Home found and southward bound

The NSW leg of the tour has begun but not before we completed our last two shows in Qld.

The first was at the QPAC Concert Hall in our home of Brisbane. The crowd were quietly intimidating, lurking silently in the darkness just beyond the stage. Frighteningly aware that they were there, I went stiff as a board, with only a glass of wine to comfort me through the anxiety of playing on home ground. I took my first sip and upon returning the glass to the carpeted floor, it smashed into what seemed like a million tiny chards.

I honestly have no idea how this happened. I placed it there so softly and carefully, only to have it disintegrate in my palms. It's like the hand of God himself had smashed the glass, passing his uncensored judgement on my enthusiastic drinking habits of the past few weeks.

For the rest of the set all I could think was 'now I will always be remembered as that trashbag that slashed up Sarah Blasko's feet in Brisbane'. Luckily our super crew had a vacuum nearby and were able to quickly clean up the good Lord's handy work.

Gold coast came after, offering a jovial Friday night crowd. I was surprised when one of the burly bouncers liked Seja's set and particularly my performance enough to want to shake my hand. It was a bit weird that he didn't have the same reaction to Renae (our drummer), who was standing right beside me. This is when I realised that he actually thought that I was Blasko. Renae informed me afterwards that he was calling out 'Sarah! Sarah!' in the lead up to the compliment but that I didn't hear him before he had grabbed me.

It's no wonder that upon receiving some complimentary feedback the next evening in Byron I responded with 'you do know I'm not Sarah, don't you?'. This time it was indeed for me. Unfortunately, I fear I may have come across as an epic wanker for assuming that they thought I looked like the gorgeous Blazzie. Oh man.

Day off today, relaxing at my friends Brett and Jenny's home in Lennox Head. It is affectionately known as Rancho Relaxo, and certainly lives up to its name. Early night tonight, off to Tamworth at dawn tomorrow.

 

Reef and Beef

Back in Brissie after 7 days of shows and driving down through regional Queensland. I wanted to do some blogging before now but little internet access (and too much fun) prevented the idea from eventuating.

So lets go back to a week ago. It was Wednesday in Cairns. Sunny.... warm... perfect!

Summer kindly got out of bed that day and decided to greet us congenially at Carins airport. We waiting in line at the Europcar desk, wondering what kind of sweet ride we would get for the Queensland leg of the tour and upon finding the car in the sea of hire vehicles, it could not have been a more perfect automobile.

We were allocated an electric blue, XR6 Ford Falcon with all the bells and whistles and a sweet spoiler to boot. We then proceeded to spend 15 mins draped over the car in every bikini model pose possible and realised that I had missed my calling as a car model. This role came incredibly naturally to me, oh how I worked it, pose after pose on every part of the car, Seja and Renae my unfailing Art Directors, encouraging me at every available moment to get sexier and sexier. It's surprising they didn't convince me to actually get into my bikini.

Sweet ride maaaate

After 20 mins of this we decided to find the hotel and discovered that it had a pool with a cocktail bar beside it. What's more, it was happy hour and they were serving the best "Cairns Sunrises" money could buy. Understandably, we had deposited ourselves in the pool, cocktail-in-hand before you could utter the words, 'Tropical Paradise'. At 5pm, sun-struck and giddy, we stumbled our way up to the Cairns Civic Centre for the show.

Summer decided to take a sickie the next day. We drove to Townsville in rain that could only be described as biblical. It was me who had drawn the driving straw that day and it is sufficient to say that it was quite a stressful few hours. Seja was employed as front passenger with the noble duty of trying to entertain me during the drive and I boundlessly ignored her with a deep and all-consuming look of concentration. My efforts worked and we found ourselves safe and just outside of Townsville eating sundaes and the Frosty Mango. Mmmmmmm, suuuuuundaaaaes.

Mackay was fun. Little did we know that we would be met with a hallway full of trolls when going back to our dressing room after the show (Rock Eisteddfod was on in the adjoining auditorium). I couldn't resist taking a happy snap of the little buggers. I don't think their teacher appeciated me turning up with my camera and telling them to "do something silly" though, as she was trying (in vain) to calm them all down before their performance.

