Despite loving music, especially when it’s live, I’d never been to a music festival. We lived in Portland for years and I never made it down to Port Fairy on the March long weekend. It could be something to do with my aversion to crowds and to ‘scenes’. I love reading and writing too, but I haven’t been to the writers’ festival for over a decade. Or maybe I’m just lazy.
Then last weekend, which started with my 53rd birthday, the entire Victorian branch of the family headed to Yackandandah Folk Festival. And had an absolute ball.
I hadn’t heard of any of the dozens of acts in the line up. Truth be told, the festival was mostly an excuse to spend an autumn weekend in the northeast – my favourite part of the state – where as a young couple we had four happy years and our first two babies. Now that the oldest of those babies has settled back in the area in an idyllic farmhouse outside Beechworth, the appeal is stronger than ever.
There were a bunch of their friends there too, and we had long cooked breakfasts on the verandah, endless cups of tea, a bonfire on the Saturday night and dips in their dam on Sunday morning which dawned crisp clear and sunny in a way that only the north-east can.
After the breakfasts, it was music all day long and far into the night if you felt like it. I saw thirteen acts, only two of which were dreadful. There were artists from all around the world. I saw a diminutive young Canadian woman who tap-danced while she played the fiddle. I chuckled at the a capella group Men in Suits singing an ode to Metro.
I heard exhilarating ‘apocalyptic folk rock’ that made it oh so hard not to ignore my dodgy knee and get up and dance. I heard young couples – several – whose voices and demeanours were so sweet I wanted to wrap them up and take them home. I went to hear Bluehouse – Australia’s answer to my favourite Indigo Girls – and laughed so hard I wanted to take those wild, rambunctious women to the pub for a few hours.
By dinnertime Saturday night I had had enough for one day and went home and to bed with my book and a cup of peppermint tea. After 12 hours sleep, I was ready to get up and do it all again.
With all the rain, the northeast was looking its most glorious – green as Ireland. The stream through the town was running strong, burbling and clear and on its banks small groups of children tried their hand at busking. And of course it helps that Yack, which looks like the set for a gold rush film, is one of the sweetest towns in Victoria.
There were no big names at Yackandandah. It didn’t matter. In fact, it took away a lot of the stress, as we mooched around, just stopping off at whoever took our fancy. At coffee breaks we compared notes with the others in our party and made recommendations.
On the first two days I listened and listened but didn’t buy a thing. On the Sunday the sun shone and I went nuts. We played our new CDs in the car on the way home and wondered why bands never sound as good when they’re not there in the flesh, just as photos are always a disappointment the first time you look at them, because inevitably you are comparing them with the real, live, technicolour thing itself – the landscape or the costume or the dear and laughing friend.
Then, after a while, you look at the photos again and realise that the colours aren’t so washed out and the perspective isn’t so inadequate and that they are worth more than their weight in gold for the memories they provoke.
In the same way, you listen to the CD and you realise what excited you about the music in the first place. It takes you back to a stuffy town hall clammy with unwashed campers bodies, or a street corner, to a chilly beer garden at the back of a pub, or a big draughty marquee, and the magic of live music, and it’s almost as good as being back there.
You pay a princely $70 for a ticket to the Yack Folk Festival. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some of our mob back there again next time. Including the birthday girl.