Linsey Pollack's ‘Live And Loopy' show, where he amazed with his collection of weird reed instruments including everything, except the kitchen sink! Next up the highly amusing Colin Hay (pictured right) who played the sensitive songs from his current album ‘Gathering Mercury' inspired by the death of his father, interspersed with hilarious anecdotes, before being joined by his vivacious wife Celia Noël for his massive Men At Work hit ‘Downunder' and other ditties.

Three of my campmates were working at Byron Bay Organics Doughnuts, so a pit stop at their stall resulted in hot jam and sugar in my beard and a full belly. The village atmosphere created by such foodstalls and other marketeers was as much a part of the Woodfordia atmosphere as the entertainment and arts.

Loud punkish rockers Eagle and the Worm were firing up the Grande as I wandered past to check out New Zealand's gritty blues man Grant Haua with ex-John Butler Trio drummer Michael Barker, in Swamp Thing; the duo tore up the Bazaar with deadly grooves. Soul queen Renee Geyer and a crack band, including keyboardist Bruce Haymes and Hamish Stewart on drums, sang her ragged heart out on James Brown's ‘It's A Man's World' amongst all her classics.

The Dreaming, which is usually held in June, was amalgamated with the festival due to storm damage earlier in the year, and the northwest section of the site was given over to it. The Gubbi Gubbi Dancers (pictured above) performed a haunting welcome to The Dreaming on the sand by the Duck Pond. At the Amphitheatre ‘The Welcome Ceremony' was led by local Jinibara elder Noel Blair and director Bill Hauritz, then musically driven by Chilean Nano Stern's Ethno Australia Orchestra with Slovenia's Matija Solce along with Australians Greg Sheehan and Linsey Polack and a hoard of others. Afterwards I took in a little of the honeyed strains of Nick & Liesl at the Duck and some slow smooth country sounds from Mop and the Drop Outs at alterNATIVE, before hitting the sack.

Wednesday was blessed with a rain shower, but not enough to pull on my new gumboots; however it settled the dust and kept things cool. The night before there had been a forum on the ethics of The Dreaming accepting $225,000 sponsorship over three years from coal seam mining giant Santos. A task force was appointed, chaired by ethicist Wendy Sarkassian with Ian Lowe of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Noel Blair of the Jinaburra Nation and Drew Hutton of Lock the Gate. Iconic activist folkie Peggy Seeger had been lobbied not to perform, thus supporting the protest, but had decided to and attended the forum. At her concert she read a long poem in which she decried the environmental damage of mining companies and other types of corporate greed yet finished with, "I support The Dreaming, loud and clear. Even though I know, that the Devil is paying for part of the show."
The taskforce will be reporting back to Queensland Folk Federation in June and submissions can be emailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Bill Hauritz reportedly said the QFF hoped The Dreaming would return as a stand-alone event in May 2013 but its survival would depend on it attracting long-term funding partners.

On Thursday I made scrambled eggs for cute little toddler Mewa, her mum Nina and Bree before heading off to see festival favourites Hanggai rock it out. Described as Mongolian punks, the six-piece Hanggai (pictured right) blended the ethereal traditional throat-singing, morin khuur (horsehair fiddle) and tobshuur (two-stringed lute) with wild electric guitar riffs, pounding bass and drums; galloping across a melodic soundscape like stampeding stallions. Even at 10:30AM these blokes were on fire, and at their final show on the next afternoon Hanggai's lead singer plucked a young lass from the crowd to play a shaker and be serenaded by his gruff voice.

From the spacious Grande I strolled along Short Circuit lane past the Henna Harem where ladies were having fantastic designs drawn on various body parts to compliment the exotic costumes many wear to add to the mardi gras atmosphere. I found myself at alterNATIVE where the earth goddess Gambirra and her band was stirring up a pot of acoustic reggae, before I sampled some spicy chicken at the nearby Little Brasil, which also featured a small stage with an impromptu Latino combo. At the Pineapple Lounge ‘Browndog Presents... special guests' included members of Monsieur Camembert and friends cooking up a tasty jazz gumbo, and later in the week I saw the grizzled Wiley Reed Band soaring on a spiritual blues high.Byron's Azo Bell was magically coaxing marvellous notes from his ukelele with the Old Spice Boys in the Parlour, and it never ceases to amaze me how a rhythm section of a snare drum, cymbal and tea-chest bass can be so solid.