Trolls

Rocky came next where my mother was proudly waving the welcome flag. We arrived and sat down with Mum in the kitchen, where she proceded to tell Seja and Renae all about 'Kate' (including the fact that the last time I had performed at the Pilbeam it was as the Tinman in my high school production of The Wiz). The best part though, was when she pulled out a clipping from that weeks local paper. It was a front pager, with a large picture of Sarah Blasko's face and the appropriate title of "KATE BEEFS UP CENTRAL QLD TALENT", there was barely even a reference to Sarah in the article, it was all about me (which I am certain made my Mother very happy indeed). It was lucky that we had a night off and an intimate crew dinner that evening so Seja and Renae could quikly on-tell all of my Mum's stories and have a good old chuckle about the "Kate" article with the Blasko troupe. I. Was. Mortified.

Show in Rocky went well the next night. Sarah dedicated their set to me and thanked me for allowing them to perform in my town. Everybody's a comedian ay.

Bundaberg and Nambour were next. Great shows. We are really getting into the swing of things now and I have to say that I was feeling a little sad to come home after the Nambour installment. I could really get used to this nomadic kind of lifestyle. Everywhere feels like home to me and I am adapting so easily to each new place. Blasko band and crew are amazing and everyone is starting to get along really well. Lots of laughs and backstage shenannigans. I assume this will only become more entertaining as we sail on.

Sarah's bass player Dave, having a little snooze mid show

Rumbos in Bundy!

On a side note, I must mention that in Bundaberg I tried to track down my first love, Dean. This was somewhat fueled by Renae and Seja (as we were talking about our first loves over cocktails in the pool in Carins and I had mentioned mine was from Bundaberg). It had been an awkward and unusual break-up more than 12 years ago, he was going through a rough time and long-story-short, we had a fight over the phone, I hung up, said to myself 'he can call me back' and he never did. Me being subborn as an ox, never called him back either. And that was the last time I spoke to him.

Anyhow, when the girls heard this story they insisted on us looking him up, and low and behold, it seemed that he was playing a gig at the local club on the day that we were in town. After an anxiety fueled and nothing but torturous lead up to us arriving at the club, I walked in and found out that there was a mistake in their gig guide and 'no Dean today'. This is crazy in hindsight, but I then wrote him a letter for them to give to him next time he was at the club. OH GODD WHAT AM I DOING???? I gave him my contact details and suggested that he get in contact if he wants to. Watch this space people.

Victoria down! ...Next up, Far North Queensland.

Having a day off back in my homeland of Brissie today. After some frantic uploading, downloading, catching-up, catching zees, and chasing tail I am now getting ready to pack the bag to head off to Cairns tomorrow, for the Queensland leg of the tour. All my dresses are washed but thanks to the relentless down pour that has been happening in South East Queensland come the last week, I have now resorted to drying my tour dresses with a travel hair dryer. Let’s hope this works, otherwise, it could be a very musty smelling tour van.


The rest of the Victoria leg was wonderful, including a very intimidating show at the Palais (next to Luna Park, St Kilda) on Friday. This building is purely imposing, holding around 2500 people.

Inside the Palais, omg omg omg omg omg

Lucky that I couldn’t actually see anyone past the front row, otherwise I may have had a very real nervous breakdown.

Watching Sarah's show from front of house at the Palais

Saturday we played the quaint and cosy Town Hall in Meeniyan.

Meeniyan is a small township about 2 hours South West of Melbourne and is home to a grand total of 420 people. Considering there was an audience of 200 strong on Saturday night, it is safe to say that half the town turned out for the event.

It was such a lovely experience including all of the small town trimmings and a good dose of authentic country hospitality. We took the leisurely scenic route to the town (and by ‘scenic route’, I mean accidentally getting lost in the neighbouring hills of the Tarwin), where after hitting a dirt road and driving by several massive property's we realised that we may indeed be heading in the wrong direction.

Ummmm, maybe we should check the address...

 

40mins and some help from Google Maps later, we arrived in Meeniyan where Suzanna (of the local CWA) showed us into the back stage area. There was tea, coffee, beer, wine, snacks, an open fire and a group of country-woman working hard in the kitchen preparing us an epic feast for that night.

Backstage at Meeniyan

It was pretty much the best food I had ever eaten...the fact that I had only really eaten cheese and bread for 4 days previous to this may well have contributed to it's overwhelming tastiness, but still, it was pretty darn good.

I am certain that the Meeniyan Town Hall experience is going to be one of the most memorable nights of the tour.

In general, the first week of touring had its ups and downs to be honest. At first I was feeling really quite shy and a bit overwhelmed by the whole big-tour experience. I felt like I was simply moonlighting amongst a bunch of pros. That said, by the time we got to Meeniyan it was starting feel a bit more natural to be hanging around a bunch of extremely talented strangers and I am starting to feel more and more comfortable with the whole thing as each day passes.

