Gismo Queen and her King

Big Red Bash Day 2

We're just home from the second day of the Big Red Bash concert, and it was a great day - if long and cold. It started at 1:30pm wth Christine Anu (great voice), followed by Shane Howard (great classics from his Goanna days), Adam Hervey (one of Greg's favourites and a fabulous entertainer), Troy Cassar Daly (another great country icon) and wrapped up with Paul Kelly (a flashback for me to my uni days!) The day started early for me as I had promised to do the early morning bakery run to get fresh bread, after we heard from some people that they kept missing out on getting bread. The bakery opens at 6:30am so I was up and dressed by then, with a short detour to our front toolbox to change gas bottles after running out of gas during the night (the fridge runs on gas when we are free camping). So I was at the bakery at 6:45am, along with a healthy sized crowd - yes, even at that hour. I got our bread, ordered takeaway breakfast for Greg and I, and before that was even ready, the bakery had sold out of bread! Good thing I went early! Home again, home again - jiggedy jig! Fair to say, I am the only one from our party to have seen sunrise over Birdsville. I was even home again before the sunrise scenic flight took off! Greg and I enjoyed our breakfast egg and bacon sandwich and with a full belly and a warm bed, I dozed some more until the wind blowing the awning was too noisy and I got up. It was a beautiful sunny day but the wind was cold. We did some housekeeping, had a nice warm shower, packed our provisions for eight hours of concert and having decided to drive in today, left just after 12:30pm. They were late finishing their sound checks so it was after 1pm before got in. We settled ourselves, and started on lunch as Christine Anu wowed us with her magnificent voice. She played for over an hour, then there was changeover time before Shane Howard - formerly of 70's/80's band Goanna - took to the stage. His repertoire was quite good and we all sang along to some tunes. There was a good crowd in by this stage, with the oval pretty chockers. Adam Hervey came on in fine form, well he actually said he was sick but it didn't show. He is a great entertainer and really gets the audience involved. We were laughing lots in between songs, and singing along to his songs. He got Troy Cassar Daly up to do a duet - just like they did on the cruise last year. Because he and Troy used the same band, their changeover was quick. Troy did lots of songs Greg likes but he isn't quite as charismatic as Adam. Along the way, we had afternoon tea from the thermos we'd brought, drinks and nibbles from our store of provisions, and then a nice hot dinner of pasta bolognaise from the DreamPot that Jude had made. It really was quite cold sitting in there so a warm dinner was fabulous. Troy and Paul Kelly also did a duet, as did Troy and Shane Howard. It was lovely how they involved each other. The changeover between Troy and Paul was quite long and we almost had to do aerobics to keep warm. Then Paul came on with some of his classics. It took me right back to seeing him live in Fitzroy pubs in my uni days. He also had Vika and Linda Bull singing with him, which was a surprise bonus. He sang for an hour and a half and it was great. However, we were all pretty cold and ready for our diesel heaters (and hot showers!) at the end of it.

posted by Tracey @ 5:16 pm