Byron postscript
15.4.09 - Daryl just sent me the pic (left) of him and Robbo with Ben Harper. Robbo had taken so many pics at this point that his battery had expired, but he's promised to send a wad of shots, which of course I'll share with you.
After my thinking that I'd got everything under control with the bureaucracy (see story below) the lads had a very difficult time of it with officialdom on the Saturday and owe a debt of thanks to my Tweed Heads contact, Edwin Mitchell, for ferrying them around at critical moments, including taking them to the airport. As it turned out, their flight was delayed and they got home very late, but they had fun anyway.

The Easter weekend goes off in all directions

1) Mr Cadd surveys the first MOTE rehearsal 2) Ohad does a rap version of Krusty the Clown

3) Tim Gaze watches me eat my raisin toast 4) The Blind Boys hope they're getting into the right shuttle

5) Mud, mud, glorious mud at the Byron site 6) Benny Gallagher plays his melodic folk-pop in the adjacent tent

7) Watermelon Slim & The Workers do a crowd-pleasing set before Spectrum take the stage

8) Robbo goes slightly troppo 9) Daz inspects his substitute keyboard with misgivings

10) Entertainment in the Caddmobile 11) Tim Gaze with old Shud compatriot, Peter Howe at the sound check

12) John samples his own curry 13) New mum Robyn Loau and Tim at sound check

14) Tim and Pete's last song 15) Tony Naylor looks pensive 16) John Grant sports a colourful shirt

17) Lior is accosted by an excitable group of young fans 18) Ohad is pleased to have scored some girls too

