Howdy Folks. Our first time at the New Orana Hotel last night and what a night it turned out to be.
Heh. Too late.
We arrived to find the place packed with folks wearing Plaid / Flannel shirts. What was up with that?
Adam kindly explained (WARNING - Some NSFW language)
Ah, now we get it.
Luckily for us, Bill and Rosie had already adopted that dress code for the night, so we were given Honorary Flandido Status.
So having settled the fascinating cultural anthropological question of Flandidos, we setup for the gig only to discover that - shock horror - a certain Mandolin player had left his mandolin behind in Sydney. NOOOO!!!
We prepared to face our doom (having to drop 3 songs from the 2nd set) when it occurred to Rosie and Theo to seek help from our saviour, Michael Hawke, who happened to live close by and, luckily for us, wasn't gigging that night. Michael raced over and delivered a mandolin by the 3rd song of the 2nd set, just in time for us to launch into Hollow Tree.
Mr Hawke, you rock and we owe you big time.
Whist having a chat with Steve, I got introduced to Rex, another local and the original harp player in the backsliders. Rex noted that I was pretty much only playing 2nd position and decided to give me a run through on 3rd position. That was an eye opener. I have labored under the impression that hole 3 was the starting point, but no,it's hole 4. That will only make sense to you if you're a harp player, so apologies, but let's just say, Rex managed to get something across to me that I have failed to grasp for a number of years. It's amazing what you will learn in random places, cheers Rex.
Rex was also kind enough to get up with us for a bit at the end of the night when we did the Boogie.
Shout outs to Gina, Bill, Steve, Bernie, James, Adam, Rex, Terry, Hank, the Flandido Boys and all the folks that spent the evening with us, including the lovely lass that had to be escorted from stage 4 times by the bouncers. Sorry love, it was beyond my control and certainly more appealing than the time i got dry humped by that guy in Wagga. But that's another story.
As we were leaving, I spotted another great band name poster.
A great night, followed by a moonlit drive back home. Ah the joys of playing in a band :-)