(no subject)
Whitestone was great. Excellent concerts from Anna Heinz, Native (versatile Dunedin acoustic band with Hamish Mepham doing vocal leads, and featuring some weird and definitely wonderful instrumentation) and Little Green Men (Brad and Chrissie). I sang my new song-first in the Friday night session (with Sue Harkness sitting right in front of me) and then in the Saturday afternoon invitation concert, where I got a gratifyingly enthusiastic call for an encore (I couldn't oblige because of time pressure). Paddy and I did They're coming to take me away, ha! ha! in the Sunday night concert, accompanied by young Chris the fiddler on bongo (played at heart-beat rhythm) and with Paddy doing tambourine on the on-beat.
.
The lights have all gone out down in the big marquee,
But we'll keep the music playing deep into the night
With mulled wine and toasted sandwiches by candlelight
In the coffee bar
With laughter and good cheer, and in good company,
We while away the time until somebody sings
You sit here at the table tuning up the strings
On your guitar
Now play your sweet music to me:
Send tender words across the strings and touch my heart.
Beguile me with a song, and I will play my part
And listen
With voices all in harmony we close our eyes,
Caught up in joys and sorrows that are not our own
Just borrowed ones that other singers' hearts have known
In other days.
Singing songs of peace and war, and tales of lovers' lies,
Or riding from Chicago on a south-bound train,
To New Orleans across the Mississippi plain
In the early morning haze
Now play your sweet music to me
And take me on a journey anywhere you please
Down little country roads or over stormy seas
To the session's end
Our circle now is smaller than it was before,
As wiser folk have said good night and slipped away.
Not long now till the birdsong summons in the day
Over Silverstream.
But though we've sung a hundred songs, we've still got heart for more,
And the night will run its course whether we will or no.
The time of our own choosing is our time to go,
And our time to dream.
So play your sweet music to me
As the last note of the morepork fades into the dawn,
And the bellbird tells the bush another day is born,
Come on and play your sweet music to me..
Personal down-side for me was that I didn't get round to requesting a cabin next to a bathroom in the days leading up to the festival, and by Friday I figured that it probably wouldn't matter anyway, since most of the cabins were in blocks with bathrooms in them, so it would be a matter or only a half-dozen extra steps. The theory was sound, but Murphy never sleeps, and didn't see why I should either. I got the cabin without a bathroom attached, which meant a mad sprint (after disentangling my self from my sleeping-bag liner, pulling on trousers and unco-operative boots and wrapping a blanket round myself) several times a night. On the last night I went to bed at 4 am, and had to get up at 5, 6 and 7, before getting up for the day shortly before 9. All my trials, Lord, soon be over (till the next time).
Kept falling asleep during Dr Who on Monday night (dammit!)
Sorry jexia, I didn't read your comment on my previous blog before I left.