Day 45 - 10/03/12

Day two of the Festival and thankfully I woke up to sunshine and no wind.
The Festival site was buzzing when I got there.

The Festival site in full swing

I made my way over to Stage 2 (which was set up like a concert hall with seating already provided) and kicked back to the blugrass sounds of Peter Rowan's Bluegrass Band.
After that it was the Maton Guitar Jam which was hosted by Nick Charles and featured about 8 guitarists including John Butler, Jeff Lang, Daniel Champagne, Peter Rowan and Jimi Hocking who all took turns playing a song. I thought it may have been a bit more interactive with the performers talking more about the songs or their guitars but it was still a pretty entertaining concert.
I captured some snippets of the concert here:



I then went to a blues harmonica workshop which was hosted by Eddie Boyle from the band "Blues on the Boyle" which gave an overview of the history of the blues harmonica. At the end he also took questions from the audience about harmonica playing.

Who'd have thought Donald Trump could play blues guitar?

I couldn't really be bothered moving on after the workshop so stayed around for the Bodhran (Irish drum) workshop which proved to be fairly interesting and entertaining.

Irish drum....parumpapumpum

I then left the festival site and went for a walk around the town centre where there was a lot going on with markets, puppet shows, busking and food stalls.

At 6pm I went to an APRA songwriter speaks session at the RSL Hall. The sessions are usually pretty good with the songwriters playing a song then discussing what inspired the song or anything else to do with the creation of it.
This one was a bit lacklustre but still ok. A couple of dudes from Tripod were sitting behind me so that was a minor highlight (I love a good celebrity spotting). It's always so weird to see famous people in real life!
After that it was time to go back to the festival and see "My Friend the Chocolate Cake" and Clare Bowditch.
Snippets of their performances here:




Clare Bowditch has a lovely stage presence and seems very down to earth and appreciative of her fans - always nice to see.
Another great day of music at Port Fairy.