Date	Venue	Location
15-MAR-2008	The Forth Valley Festival Afternoon + Evening Sets	Tassie
29-MAR-2008	The Argengton Hotel 8:00- 11.30pm	Argenton- Newcastle Area
16-APR-2008	Burwood Bowling Club Supporting The Angels, 8pm	Newcastle
27-APR-2008	Beaches Hotel 2-5pm	Thirroul, Wollongong
24-AUG-2008	The Botany View Hotel 6-10pm	Newtown, sydney
17-DEC-2008	The Oxford Tavern	Wollongong

01-JAN-2009	Towradgi Beach Hotel 1.30pm- 4.30pm	Towradgi (near Wollongong)

Check out our gigs archive to see where we've been playing since 2005...

Derek

The WA 2006 Tour Diary

Well up we get at the very un-muso time of the day ready to fly out...6am...so far we HATE the tour, but to be fair it's only 6-05am...!!

The flight over was uneventful..no crash - no nothing, but we must see our accountant and ask if spending $60 on food, drinks, headphones and magazines on the trip over is a good idea...especially when we only save $30 by flying Virgin...!!!

We arrive at Perth, meet up with Fiona Read, the President of The West Coast Blues Club,

She saw us at The Goulburn Blues Festival last year... she's responsible for getting Mississippi Shakedown to Western Oz... we will forever in her debt..(mainly cause we owe her $20).

We put the key into our "Loan Vehicle" to get going to the gig... guess what... it broke in two...!!!...OK... now that's a good start in a foreign city I thought... bad omen..??...this is the 13th time this has happened...oh, bugger me, a black cat just ran in front of me and scared me causing me to drop a mirror, smashing it on the ground....I'm going for a walk..oopps, I just walked under a ladder...!!!!

Now call me old fashioned, but I wouldn't have thought that the key to Fiona's 1978 Kingswood would have fitted in our Toyota Tarago... well, shows you how much I know. The van starts!!! We were very impressed and relieved. Thanks Fiona! She wins the Edward DeBono prize for thinking outside the square... me being the square..

So off we go to Bunbury 2 1/2 hrs away. The Burlington Hotel - .nice big old 80's kinda "Rock Room". Looking good for a wonderful rocking night.

On our way to sound check, Derek met these two young lasses, Hotel guests, who were not use to staying in accommodation with such "decorative features " as fist holes in the walls and kick holes in the doors that bands take as the norm or even obligatory when staying at Hotel accom....PLUS, they said there was this weird guy next to their room, singing Jesus songs...(it was me warming up and practising the lyrics for our new song "Oh Sweet Jesus, Give Me My Money Back"..!!)...anyway, Derek being the gentleman he is, assured them they would be safe and under his personal protection.

The gig went well..about 200 in attendance..we played proud and loud...the El Presedente of The South West Blues Club, Mr Mike Hall, looked after us well, he's got a GREAT gig happening there, let me tell you...Bunbury has to be one of the prettiest towns I have ever seen, the main street looks like a Dulux Colour Card...fabulous..!!

A quick drive back to Perth next morning for a radio interview at Heritage F.M.Radio with Jayme and her mate Keith (a HUGE Mississippi Shakedown fan..!!!)..the highlight of this visit, was how Jayme learnt that one should always close the car Sunroof when parked, especially when a violent and sudden Sun Shower passes by....we did the washing up in her front seat.!!!!!

Saturday Night, a charity gig held by the West Coast Blues Club for Serenity house, a drug rehab centre. Our support band was The Mark Vine Band...as luck would have it, Mark was the guitarist in a band that did a support when I was in Ol'55 in the early 1980's on a Darwin - Perth tour....he was in the "band van" mid summer in W.A. driving 500 Kms a day while Ol'55 were flying between gigs...!!!...I'm surprised he didn't deck me..but somehow he found the compassion to forgive my 80's ways...!!

Good gig- Good sound man- Good cause-- Good night sleep..!!

FINAL GIG.........The Perth Blues Club @ The Charles Hotel..this gig has been going for 15 years...imagine that...!!!..Fiona Boyes was on before us, on her tour to support her new album LUCKY 13...she's a great player...not particularly easier to follow, but we abide by the Billy Thorpe Principle...just play LOUDER than the previous band.!!!!

Had a great gig...we only had an hour to play, but believe you me, we made the most of it...I even left our my "Gettysburg Address" segment out..

The man who heads the Perth Blues Club Mr Rick Steel, has siblings in The Sleepy Jackson and Little Birdie...so he certainly has passed his genes on...thanks for the gig Rick we appreciate it.

Rita from the Bridgetown Blues Festival was there.....which is GREAT...she seemed to enjoy it so hopefully we'll get back to W.A. next year and do Bridgetown, Bunbury, Perth and Rockingham.!!!!!!

That's all for now....thanks for your time.....but remember.

"it's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it."

Previous diary entries

Thredbo Blues Festival 2006