Woodford Folk Festival 2012

Woodford 2012 is looking like a fantastic festival,
great program, great weather and bumper crowds.
I took the family up for the day and evening yesterday 
which was Saturday the 29th and we had an
excellent time!

The first thing I always notice how big its all become,

I was a regular pilgrim and for 10 years straight

camping for the entire festival. I saw it change from the 

3rd festival in Maleny untill the 1999 / 2000 year

After which I've been mainly a day tripper.

We did however camp for the Dreaming festival 

which I hope to see again one day.

First up off to a great start we saw Los Coronas,
 a surf, spaghetti western instrumental band from
Spain and they were energetic and brilliant.
I dragged the kids up the front cause there's
nothing quiet like a Woodford mosh pit

The big draw for the day was Shane Howard,
its been a while and I really was looking forward
to this. Shane was performing his
"Other side of the Rock" show which is the show
he put together tocelebrate 30 years since the
landmark song Solid Rock was released.
 He had a solid cast of old friends to back him up
and took us on the journey that started with that
song all those years ago.
I got the Cd of the same name, his 12th
solo album and its revamped  versions of some
13 songs personally picked to take us on this
incredibly story of self discovery.

The gig was like the Cd beautiful weaving
Shane's Celtic roots with his Australian
and telling by song the story of a man who
never gave up, weather it was from a fight
like the Franklin Dam, or from finding the
heart of this land.
There was the two versions of Solid rock
one at the start a one at the end. The last
one including the Pitjantjatjara translation
that was done for the 30th anniversay.
At the end of this post is a video of the
first Solid rock, the slow version.

After Shane we discovered Fav Brisbane
bluegrass band the Rusty Datsuns doing a
off the program performance which was
fantastic of course, if you get a chance to
see these guys take it.
My wife even got me a Rusty Datsuns
T shirt as a lovely surprise.

Also a bit of Folk world music style at the Folklorica
venue with the Russian Folkloric Ensemble, who are
always a joy

The streets start to come alive in the late afternoon
as the heat starts to fade, street performers everywhere,
Even an elephant that told us we wouldn't be winning
the lotto tonight!
I even saw some Morris dancers, I haven't seen
any of those for years, but they escaped before I
could get a photo

Its when evening falls that the streets truly come alive,
from other worldly performance pieces to freaks and
side shows, and music, so much music

 Archie Roach was the big event for the evening

he was performing songs for the release of       

Butcher paper,Texta, Blackboard and Chalk

a collection of children's songs written by

Archie and his late partner Ruby

The project inspired by a tour in 1997 when

they visited schools in the Cape York area

includes a 17 song Cd and a songbook.

After that wonderful performance was a
spoken word type thing called In Conversation
with  Archie Roach and Shane Howard.
Meet the men behind the stories, two of
Australia's most respected artists in their
respective watershed years.
Archie as he releases his incredible celebratory
album Into The Blood Stream  after two
terrible years after the loss of his partner
and then himself suffering a stroke and
Shane in this year the 30th since he released
his iconic song solid rock

Joined on stage by Dobe Newton
leadsinger of the Bushwackers and
George Negus, Australian author,
journalist and television presenter
It was a fascinating discussion which
I was very happy my kids got to listen
to, at least the older two.
Shane and Archie sung Archies song
Mission Road and you can find the video
that song at the end of this post.
.
Woodford has still got the magic!