BUMPING WITH THE BUSH BASHERS
(A True Story)
When I was asked to go to Noosa’s North Shore and watch some bands I was never expecting a trip out into the wilderness literally out into the middle of nowhere. But what the hell?? It sounds like fun….
So myself and the Gorgeous The Point Girl ‘Apryl’ set out to Noosa, after we both experienced a bit of a bender the night prior I new is was going to be interesting. First of was the after alcohol feed. So we stopped of at a bakery in Cooroy. Apryl got the plain pie while I myself indulged in the Aussie pie. Beacon, tomato, onion, egg and cheese. I was in love the whole time I was shoving that thing into my face. I then noticed that some Paramedics where parked beside us and they were going for the healthier option of Subway. Plus I now that they also get that stuff close to free. But for $3.80 I was happy with my choice.
We then set off toward Noosa cranking some tunes from American band “Chevelle”. I had just recently purchased there album “Sci-fi Crimes” and to tell you the truth it was money well spent, favourite tracks being “Mexican Sun” and “Jars”… But this is not a “Chevelle” review….some other time maybe.
We get to the barge only to realise that the price of the thing is bloody out right ridiculous. $6.00 for a one way ride across a river not much wider then a normal house pool!!! $12 bucks for a return ticket, also the fact that you cant even get a return ticket. You have to pay each way…I can honestly remember going across a barge to “Coochimudlo” island in the Brisbane area and they charge $2.50 for a trip that takes 10 – 15 mins to get to the other side. I guess that’s Sunshine Coast Prices for ya? Any way that’s my winge out of the way.
We get of the barge and following Rhys’s directions just follow the road until you get to the end, as we did. We come to a Saddlery for horses and a camp site. Also a road saying private property “DO NOT ENTER”. So we must have driven past it so we decide to back track just around the corner. We stop and ask the local gift shop/motel for directions. She tells me she’s never heard of some bush bash and could not tell me where it was. But she then told me there is only one place around that could be. So I followed her directions and checked out every location in the damn place to discover that there was no such BUSH BASH to be seen nor heard….(Yes, we even got out of the car and walked around to see if we could hear it)…but nothing.
2 hours had past while we where driving around looking for nothing. After relentlessly trying to call Rhys, and 2 Floating bridge members to find out where to go, yet getting no response….We decided eh ‘FUCK IT’ lets just go home. We head back to the barge. We get back to the barge and notice my phone is ringing Rhys offers to give me the numbers of the organisers to help me on our lil journey. I call the first organiser only for it to ring out. Apryl then tells me that she needs to pee…so she gets out of the car and goes for a walk. I remain in the car and try calling the second organiser only to notice that there a cars coming…I call out to Apryl to leave her pants on. The cars looked like a mini road train and on the back of the treys on the utes where tied down mattresses. I put 2 And 2 together and realised that they had to be Bush Bash Go’ers! So I called out to Apryl and followed them, hoping that they where not Bush Pig hunters with big guns!!!
We drive down this dirt track for about 10 – 15 minutes and I get that feeling that its not down this road at all. Cos it seems that we are driving through other peoples property. But I persist to follow. Then all of a sudden the trucks stop…and one by one they crawl past this guy holding a folder and what seems to be tickets….THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!
The look of relief on our faces must have been a sight to behold!!!
We pull up to the guy and he says “Welcome to the Bush Bash”.
We find a nice park between two trees and out of the way, we grab our gear and a couple of drinks (Jim Beam Bourbon cans in fact) and head of around the grounds. On the walk through we notice a Ping Pong Table and about 15 people around watching and drinking while 4 boys were playing Beer Pong. We had a quick chat to them and moved on. We then went off to have a look at the set up. Looking at it was not to exciting at all. It was just a tarp covering 4 speakers on each side and a drum kit…that was about it. But it’s all about the sound, and I have to agree that the sound guy got it right. for an open area and such a lil set up the sound was sounding a perfect as it could have been.
So I went over and had a lil chat to him. He explained that he was Norwegian (Someone from Norway) and he went on about how his country is so different from our lil Aussie land. Some times they only get to see the sun once every 3 months and that when he pulled out his iphone to prove it. He showed me this photo of some mountains in complete darkness with the tiniest bit of sunlight peaking over some mountains. Say like a candle sitting on top of Aires Rock at night…then he went on to tell me that that was in the middle of the day there. He said he took that photo about 12:30 in the arvo…IT WAS PITCH BLACK!!! So we went onto talking about festivals and stuff and he told me that all the festivals in Norway are more like 48 hour Raves…48 hours of non stop Doof Doof and 50,000 pill heads wigging out and touching each other. I then told him I have to go to one of those some time…I think it would be fun.
We were then attracted to a nice couple standing around there car, Barbie the girl and I can’t really remember the guys name? Barbie was one I noticed later on was off her guts and jumping around to the Bridges. But that’s later. These two seemed to be all about the bush. Even though they explained to me that this was their first time in Noosa, they have been following the BUMP organisation for a couple of months or years and they try to go to every show that they hold. The guy noticed the stubby coolers that Apryl and I were holding in the form of a Lime Green Canberra Raiders Stubby Coolers. He then explained that he was from Canberra and was also a fan of the mighty Green Machine! We then headed off to watch the first band coming on as they were all set up and about to start.
Well the first band up was a group mainly from the Gold Coast/ Brisbane area, and from the first couple of notes been played I noticed that already was there a small crowd assembling towards the front. It was already starting to fill with a laid back dancing aura and I knew then that this night was going to be something.