The Gremlins (pictured left) confounded passersby wherever they roamed; the whacky green tribe tossed potatoes and caught them on forks or followed people making conversation in comic Gremlinish. Wandering past kids paddling in the creek I was enticed into the Duck where Tim Edey & Brendon Power were improvising with Greg Sheehan and Mal Webb. The furious mix of guitar, accordion, harmonica, percussion and beat-boxing stirred the blood. Laura Targett was brought out to add spicy fiddle to the blend, the resulting fusion of Celtic jig and blues made me wish I had turned up for the whole set.

TinPan Orange was a pop-tinged roots band that had recently added drumkit resulting in a tougher live sound, without detracting from its melodic timbre and I caught three of its shows. Emily Lubitz's voice ached with pleasure and pain dipped in honey on songs from the band's latest album, ‘The Bottom Of The Lake' and new single ‘Barcelona'. At times she was as blue as Billie Holliday and the gypsy violin of Alex Burkoy wound ribbons of ecstasy around the waltz beat in a couple of numbers including ‘La La La', while covers of TV series theme ‘Round The Twist' and The Bangles' ‘Walk Like An Egyptian' were to die for. Brother Jesse takes a back seat to Emily but he is the band's anchor, a tight rhythm guitarist who also sang in a splendid voice on one song in each set.

Ethno In Transit, put together with musicians from various countries at intensive workshops by Nano Stern and Matita Solce, was one of the highlights, putting on a sweetly satisfying show that night at the Bazaar.  Three violinists, reed man, accordionist, percussionist and Nano, on guitar and vocals, welded differing cultural styles into a swag of wild joy; a case of the whole being much greater than the sum of the parts!

With a capacity audience at the Grande, Tripod cracked me up first thing on Friday morning. With manic abandon the trio sashayed through one hilarious skit after another, razor sharp wit honing improvisation along with set pieces and fine singing plus cool musicianship. After a taste of Monsieur Camembert's Famous Blue Cheese, with its pumped up Euro-beat gypsy rock, I slipped away to alterNATIVE and caught the Wantok Kolektif filling in for Richard Mogu. The earthy tribalism driven by Airileke Ingram's contemporary and traditional log drumming was infectious and the politics flew on the anthem ‘Freedom For West Papua'.I found the vibrant style of American bluegrassers Crooked Still refreshing and relaxing, carrying the freshness of mountain breezes. At Bluestown The Re-Mains were pure grunge with a bucketful of blues splashed all over their songs. Darwin sweetheart Leah Flanagan joined the boys for a song, and later performed a gorgeous acoustic solo gig at the Dingo Café, with good mate Harry Angus (TinPan Orange/The Cat Empire) joining in on trumpet.

The Folklorica had been moved to make way for Blak Dramatics, but continued its fine multicultural variety show. The Mohammed Youssef, University of Queensland Pipe Band, Cieavash Arean and Sakat Bhattacharya were just a few of the brilliant talents showing musically what the world is made of. Candor Quebrao - singer-guitarist Tania Balil and violinist Moshlo, had me spellbound with the winding melodic Latin rhythms. Emotion poured from every pore in their bodies as well as the duo's instruments, while Tania's voice echoed from the Pyrenees Mountains across the Atlantic Ocean through Central and South America and out to the entire world.

As with heartthrob Gotye, I left Xavier Rudd (pictured right) to the youngsters milling about at the Amphitheatre, although all reports of their great performances made me regret not trekking up the hill.
Saturday and Sunday were a bit of a blur as I tried to fit in as much as possible, then ended seeing Colin Hay and TinPan Orange again. My final show at The Dreaming was Frank Yamma who brought his sensual and stark stories to an appreciative crowd, while at the Concert stage a massed gathering of Celts Around The World included Newfoundland Canadians, Irish and special guests More Fiddles Than Frocks in an all in jam of epic proportions.
My Friend The Chocolate Cake was back with a vengeance, with David Bridie's passionate compositions soaring out into the night on the wings of sometimes manic, sometimes tender violin and cello riffs. 
There was much less fire in the final Farewell Ceremony, which pleased me as I never felt too comfortable with all the burning which used to occur, since Woodfordians have always stressed caring for the environment, especially in the big event themes. 
Thankfully the threatened demise of Woodford will not happen thanks to the weather and its faithful followers.

Ka Pa Hula O Ka Lei Lehua - Photo: Kris Mitchell & The Brooker Studio

Other photo credits: Colin Hay - Julius Montes; Gubbi Gubbi Dancers - Kris Mitchell & The Brooker Studio; Hanggai singer & lass from crowd - Julius Montes; Gremlin & Mewa - PJ Dawson; TinPan Orange singer Emily Lubitz - Julius Montes.