Spontaneous joy

DD isn’t a big fan of planning, he’s more the spontaneous type, which is how we found ourselves at a music festival on Saturday.

He’d driven down to help paint the outside of the house and we were busily rollering and masking taping, while his mobile phone played a soundtrack of Aussie music.

A Pete Murray song came on and I noted that By The C was about to start in Cronulla. By The C is a travelling music festival featuring bands including Killing Heidi, Baby Animals, Pete Murray, James Reyne and Icehouse.

DD wondered if there were still tickets available. I checked and there were. He asked if I wanted to go to the festival as my birthday present. I said yes. And our Saturday transformed into something unexpectedly awesome.

The first band had already started playing as we bought our tickets, so we quickly finished painting a wall, threw on some non-paint-spattered clothes and jumped in the car.

The parking gods were smiling on us and we nabbed a spot less than 10 minutes walk from the festival, which was being held in a park beside the crashing tsunami waves at Cronulla Beach.

Awwwww, DD is so cute! I think I need an eye lift.

Anyways … Baby Animals were playing “Rush you” as we grabbed a cider and took our seats. It was so surreal to be surrounded by thousands of people not wearing masks. A month prior to lockdowns sweeping the world last year, we went to see Red Hot Summer in Port Macquarie, blithely unaware of the havoc the next 12 months would bring.

I felt incredibly lucky to be living in Australia with its gorgeous weather and talented musicians and current lack of COVID cases as we watched the bands perform. How many places in the world could you safely do that right now?

Pete Murray was awesome. Such a cool dude, with his fetchingly cleft chin and smooth vocals. James Reyne (above) was a bit cranky but excellent, and the crowd went totally wild for his last song of the night, “Boys light up”.

It was a sublime end to his set. It also took me straight back to being a teenager pedalling on an exercise bike in my grandparents’ fibro double garage, listening to 2KO on the radio and suddenly realising the words to “Boys light up” described a woman using a vibrator … OMG … Oh, and the mile high club …

I wasn’t an Australian Crawl fan back then, even after the revelation, but I developed a belated appreciation for James after seeing him at Red Hot Summer last year. He’s gooooood.

Icehouse had the most incredible light show and Iva is a fantastic songwriter and performer, however I found his early stuff resonated most with me. I was impressed by Great Southern Land, for example, but was filled boppy joy when he sang “I can’t help myself”. SUCH an awesome song.

About the only thing we didn’t enjoy about the event were the leglessly drunk middle aged women who thought it was funny to get up and dance when they weren’t allowed to. (The blonde chick above was one of the worst offenders, obviously didn’t get enough attention as a child.) I mean, the rules were a bit odd – I’m not sure how sitting jammed together like sardines is better than standing, for example – but they were the rules. And if we want to keep going to gigs we need to follow them or they will be shut down. So I think it’s a bit daft to flout them in the name of a plastic carafe or three of Zilzie wine.

Anyways our weekend was bulk fun, despite the house painting. Aside from the music fest, we also managed a swim in the balmy sea and dinner at our fave Malaysian restaurant. Monday has come around far too soon.

OK, gotta go, Bryan the picture whisperer will be here in a few minutes. I’ll explain later.

Song of the day: Australian Crawl “Boys light up” (no harmonica on Saturday night, sadly. How GOOOOOD was 80s Aussie rock?)