More Tourin'.
Thursday 11th, Jun 2009
Hi there,
I am writing to you all today under great strain and duress, fighting aches and pains all over my body after football training last night. “Football Training??!?!?”, I hear you ask? Well as it turns out last night was the first, (and perhaps only), training session for the Espy Rock Dogs in their quest to be champions in the Community Cup next week. Now whilst I may have played a little bit of football as a young boy in Bull Creek, it’s been roughly 16 years since I last played a game, or even trained for one for that matter and I can assure you that after a couple of hours of running around kicking the football in the rain with the temperature barely hovering above 10 degrees I felt every bit the unfit 31 year old. My knee hurts, my calves hurt, my ankles hurt, my heels hurt, even the inside part of my elbow hurts and I didn’t think I even used the inside of my elbow! Although having said all of that, I don’t hurt as much as I did after my first day of snowboarding. That night I couldn’t even raise my arms above my shoulders. I spent the entire day falling on to hard snow and even managed to hit my forehead with my snowboard! Have a think about that one. I was in the French Alps though so that made the pain worthwhile. The trouble is as we get older our memories of the things we did as youngsters remain so fresh giving us the delusion that they happened just days ago instead of years. I was horrified at my first attempt at marking and kicking the ball last night. I fell on my face trying to mark the ball and then my kick, whilst travelling about 15 metres, barely hovered above the ground! I wanted to blame my legs but they were attached to my torso and besides, I was going to need them for the next two hours so thought best to keep them on side.
Anyway, the Community Cup match happens on Sunday June 21st at Elsternwick Oval, Melbourne. Other rocker types taking the field will be Tim Rogers, Kram, Clint from Something For Kate and Dave Larkin from Dallas Crane. The other team is made up of radio peeps from RRR, PBS and SYN FM. All proceeds from the evnt go to Reclink, which is a really cool organistion that provides art and sport opportunities to people in isolated communities and helps them to tackle various social difficulties they may be facing like homelessness etc. For more info check out these links:
http://www.wisewords.com.au/News.php?post=28
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/music/cup-brimmeth-over-with-musos/2009/05/28/1243456660982.html
The last few shows have all been really great although a severe lack of sleep from having to catch such early flights each day put a surreal spin on things. It started innocently enough with a lazy afternnon flight to Brisbane and a two hour drive to Eumundi, a little town inland from the Sunshine Coast that I’d never had the pleasure of visiting before. I felt like we were a lot further inland than we actually were. The town had a real authentic Australiana vibe about it and Joes Waterhole is the kind of pub that backpackers from Scandanavia would lose their shit over. You half expect Crocodile Dundee to appear next to you at the bar. Only the background noise of the pokies jolts you back to real time. A happy and enthusiastic crowd came along for the ride which was a lovely surprise, as was the support act, the Little Stevies, a super cool band from Melbourne I think with beautiful harmonies and home spun lyrics. Check ‘em out. After the show we drove back to Brisbane where we slept for four hours and then headed to the airport to fly to Cairns.
I do enjoy Cairns. It’s so far away from everything you feel like you have crossed the border in to one of our Northern neighbours like Papua New Guinea or something. Sometimes, when I am bored, I like to imagine that I actually have until someone pulls me out of my fantasy world and tells me to load my guitars in the van so we can check in to our hotel. The venue we play is the Tanks Art Centre, which is a cool theatre that has actually been built inside an old, disused tank, one of many in the area used during World War 2 to service war ships with petrol. Don’t worry, you couldn’t smell gasoline although it was non smoking. After another superlative show we went back to the hotel and decided whether it was worth going to bed and getting four hours sleep again or staying up. I and some other decided to stay up. So it was off to the casino! These are bad, bad places to go and drink at but the bright flashing lights do help to keep you awake.
We make our flight and I fall asleep before we take off and wake up when we land, making the flight to Sydney go incredibly quick. Another drive North to Erina gives me another couple of hours sleep and by the time we arrive for load in I’m as fresh as a daisy. The Woodport Inn is a suburban night club that looks as though it has seen a lot of late night action. The crowd that graces the gig tonight however are able to transform the place in to a bright and vibrant little venue. Amazing! Another great gig with a great crowd. We drive back to Sydney where we get about six hours sleep this time and then we go our separate ways home. T’was a fantastic last little run with the band so many thanks to everyone who came along!
This afternoon I will be taking my tired and aching body to Ballarat and the famous Karova lounge for the first of three solo shows I will be playing this week. Tomorrow will be at the Western Port Hotel in San Remo and then Saturday at the wonderful Rubys Lounge, Belgrave.
Don’t forget that me and the band will be back, touring all around the country in support of Eskimo Joe through July, August and September.
Cheers everyone!
XXXBOBXXX
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