The Thredbo Blues Festival 2006 Diary

THURSDAY - Well, we were as a happy as "a dog in a hub-cap factory" - not only to be invited to play at The Thredbo Blues Festival, but to do the GALA OPENING GIG at the fabulous HORIZONS RESORT at Jindabyne on the Thursday before the Weekend Festival started ... a good warm up for Mississippi Shakedown - great crowd... LOVED US they did....!!!! We were treated wonderfully by everyone... offered a Cappuccino when setting up, rather than the usual "nailing down of anything that moves, in case of theft" attitude that musos often encounter - what a breath of fresh air.!!!!

FRIDAY - short trip to Thredbo, where we played The Credo restaurant that night. Kinda small for the raucous music of Mississippi Shakedown.... You could swing a cat - but it had to be a small cat!! Our bio states in part, that "Mississippi Shakedown was not created to play in a restaurant"!!! We got the crowd to join in and repeat that part of the CV that was on the Thredbo Festival Brochure - all 60 patrons - very funny!!!! Went over GREAT! Actually played extra time, cause no-one wanted to go home.....

SATURDAY - aaaaaaaahhhh!!! At last - a gig where we could turn the amps up!!! Started at Midnight. I was worried that folk might tend to go home after The Lemon Squeezin Daddies finished their wonderful set, but most stayed around... and AWAY WE WENT... full throttle... we ended up with a bigger crowd @ 2-30am when we finished, than when we started. The first set went so well, and the band was playing so good, I decided to go straight into the 2nd set - no break. We did 1 1/2 hours straight!!!!! It nearly killed all of us of course.

SUNDAY - Another great vibe gig... The Schuss Bar... kinda small, but rocking ...wasn't too much "Shush" when we started, let me tell you! One of our new songs is "Right Here Right Now"... which is probably gonna be the title of our soon-to-be-completed 2nd Album - about the type of folk who only care about themselves and want everything - ;"I want what I want and I want it right here, right now" - sorta like those who jump queues, or push in in front of you, in their shiny bloody BMW's when there's hardly enough room to floss between your bumper and the bumper of the car in front. I saw a T-Shirt at the Thredbo supermarket that said "Actually, yes, the world does revolve around me", so I re-wrote the 3rd verse to include that saying. So I told the crowd about it, and the 3rd verse got a wonderful round of applause.....

Let me tell you that we have never been treated better anywhere, anytime, than at Thredbo, by the organisers and staff of the festival. They treated us and all the entertainers with joy, respect and kindness of heart - a BIG thanks to them all. I'm not being Mr Nice Guy here, but it was a greate pleasure to work in such a co-operative environment.