Tamworth Country Music Festival – Day 2

Well the event calendar requires about a week to read all the events listed. Its 17 pages long and has the events listed in 3 columns in about 10 point font (so its quite dense). The program starts at 7am and runs through till midnight every night of the program with many events going on throughout the town in every venue available. Its incredible who must have organised this, as it’s a HUGE credit to them to pull this all together!

Although I do have to say, Terry and Ange, I wish they had some Healthway’s funding available here. Some smoke free events and even some healthy food wouldn’t go astray. At last nights’ event, the stall closest to us sold fairy floss, lolly pops, dagwood dogs (now this was a new one for me) – it involves an artificially died red stick of processed meat inserted on a stick that is then dipped in batter so thick it doubles the size of the meat (if you can call it that) and then a huge dollop of sauce is added at the top. I call it a coronary on a stick as there is at least one heart attack involved in each bite I’m sure. The only “decent” food on offer was sliced meat in a bun and these sold out about 1 hour into the show. Its made all the more interesting by the fact that the whole town is an Alcohol Free Zone (except in the pubs) so their cutting out the alcohol, but not the cigarettes and bad food. Oh well, room for improvement next year!

The show was great though. We had James Blundell (and we had the official pronunciation as being a silent “e” as in ~dle not ~dell) sing a few songs. He was the 1997 winner of the Star Track event. Then there were several other winners including Gina Jefferies who finished the show with about a dozen songs. She’s really a great entertainer. It was a great free concert and there were a lot of people there.

Today we took another walk through the main street – runs about 3 blocks and there must have been about 30 muso’s all playing at once. A bit of an ear full, but there were a few beauties. Caught Molly the fabulous cattle dog again and took some more footage. She gets told off as part of the act, and she goes and hides in the suitcase. She actually gets in and closes the lid on the suitcase all by herself. She’s really cleaver. He said its had taken 6 years to train her and he’s always teaching her new tricks.

We rested for the afternoon and then decided to see the band called the Woolverines. We’d never heard of them, but like the sound of the name. The band also had one of those long bearded fellows that looks really biker type. We thought it would be fun. Turned out to be the best $24 each we could spend! They had us in fits of laughter as they took us on a comical journey of the 15 year musical history that the band had together. They are actually finishing up in a few months time, but not before a trip to Perth, so if you see them round, check them out. It will be a hoot. With tracks like; Blow Up Plastic Girl, Redback on the Toilet Seat (they even have props for that one), and Why Don’t We Get Drunk & Screw, and my favourite; Boats, Bikes and Bullshit. Actually there were quite a few boating songs, you’d love Kev! We bought the CD. But I think the support act was even more of one to watch out for; Ami Williamson (John’s daughter) who had us in fits of laughter. She’s an even better entertainer than singer, and that’s saying something as she is a classically trained opera singer, but we’ve got the DVD of Ami as you wouldn’t believe it unless you could see it. We had a great night…