Blues and Roots festival 2009

Over easter I travelled up to Byron Bay for the Blues and Roots festival where I was introduced to new music which managed to blow my mind! There were also bands I had previously listened to or even seen that were phenomenal as well. I have seen a fair bit of live music and love it, but this was something else, I have never seen such a beautiful response from the crowd or beautiful performers.

Highlight acts for me:

AYO
I had no idea who Ayo was, but what a stunning performer with beautiful music! Magic! The crowd was loving it, smiling and dancing. just so... joyful. One of the best performances I've ever seen. You could tell she really loved what she was doing. It's soul/folk/reggae, and Ben Harper personally requested she play on the same stage prior to his performance which lucky for me is why I got to see her! To me she far out shon him.

JOHN BUTLER TRIO
Although I've seen JBT a couple of times previously and enjoyed their music, seeing them at Blues Fest brought it to another level and I love how passionate they are about what they do, both their music and the various causes they promote and work for.

BLUE KING BROWN

Blue King Brown were another stand out act who I'd never heard of before, but they were also fantastic fun and had an awesome stage presence!

I just loved it! The whole experience, the atmosphere, the crowds, new music, the art and crafts, hula hoops, the mud and gumboots! Just beautiful.

Alot of the bands, particularly Blue King Brown, Missy Higgins and John Butler Trio all talked and promoted the campaign to save the Kimberley in WA where they are in the advanced stages of planning for a major natural gas plant they want to build. I haven't read up on it yet and until the concert and visiting the website I wasn't aware of what was going on, but it seems so tragic! I have always wanted to visit, and have always thought it to be such a beautiful and magical place with a lot of cultural history and significance within the Aboriginal communities.

Slide

I had a crazy moment where I decided that scanning in all the family photos was a great idea... I have scanned just under 1000 now and barely made a dent so am starting to wonder what I got myself into! It's great though, I do enjoy it. Particularly scanning in the slides and negatives as I don't know what I'm going to get. I found these fantastic ones of my mum and her sisters when they were kids.

It has really got me thinking about photography and digital vs. film. I was looking through the slides of dads adventures around Australia on his first trip. I really love the idea of not having a thousand and one photos, trying to get that perfect snap! It's nice to not know what you're going to get, it's more fun, the pictures seem to have alot more quirks. I always remember how exciting it was finishing a role of film and taking it in to get developed. So that's what I was thinking about because I have my trip coming up! And I'd really like to do something special like that. hm, so many ideas!!! Anyway, I received my digital camera back from the shop today, complete with new lense under warranty, atleast I wasn't imagining things and more importantly, i can get back to picture taking adventures!

I have 28 more sleeps until I get to go on a plane and fly into London! It's very exciting. The plane trip alone is exciting enough! I don't have any plans for over there just yet, nothing set in stone anyway. I should probably organise a couple of things... even if it's just some accomodation for when I first get there.

On my outing to the pub friday night something I found interesting was brought to my attention... It mentions no where that Humpty Dumpty is an egg!!! And yet he is depicted as one in each illustration! I'd never thought about it before, so it amused me greatly and I've done a bit of research on it and found out alot of different theories. I guess the most informative site was good ol' Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty