Perhaps my body clock does not work to the same rhythm as the festival. I got up early and headed into the festival. All was quite except a few people setting up their stalls, some people of the festival itself doing festival things and a few people feeding them. I grabbed some food, took a pic of the bike in the bike lock-up and watched the start of the first event for the day, the poets breakfast in the Troubadour.
The green mugs are everywhere. It is a very good system for recycling. Instead of millions of cardboard and polystyrene cups, you get what ever drink you ordered, be it coffee, juice, muld wine or other things, you get it in a green mug. Around the festival are these white plastic bins. When you have finished the drink, you find a bin and throw in the mug. Then some volunteering mug collector collects the mugs, they are returned to some washing facility and then redistributed to the stalls that sell the drinks.
The first event of the day is the poets breakfast. I have become a bit of a regular at these events. People come along and read poetry. If the poem is by someone else, then it had to be a recital. If you wrote the poem, you can read it from a bit of paper. There is a compare and a judge. The judge is the previous year’s winner. The poetry on this first morning was good. I stayed and enjoyed the whole show.
I then headed over to the Trocadero and saw Carl Cleves. I hid down the back to recharge my mobile phone, but the organisers were wise to me and said that it was ok to do this. *phew*
I am always too busy during the day to join in the session bar, but I really need to get over there and join in the music sessions. During the day they have these mass groups, where as in the evening there are smaller groups. Last year I did quite a bit of singing, this year, I forgot my tin whistle and did not join in apart from some of the singing sessions. Maybe next time…
The merry muse is one of my favourite venues. I often find myself stopping there on the way past and listening to a song or two. I managed two sessions between seeing ted egan. I had never seen ted before and was a little surprised by what I saw. I think ted has the romantic view of the bush that I do not share.
Out on the streets of the festival, there are crowds of people, stalls, may poles and Morris dancers. I have a soft spot for Morris dancing, ever since I first saw it in Hastings, Sussex. I should really join in the classes one year.
After lunch I headed off to the 666 ABC concert. There was some overlap in the acts here and in the Opening Concert. There were the fiddle chicks, bluestone junction, colum sands and the spook men’s chorale.
Then, quite by chance I ended up in a show for the launch of a book called Australia’s Lost Folk songs. This had a collection of musicians singing some of the songs from the book. Jan Fullerton, National Library of Australia Library Council Director-General, officially spoke at the launch.
Then, out on the street, there were giant bogong moths wandering the streets. The local aborigines had bogong moth festivals where the tribes would meet.
I grabbed some dinner, a rump steak and veggies before heading back into the venues.
I saw Zigridas Kalpi, down at the Henley.
Then the end of the Jews Brothers Band show and Merri-may Gill. Merri-may is from Moree in South Australia and sung songs about not needing to be into bondage and other such things for love, but that she was going to be French. At the end she said that she knew other songs.