17th Thredbo Blues Festival

Last Friday it was raining heavily. From Thursday’s forecast of 7 days of rain, it looked like we were in for a wet Blues Festival - the sort that gets you down ;-) But the forecast on Friday had suddenly switched from 7 days of rain to 7 days of sunshine. Sure enough Saturday morning arrived bathed in sun and that’s the way it stayed all weekend.

There was a great variety of music and nothing that I didn’t enjoy. Mind you, as a ticket checker, I didn’t get to see as much as I might have but I found I had two very full days and 3 even fuller nights, making home around 2am each morning, leaving a huge crowd behind each night.

Two special moments occurred in the Schuss bar when members of the audience got up and played their harmonicas with the bands. A brave act for both the audience member and the band involved. Neither individual was a fool and instead each put on a good display of talent.

My feeling was that numbers were down on last year but after hearing on the Saturday news that the Tamworth Country Music Festival was also down on numbers; I suspect it was probably the floods that prevented many from attending either event.

Many thanks to the artists, their support teams, the sound guys, the village folk, Jen and most of all, the friendly and very well-behaved audience.

Delay Gosper in the Village Square

Gail Page at Poolside

Blue Heat at the same venue later in the afternoon

The Wayne Jury Three in the shady square

Some of the audience outside Squatters Run in the square

Phil Edgeley solo blues

Geoff Achison’s Classically Blue

With feeling

Dave Churchill, guitar maker extraordinaire
and the headline jam session using his instruments

Mt Kosciuszko in the distance, from the Kosi Lookout
taken 9 days ago and there’s been a lot of rain since then

With the school holidays still on and such wonderful weather, I doubt the village we slip into quiet mode until after Australia Day, leaving the resort to the mountain bikes, golf, fishing and all the other outdoor activities that consume the long summer days in Thredbo.

Congratulations to KT on getting their weather report page back up online.