Woodford Folk Festival 09/10 New Years Eve

To bring in the New Year on the SSS blog my first post is
New Years at Woodford Folk festival.
Wood ford is a fine place to bring in the new year,
its been 10 years since the last time I did it and the
festival has changed so much in those 10 years.









Firstly a few shots from around the site,
it covers an enormous area, I guess about 20,000
per day at least are on site. As far as I understand
its the largest Folk Festival in the southern hemisphere.


Always the program is full,
some 20 something venues running from 9 am until
2am. Covering just about anything you can think of.
Check out there web site for details here
Saw a few bands and stuff during the day and there's
an incredible amount of stalls selling all sorts of
interesting stuff and food of course.
Got to see the very funny Tripod, of course you can
never get a seat at these popular gigs, the worst thing
I guess about the success of Woodford is how busy it is.

Of interest to some of the regular readers
out there is this band.

The Dirt Music Club.

Heres what they say about themselves on their Myspace site
you can find here

Dirt Music Club first crawled out from the deep mangrove sloughs
of Sandgate somewhere around the turn of the century.
In it's earliest form this primitive creature evolved from the
simplest of zygotes into a ragged bunch of disparate dogged
(and desperate?) old timey music fans and jammers joining a
circle to play favourite rag, country blues and bluegrass tunes
from the first part of the twentieth century...music's
"Golden Age"...as well as some hand-picked tunes of favourite
contempory artists
(Steve James, Roy Bookbinder and the like...).
Every now and then an original piece even wormed
it's way in there.

While the creature was yet a toddler of the terrible two's long
time stalwart and founding father Dave Martyn sailed the
seas in pursuit of other dreams...

In a fit of pique the remaining founding fathers
Ruff Cut Mark Anderson [mandolin/banjo/banjolin/vocal]
and Old Deliverance Tony Von Wieldt
[acoustic guitar/slide guitar/mandolin/banjolin etc]
called upon cousin Coojee Timms [acoustic guitar/vocal],
slap happy pappy Gav Becker [stick bass]
and occassionally (when he's in town)
"Thumpin' Pig" Max Christensen [drums]
to help out with the dirty dishes.

Now with a new and questionable lease on life Dirt Music Club,
the acoustic musical combo returns...


Thats right a ragtime blue roots band with Brissy music legends
Coojee Timms, Max Christensen and Tony Von Wieldt.
Damn fine show.






Its at night the festival comes alive,
especially true on New Years Eve.


Lantern parades, street performers, circus acts, freaks and hippies.
Not to mention mud, cider and Tibetan monks

And it was a full moon too.
So it was a little crazy!

Its a Woodford tradition to stop all festivities at 11.30 for
3 minutes silence, to reflect or something like that.
They even hand out candles which people can light up.

Then its back to the countdown!
The Day of the Dead Masquerade Cavalcade was a favourite
for me, love all that Mexician stuff
and later when Darth Vegas played it was rather
different to say the least.
Especially with the bar serving those Absinthe
and apple juice drinks.

Happy New Years to you all