Greetings Peoples of the Internet, NSA reviewers and Fellow Cellar Dwellers.

Wow a brief Tamworth for us this year.

We recovered from Fridays heat melt down gig to rebound with added Zazziness by Saturday. 

About the only downside of this trip was that we didn't really get out very much to see other stuff ;-( Sad face.

But it's not really about the destination, it's about the journey, and who can complain when you pack your car and head off into the sunshine and the country?

yes sit back, relax and join us on our brief virtual tour :-)

Up through to Newcastle, NSW is green, as we turn inland it starts to brown

With the air conditioner blasting, music and the occasional road stop for coffee, we made it up in good order.

Poor Bill and Mr Wizard were in a vehicle with no Air Con. Yikes.

Bill shrugged it off 'puts hair on your chest'

Mr Wizard kind of melted. A little.

We arrived dropped our stuff off at the accommodation and made a bee line for the first show, where Den Hanrahan was doing his thing

I think Den is under represented in the Alt Country award category.

I didn't manage to get any footage but here he is in action via youtube:

We did our first gig at the Marquee and had some good moments but Mr Wizard needed some hydration and we wound up dropping a few Mandolin songs due to heat issues with the mandolins strings.

Oh Well.

The Police adopted a high visibility strategy this year, god bless'em.

They came though the pub so many times that i tried to give them a cd, figuring they must like the music, as they seemed to be coming back so often :-) Apparently that's not appropriate (my bad)  but I did get the crowd to give them three cheers for keeping us safe. Last year we saw a few punches being thrown, this year? all quiet on the central western front.

Women in uniform?

The heat was a factor this year. Safe places like the air conditioned mall were popular. While replenishing our supplies I spotted this.

mmm..crunchy cherry.

Saturday

The weekend before the festival, we held a set construction session and chose an experimental 2 set approach for Saturday night.

2 X 80 minute sets and a short break.

I think it works out ok.

Sunday

The act before us on Sunday was the two-golden-guitar-nominated Mustered Courage

They reminded me a lot of Larry and His Flask, the band we saw in Kansas City last year.

Good stuff.

Monday

The heat had been oppressive for the last few days, baking dry yellow heat. 

Our last show was to be at the Marquee at the back of the Albert.

Outside.

In the heat.

Yikes.

But don't forget, this is Stormcellar, and where we go, goes the Weather.

The clouds thickened over Tamworth...

And burst forth in bucketing intensity

The temperature almost instantly dropped by 10 degrees, from the dastardly 40c to a more comfortable...whatever it was.

The ground had held the heat so much that the water evaporated almost instantly, filling the air with a soft, ethereal quality

Much revived, we headed for our final gig of the run.

Steve Edmonds was playing on the big stage and we arrived early enough to be able to catch some of his set.

Go Steve!

I took a great pic of Alex and the Mescaleros after they'd finished doing the backing for Steve.

Power Fail

As we began the setup for our show, the power circuit failed.

Disaster loomed!

But we don't let small problems like a lack of stage power stop us, we went out into the crowd and played acoustic until the power came back on.

That was awesome.

When the electrickery returned, we got up and did the electric stuff and did another 2.5 hours worth of stuff. Yep. Unstoppable.

Jo used her In Ear Monitors this run of shows and they worked a treat, she sang out with gusto and really lifted the show. We're mighty lucky to have her come and sing with us.

And so we ended our Tamworth Sojourn with electricity, Gazpacho and a general feeling of happiness.

Tuesday

All the weekend, Theo had been reading Graham Nash's bio on his days with Crosby, Stills & Nash and regaling us with tales from it. (BTW Theo was totally absorbed in this thing)

On the return leg of the journey, Theo, who normally pays close attention to the navigation, said 'meh, let the gps do it'

As a result we didn't quite take the highway.

For some reason, the GPS seemed to think that Broke Road via the Hunter Valley (sort of) was the way to go.

It was pretty, but intensive driving. I can see why it's a favourite trail for Biker riders.

I'm including this for Tim G - Yo Tim, this is what you can ride through if you come down this way ;-)

Eventually the GPS relented and took me back to a freeway and back to the grey of Sydney, and (blessedly) lower temperatures.

Cheers to all the folks who spent some time with us up at Tamworth, especially the folks who came to see us Three nights in a row!

Despite that being out shortest festival up there it was action packed.

A big shout out to Stewart F for being a wonderful Husband and encouraging Jo to come out and do her thing.

We're back a it this weekend, so if you've been missing out on the action, come and join us!

MJEB