PFFF - 2024

41 degrees on day 2 @ PFFF 2024

I just played the Port Fairy Folk Festival for the sixth time. The first, in 1997, there was a frost on the ground. The next four times, I know I definitely wore beanies and various jackets. This time, the second day hit 41 deg. >>>  Of all those times, only one of them wasn’t at the behest of Sarah Carroll and/or the late Chris Wilson. They’ve given me so much; including me in things that enormously boosted my confidence and experience, such as my inclusion in the backing band for the great US telecaster-twanger, Bill Kirchen. Playing with Chris was always a little like climbing on the back of a rocket… you went for a ride to somewhere… and immediately. Vale Chris - I do love you. Sarah has included me on every recording of hers since the time we met at Woodford in 2003 and who knows how many shows we’ve done now. She’s one of my best friends. One has to learn her songs ‘cause they always contain smart twists and turns. She’s got a killer right arm. In the band this year was Shannon Bourne, another dear friend and simply one of the most unique and talented guitar players I know of. He does things I barely understand. We share many similar threads of humour… usually geek with a quirky twist. We had exactly the same ideas that second day of the festival, lying in the aircon’d motel room till sundown. “Spose we should head in eh?” “Yeah, man.” The rhythm section was Fenn and George, Sarah and Chris’s sons. I have to stop and think what I write now as it could go on and on. I’ve said to my immediate peers, that as good as what I know you are, the Carroll-Wilson brothers will wipe the floor with you. I mean this in complete goodwill, but they amaze me. Of course, it’s written into their DNA - Fenn, the working man’s working man, richly immense in his baritone voice. His guitar chords come out of the ether, of his own design. George, hilarious, mercurial and by turns explosively joyous and deft. He could play a toothbrush and it’d stand up. I mentioned to Sarah a few years ago that it was as if one minute Fenn was clutching a soccer ball and George a toy dalek, and the next they were the greatest rock ‘n’ roll musicians on earth. I say this as not only somebody sharing the stage with them, but also as an audience member at Fenn’s solo shows at the festival, both of which were brooding, sophisticated and uplifting. >>> Later on I listened to Graham Nash. He played “Love the One You’re With”. He also played “Ohio”. It’s something to hear the likes of him, or Judy Collins, talk about buying a vase for Joni Mitchell at an op-shop, then driving back to Laurel Canyon to cook dinner. But that was their life. It makes a change from somebody rambling via the internet. >>> Here’s a little clip Sarah captured as we were prepping for the shows. Pity the dogs wern’t allowed to come. https://fb.watch/qW-YRnU4zp/