On Thursday April 13, I left my hotel and went to stay with Vicki and John since we were due to leave early the following morning. They live in a suburb of Brisbane, and it was great to be able to do laundry, have a home cooked (delicious) meal, and go for a long walk. It was good to see parts of Brisbane outside of the CBD, and their location has a wonderful park and bike path nearby.
So I go to add to my list of new experiences with the fantastic Byron Bay Bluesfest over Easter weekend. There were over 200 performances on 6 stages over 5 twelve hour days. There was camping for 6,000 people, and it attracted over 100,000 people this year housed on Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm just north of Byron Bay. Both the multi-day music event and the camping were new to me, and I’m so grateful to Vicki and John for encouraging me to buy a ticket and join them! They had kitted me out with all I needed — small tent, sleeping bag and pads, and in their A-frame camper all we needed for a breakfast to get us going before heading over to the festival grounds. There were dozens of food stalls and bars and shops selling everything from cool Aussie-type hats to magic crystals and band CD’s. We had perfect weather with sun shine all day and starry but chilly nights.
The artist line-up was really impressive, with long-established bands like Jethro Tull, Jimmy Buffett and the Zac Brown Band, to new acts like the world’s best ukulele player, Jake Shimabukuro. Santana played for a full 2 hours, and the California Honeydrops, who open for Bonnie Raitt (who was also there), were serious fun. The Doobie Brothers were as good as ever and Buddy Guy, at 80, brought the house (tent) down for 90 minutes!
I found the people watching particularly fascinating. It seems there’s a specific wardrobe required to attend these things — festival wear. Sorta hippie. Extremely colorful. Mixed patterns. Flowy. Strange hats. Of course I didn’t have any of the proper clothing, and I was okay with that!
What i wasn’t prepared for was the reduced amount of sleep. The bands played until midnight and our campsite was in easy hearing distance of one of the larger venues. And with campsites pretty much cheek by jowl, you sorta woke up with the group next to you did! But sleep is easy to come up in the days ahead, so I wouldn’t have traded this adventure for any amount of zzzz’s. And now on to Cairns.
It was a fantastic weekend and sooooo happy we could share it together. The combination of you,brother Al, Jo, hubby john, beautiful weather, amazing music and all the other things that came together to make it an Easter to remember. Looking forward to more music festivals together.