apollo bay music festival

We stayed at Star on the Sea, which from what I can gather is owned and operated by nuns who only stay there themselves in the christmas holidays. It is beautifully makeshift inside. Here is the marvellous kitchen.

New Estate played probably one of, if not THE best show(s) - sorry about grammar - of their existence at the Surf Club on the Saturday afternoon. The people there, old and new, really dug it.

Later in the evening I went and saw Duckdive at the bowls club. They started, if I remember correctly, with the last song off their album, and it was quite magnificent. They ended with a Justin Timberlake song (sorry, didn't recognise, Justin who?). I was a bit sorry for the trumpet player (not pictured here) because for a lot of the set he just stands there being part of a frontline. He is a good trumpet player though this evening he looked like someone out of Brideshead Revisited. And like obviously on purpose. Dbl bassplayer does a good Todd Hunter imitation too don't you think? I mean young Todd Hunter. He could go one better and be as good as Todd and play electric bass (I'm sorry but that's my inclination. They already sound excellent - but they could sound 10% more excellent with that cool hollow Stereolab/Beach Boys bass sound. I used to say the same thing about royalchord, and look where it got us all.)

This is Duckdive's audience, with their luminous eyes.

On the Sunday I was in a cafe and it rained a lot there was a weird bluesy boogie band going on down there in the street and people in the cafe were bopping lightly with their heads, their faces blank, it was pretty creepy - kind of an indictment on white people's capacity for moronic bopping. Anyway I looked out in the street and it was raining and check out the huggers on the right.

Here are the Rustys who were one of the busking groups in the street. As opposed to busking half way up a mountain or deep in a well.

Here is The Stems' audience, such as they were (there were a lot of people up the back). I think I saw the Stems in 1984 with the Moffs. They were pretty tight for this show. A middle-aged fool after the show was over, who had been head-bopping all through, said to his compadre, 'This festival's good because you get to see the groups you didn't see at the time.' Great thinking, friend.



New Estate were playing another fine show back at the Surf Club - groundhog day or what - then we left and drove back partly via the Great Ocean Road, partly via the Great Nondescript Winding Crap Road.