There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues

"You went all the way to Australia for a concert?!" 

Well I went all the way to Japan for Disneyland and to London for a Ferris wheel...Don't underestimate me. 

Sunday morning rain is falling. Okay so I'm not sure if it was still raining when I woke up or not but that's how the song goes so let's all say that it was. I think it was. I awoke quite early in hopes of finding a church for Easter service. To my dismay, there were none. The Catholic church in Byron is only the smaller church of the larger Ballina church and no services were to be held that morning at the small church and I had no way of getting to Ballina. The only other church in town was closed indefinitely for renovations. So unfortunately I was forced to skip Easter this year. Apparently the Greeks don't celebrate Easter with the rest of the world though, so maybe I'll find out when their Easter is and pretend I'm Greek for the day, kinda like how I was Jewish at Christmas this year. (I suppose it just hasn't been a good holiday year for me; I hope God will understand.) I attempted to go back to sleep and when I couldn't sleep any longer I watched Gossip Girl for a couple hours until I just had to get out of the house.
Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces past and I'm blues bound.  The bus to the Bluesfest was downtown so I figured I might as well just start walking towards it and get to Blues a little earlier than I had wanted. The ride to the festival was actually fairly longer than I expected, and I'm certainly glad they had the shuttle running.
Staring blankly ahead just making my way, making my way through the crowd; I shuffled with the rest of the folks into the campgrounds for my first Byron Bay Bluesfest. On the flight from Sydney, I had been warned that the grounds often get quite muddy due to the Easter rains. Most people wear rain boots; I had left my brand-new-never-worn-bought-specifically-for-events-such-as-these rain boots in my room in Auckland. Before I left, I stared at them for a good five to fifteen minutes trying to decide which closed-toed shoes I wanted to take before opting to just take an extra pair of flip flops. But hey, my mother told me to get muddy. So that's exactly what I did. Not even 5 minutes into entering the area I was completely soaked in mud, like I could've won muddiest truck in my high school's homecoming car competitions with just myself, no truck needed.
I started off by walking around the vendors in search of something to eat. They also had many clothes vendors, so I figured if I found a change of clothes that wouldn't be the worst, considering it looked like God pooped on me (literally) for missing church on Easter. But the clothes were expensive and the food was unappetizing so I went and watched the cultural performance until I decided to settle for one of the many food options. I ended up choosing a crepe and it was so good; it was just like my momma's, but filled with pineapple and ham.
While I was eating some guy was playing guitar in the covered food area so as a tip I gave him my business card because my mother told me to give them out to everyone I meet (insert laughing emoji here). I also gave him 30 cents because I'm not totally heartless (or am I?) .
Then I strolled around between a couple of the tents. I saw the end of Houndmouth's set, which once it was over and I realized it was Houndmouth I remembered that I actually did wanna see them, but I didn't think they were playing on Sunday. Oh well. (You can check their picture at the beginning of this post, under the title.) I was front row, of course.
Then I found my way to two time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Graham Nash's set. It was super crowded, which makes sense because he's super old. None of my pictures for him really came out because he's very pale with white hair but you can see my attempt to the left. I also saw the end of some other band's act, but I don't know who they were and to be honest I don't really care. I got some pictures of whoever it was, but since I don't know there's no point in posting it.
Once I was done wandering, I still had two hours until the first group I actually wanted to see - Modest Mouse. I decided I would just go to their stage anyways and take a seat. I got a seat in the second or third row and it started to rain again. It didn't last long though, and soon a band was taking the stage. Blackberry Smoke from Atlanta, GA came to try to entice me with their music. They were actually (sorry I've been using that word a lot this post, my b) exactly what I needed. Classic country rock from close to home (well, closer than New Zealand). It was actually (oops! sorry!) great and they can totally count me as a fan now. They were the first full set I stayed to see, and I didn't even plan on watching them at all.
I stayed in my seat for the majority of their part because I could totally see everything and why stand when you can sit? But for the last song I took my rightful spot in the front row and grabbed a closer pic for ya'll. The picture above is from my seat, the one to the left is from the front.
Because the seats were so great I was going to just go back to my seat for the Modest Mouse concert and do the same thing - a majority in my seat and the ending standing up close. But the Blackberry Smoke set ended over a half hour before Modest Mouse was set to go on and as soon as they ended the area started filling up, so I went and grabbed my spot while I still could. Apparently a lot of people like Modest Mouse. I only know them because of my dearest Pandora, but they were totally not what I was expecting.