important detail of transporting the band from the airport to the festival site.
I'd decided to take the Skybus shuttle to the airport, and while I was waiting for the No. 70 tram I got a call from my mate Pete Dacy, wondering if I'd be interested in putting some harp on another version of I'll Be Gone, this time curiously enough by Dennis Walter. (Yes, that Dennis Walter!)
Having not used the Skybus shuttle before, I'd allowed for a substantial margin of error and so was at the airport in plenty of time - by contrast my travelling companions, the Bootleg Family's Tony Naylor and John Grant, only appeared after I'd boarded the plane. The MOTE tour manager, Tim Peterson, met us at the Sydney airport and took us to the (almost fully) refurbished Sebel, just a block away from the AIM rehearsal studios in Surry Hills. It was good to meet up with the old gang again, and the first rehearsal went pretty smoothly, with Tony and John slotting in seamlessly. Really, the only musical element that we missed in this streamlined version of the original show, (or that Tim Gaze in particular missed), was the percussion - the orchestral elements being almost more trouble to amplify than they're worth, (although having some attractive young female string players cluttering up the stage was a pleasant visual bonus).
We tried on the MOTE tour caps, (pic 2) which we'd somehow missed out on the first time around, and when the rehearsal was over, Brian (pic 1) met the Melbourne contingent at the Sebel for a drink and gossip, and that was the end of the first day.
The next morning I wandered into town and found an Internet café and then drifted back to the Sebel to meet up with Brian to go to lunch. This is when I discovered that the Sebel's refurbishment is still very much a work in progress and I had to abandon my room because of the incessant noise of drilling, but thankfully I found a little café next to the hotel that made raisin toast (pic 3) and had a cuppa while I waited.
Brian eventually arrived (in his Jag) and took Tony Naylor and me to the Lord Dudley Hotel in Woollahra, (which was apparently the advertising haunt in the '80s), where we had a scrumptious and highly entertaining lunch with Brian's old mate, Graham Forsaith, an avid guitar collector who apparently owns a yacht in which he ferries paying clients around the harbour over the summer months, .
The second rehearsal was even smoother than the first, apart from an interruption by an irate music teacher who'd double-booked our rehearsal room. MOTE's MD, Jamie Rigg, (pic 10) was clearly annoyed but sorted it out fairly quickly - Jamie spends most of his time teaching at AIM and is more than happy to find an excuse to get out of the place.
The next day we flew to Brisbane and while at the airport I made some enquiries about a hire car for the boys, but came up with nothing. I rang Robbo and asked if he could make some more enquiries, but got a call from him later saying there was absolutely nothing available. I finally heard back from the transport manager at the festival and he said he could make a shuttle available, but that it would cost us $100.00 to get to the site! In the absence of anything else I had no choice but to accept.
The MOTE ensemble checked in at the Ramada in East Ballina, some forty minutes south of Byron, just as the Blind Boys from Alabama were getting into a shuttle to go to festival. (pic 4) Although the MOTE show wasn't on till 10.30 that evening, I decided to go to the site early and try and sort out any loose ends for Spectrum and cadged a shuttle ride with Tim (Gaze) and Charles (from Atlanta, Georgia), the Blind Boys' manager.
It had been raining heavily that afternoon and the site was an absolute bog. I was wearing my ancient thongs, but they got sucked off by the glutinous black mud (pic 5) within a few steps. (Half their luck!)
I met up with the Byron production crew's Annabel Rattray and discovered that there was some fine tuning that had to be made, well, to just about everything - she'd even issued my Morris guitar with a laminate! (pic 20) - but I was reasonably satisfied I'd sorted it all out by the time the rest of the MOTE cast and crew arrived for our show on the Crossroads stage.
Despite the wet conditions there was a huge crowd on hand and the show went very well, although some major adjustments had to be made on the fly by producer/director Amanda Pelman so we could fit into our allotted time of eighty minutes.
The next morning I had to check out of the Ramada and got a lift with the MOTE crew to Spectrum's more prosaic accommodation at the Beach Resort. I cadged another shuttle lift to the site, this time with the taciturn Pugsley Buzzard, and so was on hand when the lads arrived at the site in reasonably good spirits after having been picked up at Coolangatta airport as arranged. It was good to met by our old friend Wally Bishop, and I popped over to the Jambalayah Stage before our show and caught a few minutes of his mate Benny Gallagher's (of Gallagher & Lyle) show. (pic 6)
And then, finally, it was Spectrum's turn. I'd made sure that all my sounds were right in our sound check and I was pretty happy all the way through the set, but for some reason Bill's guitar amp was replaced at the last second and he ended up with a woofy guitar sound that was indistinguishable from the predictably boomy kick drum sound.
Nevertheless, we were making a good fist of it - until we got to Launching Place Part ll that is. I had a momentary lapse of concentration/brain explosion and unilaterally excised part of the arrangement. Normally we'd be able to cover it without any trouble, but there was so little on-stage communication that the song almost ground to a halt before we got back on track.
We did recover and completed the set without further incident, but the vibe wasn't quite what it might've been. The intention was to then go to the CD tent for a prearranged signing session, but when we got there the staff professed to know nothing about it and so we aborted in confusion and beat a hasty retreat.
We met up with Julie Rhodes, an old Tassie friend from thirty years ago who now lives in the region, and Bill and I decided to forego any more musical sightseeing in favour of being driven back to the Beach Resort by Julie and having a chatty meal, which is precisely what we did. Robbo and Daz arrived back a few hours later still buzzing from the shows they'd seen, but even then I didn't really feel that I'd missed anything. (Sigh! I'm getting old..)
I was picked up in the Caddmobile (pic 10) the next morning by Amanda and Brian with Amanda's two children (Austin and Olivia), plus Jamie Rigg, and taken to Port Macquarie - a highlight was stopping off at Fredos pie shop on the way (the pies actually lived up to the hype).
The second MOTE gig was at the Cassegrain Winery and was outdoors - a miniature Day on the Green. During the sound check, Tony Naylor and bassist Vic Rounds pointed out the Indian guy sitting in front of his curry stall, presumably eating some of his own wares (or not) and suggested I should take his photo. So I did. (pic 12) (Even less relevant is the doggie pic I took at a pit stop on the drive back to Sydney, (pic 19) but it's kinda cute).
They'd had 700 odd pre-bookings, but the conjecture was whether there'd be a strong walk-up or not, especially given the unpredictable weather. By the time we got back from fish & chips at our digs at Cold Comfort Farm, Tim Gaze and Peter Howe were just finishing off their support spot (pic 14) and there was a very handsome crowd pressing to the front of the stage. Tim and Pete were followed with a solo spot from the ever-gorgeous (but ever the back-up singer) Robyn Loau, (pic 13) whom some might remember singing back-up (with three others, mind you) on the Long Way To The Top tour. She has a brand new baby girl that she's very proud of and brought on the tour with her - the little girl is absolutely beautiful and behaved impeccably throughout and we're all thankful to her for mummy's spectacular new bustline. Robyn possesses a very pure upper register, (I can never work out whether that's the equivalent of a bloke's falsetto), used to great effect in her version of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, which most people tend to shriek. I've never appreciated the song for just that reason.
Then it was the full jacket version of the Morning of the Earth show, repleat with intermission and visual fillers, and, I had the premonition, for perhaps the very last time.