“A French butler Called Smith”, what can I say here with out blowing out an excited valve? These guys were fantastic…not just musically, but stage presence as well. It was almost like they were all born for one reason. To play Latin tunes in the middle of a forest? The first thing I noticed was the Spanish guitar in the hands of Scott French. Such a delicate yet full on style of playing and it made the songs. It was the adhesive, the mould, the connection to the other instruments in the group. I also couldn’t help but notice the big fluffy purple hat worn by Liam ‘Rasta’ Corney on the trumpet who was also the comic relief between songs. Making strange yet funny sounds and walking sometimes like a penguin kept such a carefree environment even more so relaxed. It was almost like everyone there new each other and we were all just having a Sunday BBQ. The other members were Brennan Smith on the percussion, Jake Martin on the Bass and Mark ‘Gibbo’ Gibson on the Saxophone. All together it just it flowed and was very catchy and colourful that you just could not stop moving.
It’s now that I notice ‘The Floating Bridges’ have showed up and are all gathered behind this pack of infectious dancing. Watching in awe has “AFBCS” put on such a giant show in the middle of no where. It’s not too long before bassist Rohan joins myself and Apryl in a bit of floor stomping jive.
The track that stood out for me was “Upside Down Frown’ which yet again started with the soft delicacy of Scott French, then after a nice vocal verse by ‘Rasta’ and ‘French’. It kicks into gear with percussion and the “French” delicacy. Then with the whole group snapping you with this pulsating riff that for some reason you just can’t get out of your head. Your feet start to move and then before you know it, you’re entrapped in invisible box of complete body motion as it spreads into the crowd once again. Looking around there was absolute dance infection all around like a bad flu.. Even people pitching up there tents 50 yards away were also pulsating away and snapping their fingers. I some times pictured myself in an old 50’s club when the track Spam Jam comes into play. With that old style swing yet fused with funk. The only real disappointing thing about this band was when they stopped playing in between songs, which in fact wasn’t that often as their songs tend to go for about 10mins each, but to me…that wasn’t at all near long enough. The songs could have gone for 20 mins each with out even being noticed because of such the variety they show in each track.
I must a 10 out of 10 from me. An absolutely talented group…fantastic well done ‘A French butler called smith’
As they finish up I make sure I meet them and have a chat to them, which then turns into a small interview in the back of a Honda CRV. Jake and Rasta were more then happy to give up their time to chat to me for a bit which shows just what kind of guys they are.
It was well dark buy this stage and because of everything that was going on it actually felt like it went from 3pm to 7pm in the space of about 20mins. You could notice people starting to pull out the jacket and jumpers for that fresh night air that was summoning upon us. Also the Beer tent and Food tent had extremely large lines. Also the bon fire was starting to fire up nicely. With little groups of people coming together to form this one big circle around the only real form of heat for miles.
While this was happening I noticed the second band had already started and that I missed the first couple songs of their set (Because I was interviewing AFBCS).
But I moved up front and started to sway at the sounds of the “Hayden Hack Infusion”. Now one person comes to mind the first time you hear these guys…”Bob Marley” . that’s right, reggae filled the speakers out into a cold crowd and warmed every one up with warm musical bliss. A more of a grove slower tempo to the previous act but just as enjoyable. Being a Vocalist myself I notice the dynamic notes from front man Hayden Hack was very powerful and but smooth also. It was almost like getting charmed by a Jamaican matchstick man with his power of melody. I must say that I’m not the common listener to this genre but I did in fact enjoyed it thoroughly.
Then the moment that we were all waiting for, it was time to shake our butts to the sounds of “The Floating Bridges”. Cale, the front man doing such a great job on keeping the crowd warm on a cold evening. Breaking out crowd pleasers like Bluestown, Home, Spanish Split, also surprising us all playing the new track “The Warrior” which I believe is their new no.1 song to play. It had everything and then some.
I grabbed the camera and headed to the back of the stage to get a band point of view out looking into the crowd. Adro (Didge/Percussion) and Reese (Drums) where more then happy to show off their skills. The guys at the back don’t usually get much attention so Adro didn’t really know what to do once on camera. Just a cheeky smile and continued. Looking out to the crowd you could see the see that the atmosphere and alcohol were combining very nicely and the crowd were going off. Ever Bass player Rohan having a good jump around also standing on top of the fold back box to get a top look of the fanatic fans in front of him. This is where I spotted ‘Barbie’ (the girl mentioned earlier) front row centre taking in every thing that The Floating Bridges had to give. When the start of ‘Can We Shall We’ started to play I then knew that their was only one left to go after this one. So I got in and made the most of it….sadly my camera had run out of batteries at this stage so I didn’t manage to get any footage. This song as the best ending of any of the Bridges songs. A very soft couple of verses then POW!!! Cale, Dale & Adro all start smashing Djembes in rhythmic goodness. You just have to jump around or stamp your feet, smack your thighs or something because it’s so addictive. When that’s done Cale announces the last song of the night, the Title track to there EP “FIRE”!!! Cale then go’s on to explain what the song is about. Bringing on the bong!!! Lyrics such as “I need the fire in my lungs, So gimme fire, gimme water and a nice big bong” let you know that these guys aren’t at all law enforcers. But out here in the middle of this bush they were the gods of entertainment. Not a song was sparred and a big way to finish the night off. Thank you “The Floating Bridges”.
As the boys got off and it was physically possible to speak with them after all the screaming crowd. I made sure that they new of the great show they performed. I could literally see steam rising off Rohan from the cool down. It was so cold yet they were all so hot it was pretty amazing looking at them like they just been in the oven on high for an hour. Then thrown into a freezer…
After this it was time to head off and head back home…I said my goodbyes and started to roll away. I took one look at Apryl and her face said it all. She goes onto then saying “Next time that this is on, were so coming back and next time…I’m bringing all my friends”.
Wade & Apryl (Winners of the Double Pass to the Bump Bush Bash)
