Peter Rowan Show

The Strzelecki Stringbusters scored a coup in hosting a show with Peter Rowan and his band at Yinnar.

The timetable was 5:00 to 6:00 BBQ for everyone, 6:00 to 7:00 Strzelecki Stringbusters and finally, Peter Rowan and his band from 7:00 until stumps.

I approached Garry White, with the offer of playing some background music during the BBQ. Garry agreed, which was great.

The weather was lovely, so I set up in the BBQ area and played 'Dobro' style with iPod backing through my new Genz-Benz amplifier. No microphones.
John Werner had warned me that the 'Bluegrass Police' were about so I had to play appropriately. The hour passed in no time at all with no arrests. :)

I took my gear home and brought back my old rocking chair and set up at the back of the hall and enjoyed the Peter Rowan band, which comprised Peter on guitar and lead vocals, Keith Little on banjo, Paul Night on Bass and Mike Witcher on Dobro. Every one sang, and boy was it good, just lovely.
Their performance was very professional and even though everyone had their own instrument microphone, everyone made space for the soloist whoever that may be. When it came to harmony singing they all gathered around Peter's vocal microphone. The bass player used an electric 'stick bass' which of course had to be plugged into the P.A. Who says that can't be done and no arrests!

Peter had an odd way of playing guitar solos. He had two microphones in his set up: A vocal microphone and a guitar microphone lower down at the level of the guitar. Without fail, everytime he'd play a solo he'd lift the guitar up so that it was the same height as the vocal microphone. His left hand was nearly vertical. Didn't look all the comfortable to me. Peter's solos were also interesting: No sixteenth notes! All very tame but played with a good feeling. I think because of that, there was more an 'Old Time' rather than a 'Bluegrass' feel to the band.

I was surprised to hear Peter sing 'Dustbowl Children'. I first heard the song on the latest Alison Krauss and Union Station recording and mistakenly thought they'd written it. No so, Peter wrote it.

A wonderful night, glad to be part of it.