The girl played like three instruments and was so full of energy. They were all wearing black except for the lead singer. He was in beachy pinks and blues and stuff. I expected them all to be dressed like that, and not so many of them. They had a full band with like orchestra-like instruments. Anyways, lead singer dude was either seriously on something, seriously loving what he was doing, on seriously insane, or a mixture of all of the above. He legit looked crazy and was bouncing around like he had too much sugar and was 8 years old. But I guess it was entertaining?
(Lol see this is what I do; I judge so hard on the band when I don't know their songs. Poor fellas.)
After Modest Mouse it was time to meander on down to the Jambalya for the Wailers! Although Bob Marley is dead, I was still super excited! I had a while until they were scheduled to start also, but I was hoping to grab a seat like they had in the Mojo tent. I guess they were expecting a smaller audience because this tent was much smaller and didn't have any chairs, so back to standing it was. It was fine though because I secured a spot in the center middle of the front and, like for Modest Mouse, the area quickly filled.
The Wailers were great! I knew every song. They had 5 sets during the entirety of Bluesfest, so for each they did a different Bob Marley album and I was fortunate enough to land on the night of Legend. The bassist was an original Wailer, and the drummer and other guitar player looked like they could've been as well, but they really prided themselves on the bassist who needed to be seated while playing.
The lead male was a great singer and had the perfect energy and vibes, and the female singer was totally gorgeous. They definitely did justice to the music and I really enjoyed their concert.
The Aussies, however, need to learn how to handle that type of music. They were literally going insane. Like I go to Dew Tour every year (well, when OC was fortunate enough to host it) and I've never seen such crazed concert-goers. They were making out and lighting up and throwing themselves around and yeah that sounds like pretty much any concert but let me tell you, it was bad. Like I don't know how to describe it but they shouldn't be allowed to listen to true reggae if it makes them act like that. Also (this wasn't one of the crazy parts, believe it or not) I saw this old guy smoking a j with what appeared to be his granddaughters and they were like trying to be obvious they were trying to hide it and then later the girl was grinding on the old guy so I really hope it wasn't her grandfather. Maybe it was her suga daddy. Either way, EW. (Maybe ew used to stand for either way and people just always made a face at it and that's how we got ew...interesting. Because I totally just meant like an emphasized ew at the end of that either way lol)
And this guy that I can't put with the rest of the Aussies because he didn't seem like an Aussie because I couldn't understand a word he said proposed to me. Four times. So like I was just minding my own business, singing the songs, and this guy bumps into me then tells this girl next to me he loves her then like half a song later he bumps into me again and asks me something and I can't understand him so I had him repeat himself and I still couldn't understand him so he had to repeat himself like four times and when I finally understood him he was like "Will you marry me I love you you're so beautiful" and I'm just like lol "no go ask that girl" and I pointed to the girl I can only assume he asked before me. It was kinda funny but kinda disturbing lol.
So then I survived the rest of the concert and the first two encores then I left to go stand in line for their signing which was to take place after the concert. Here I ran into some new friends! I was very much very covered in mud at this point and people were starting to notice. So I get in line for the Wailers signing and the guy in front of me is like "is this your first time here?" and I'm like "yeah" and he's like "yeah I can tell, we both picked the wrong shoes" lol and his friend was all like "the mud looks good on you" and I was just like "thanks" and now we're friends and I'm gonna hang with them at 2am while I'm on my layover in Brisbane for 7 hours on my way to Bali in a couple weeks.
So I didn't actually have anything for the Wailers to sign, I was just hoping for a pic but they convinced me to go get something for them to sign so they saved my spot in line while I went and bought a generic Bluesfest 2016 CD (the actual irony: the Wailers aren't even on the CD even though they had the most sets all weekend). When I got back in line I even got to get in front of them! What great new friends. They also received my business card.
Turns out it's a good thing I got that CD for them to sign because no pictures were allowed (I'm not very good at following rules, clearly I took a picture) and I wouldn't have been allowed up without something for them to sign. So one point for the Aussies.
After the signing we went to the UB40 concert together as well. They didn't stay the whole time because they had to meet their mate to go back to their accommodations. To be honest, I didn't last much longer than they did.
"Who did you come here to see?" "UB40" ....Who didn't you stay to see? UB40. :/
They didn't start until so late, and it was such a long day and I was so tired. I stayed as long as I could before I went for a burger before I left. I didn't get to hear Red Red Wine or (I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You, but I did get to see The Way You Do The Things You Do. I kinda wish I stayed longer, but I'm also glad I left when I did because otherwise I wouldn't have made it back. After the bus back I still had to walk from town back to the house, and as tired as I was it probably took close to a half an hour.
Once I made it back to the house, I spent a good 45 minutes in the shower trying to scrub all the mud off me. I STILL have mud stuck in my toenails and it's been over a week. But I did the best I could with cleaning myself and I tried to make sure the tub wasn't left totally black (eh, not much luck) and exhausted, I headed to bed.
You can check out some highlights on my Bluesfest & Kayak video, on my Facebook now!

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha