Harrietville Bluegrass Convention 2006

Found the time to travel to the 18th Harrietville Bluegrass Convention.

I took four days this time to give Rita and I plenty of time. We left on the Friday and came back on the Monday. We stayed at the Tudor Village in Bright. Very, very nice accommodation.

The musical highlights would have to be:

• Performing a song a Garry Brown's Dobro Workshop on Saturday afternoon.
  I pushed my luck at this event and was able to perform on my Paul Beard Road-O-Phonic and Fender Acoustasonic 30 watt amplifier. (I even used my PDA to provide backup music.) You need to understand that Harrietville is a traditional event and performing with amplifiers is not regarded as pure. I was lucky that the event police didn't catch me.
  
  
• Being involved in Garry Brown's Dobro Jam on Sunday afternoon.
  My luck didn't hold out for this event and I wasn't allowed to use my own gear. However, I did get to use a De Gruchy Resonator courtesy of Brian De Gruchy. Very nice instrument.
  The concept of the jam is to have a Double Bass player, two guitarists and as many Dobro players as posible formed into a circle. The concept is for each Dobro player tp pick a song, start it off, and then hand over the playing resposibilities to the Dobro player to your left. Round and round.
  Dobro Players: Garry Brown, Peter Fiddler, Quenton Fraser and two others I didn't catch the name of.
  
  
• Played at an 'Open Mic' with Hans and Dave at the Harrietville Hotel/Motel Saturday night.
  We only had time to perform four songs but we all had a great time. Jim Golding (Coolgrass) is responsible for this event.
  
  
• Being involved in several informal jams.
  
  
• Attended a Double Bass workshop held by Barry Reed, a member of Redline, a U.S.A. act.
  I asked a few questions about Bass rhythm and was quickly told it was everybody's responsibility to keep the rhythm.

We didn't limit ourselves to the the convention but also took in the sights. Try as we may, we just weren't able to see any wildlife. No Kangaroo's, Emu, Wallablies, etc. Yes, there was roadkill, but that doesn't count.

The biggest problem we faced was the cars transmission. It was slow to engage and changed gears at the most inappropriate times. Monday morning I went to the R.A.C.V. and asked them to have a look at it. I was told that the fluid level needed to be topped up with two and a half litres of fluid! I fear I have a problem in the making as I've used that volume of fluid in two thousand kilometres.