World Environment Day and Debut Gigs

Tuesday was World Environment Day, I took part in a protest on excess logging, see some photos here www.flickr.com/photos/chrischinchilla/sets/72157600322402682

It was in an area about two hours from Melbourne, my Geography is a little poor, but here’s a few name places I overheard that might give it some relevance… The Yarra Ranges, The Upper Taggerty, Whitehorse River and the Central Highlands.

It was an experience and great to get out of the city, due to the trees and the latitude the air was incredibly clear, the protest was fairly successful, despite the spelling mistake on the banner! The reaction from the authorities was strange, the police man was actually quite interested in what we had to say and ended up having a lengthy conversation with us, the logging officials were quite nervous about talking to us and the workers were quite ignorant and arrogant, an argument developing between them and one of our party.

After the protest we took a trip and a walk in the Victorian Rain-forest, I never realised that such landscape existed in Australia, it was like I was in Italy or New Zealand, so wet and green, by the time we returned to the city I was shattered, tired but full of exuberance and energy from the clean air.

Our debut gig was OK, attendance was average which demeaned my promotional efforts slightly. Everything was running late so our rushed sound-check led to an appalling stage sound that went up and down all over the place, and the crowd were flat despite my best efforts to rile them. People seemed to enjoy it though but the evening ended on a downer after we got charged $50 for the privilege of a shit sound. The system here is annoying, they pay you, you feel great, then suddenly the sound-man pops up and asks for pretty much all you’ve just made… Your hopes are built up and then dashed… Oh well, it’s all a learning curve, plenty more gigs coming up…”