In other news, I got a call today from the local paper in Rockhampton (The Morning Bulletin) saying that they had had an ‘anonymous’ tip-off that I was coming to town as a part of the Sarah Blasko tour, and would I like to be interviewed etc etc. I have a sneaking suspicion of just who this ‘anonymous’ informer was, eh hem, ...Mum.

Amateur Hour

Ok, so I wasn't going to post today but I thought it would be fun (and shameless) to update you on the happenings of last night....

We went to Castlemaine and loaded into the beautiful Theatre Royal (built in 1859). What a venue. It was imposing, gorgeous, dilapidated, and nothing short of utterly charming. We had a quick game of Frisbee, where we discovered that Seja is arguably the most incapable human ever witnessed playing this sport. Nevertheless, we persisted, had some laughs and did a lot of running (to retrieve the rouge sporting equipment).

Sound check went well and everything seemed to be a-ok. Little did I know that I was indeed preparing for Seja's new show, Kate's Amateur Hour. We came onstage to do our set and everything was going well until "Sing Me The Song Like You Said". This is a song where I simply switch a sample on and off, play some shaker and then rock some distorted guitar at the end. Easy right???

....NOOOO. Not so simple tonight people. I had the guitar hanging from my back (a trick I had learned from Seja's old guitarist) and half way through the second verse the guitar strap disconnected and the Gretch dropped to the floor. It didn't stop here... Flustered, I then picked up the guitar and lent it against the amp (forgetting that I still needed it for the end of the song). I went back to playing the song sans guitar, until I realised I needed it, stopped playing again, fixed the strap and put the guitar back on. GODD. So anyway, I'm thinking that everything is totally ok now, get to the guitar bit, play the first chord and it sounds like a hundred tone-deaf felines screeching in unison.

There was not one string that was in tune. NOT ONE.

The embarrassment of this whole experience made me crumble. I pretty much forgot my bits to every song from then on.

I felt soooo bad, and in another 'girl band' moment, I may have even have shed a tear or two after the show.

Yep...I am so Rock'n'Roll.

In other news, here are some pics...

On the road

Last night we had our first show in the delightful border town of Albury. We turned up late (after a vast tour of the outer suburbs, trying to get out of Melbourne), met 'The Blasko' and band, who are all lovely by-the-way, and completed the world's quickest sound check. After check we had approximately 23mins to get dressed, pretty our faces, forget to tune our instruments and warm up our vocal chords. I did however make time to eat some delicious cheese in this 23mins. There wasn't even enough time for me to get nervous (unusual since I am pretty much consumed by anxiety and neuroses 24/7). Never fear. Seja made up for this. Her widened doe eyes painted a thousand words.  

We did ok. The usual first show hiccups (including a very 'girl band' moment of forgetting to plug in the guitar lead and then wondering why there was no sound). Tee hee, ooopsie! Being a theatre show I realised that there really wasn't enough light to see what I was playing on said guitar, and therefore played ALL wrong power chords in one song. Still, I managed to keep it together overall and I'm excited by the prospect of learning to play the guitar in complete darkness.  

Sarah is shorter than I thought. Big personality though. I like her. She is like a smaller, better looking version of me so ...what's not to like eh?

After a slight rider mishap, our drummer, Renae, and I decided to take matters into our own hands a find a goddam bottle shop. We got white, red and a bottle of Canadian Club's finest (just for starters) and set afoot back to indie folk central. That's when Miss Katey officially put her party pants on. 

Many wines, a few scotches and some embarassing photos later, we were safe in the hotel room. I barely remember putting my head to the pillow.

First show last night, first hangover today. I expect this is a sign of things to come. 

Off to Castlemaine now. 

The endless weekend

Last night was an absolute doosie. To celebrate the beginning of my endless weekend there were drinks, great friends, ring-ins, laughs, raggamuffin, more drinks, hugs, kisses, megaphones, sneaky cigarettes, more drinks and so on and so on and so on. There was a jaw-dropping discussion on the human centipede, some enthusiastic dancing to white-man-blues and, in a last minute decision to pull over the cab on the way home, a fleeting appearance at Casablanca's karaoke. The unihibited version of Like A Prayer brought down the house no less. There may even be some footage of this. Deary, deary me.

In other news, I think I may have said all my goodbyes at work yesterday (to 60 odd people) with a delightful little snotball on my nostril. Unforgettable.