The house with no walls (or flushing toilet for that matter)…

I got to sleep, eventually. But not before having a fine time at Joe’s Waterhole in Eumundi – perhaps my personal favourite show of the tour to that point. The sound was perfect, the opening act (and venue booker) Dan was pretty exceptional on the slide guitar and the audience behaved immaculately (silent during songs, appreciative and generous after songs). A splendid evening was had and we ere particularly pleased to catch up with our friends (and kings of the Brisbane rockabilly scene)  Corn Liquor after the show. A midnight stroll through the streets of Noosa and a saunter back along the beach topped off our night – and I finally laid head to pillow at 2am – 46 hours since my alarm clock had last woken me up.

It wasn’t a long sleep. An hour or so into it I was awoken by a girlish squeal from below. Expecting to find the lovely Laura JC sat up and panting from a night terror I was instead greeted with a croaky “sorry but I’m turning on the light” from our panic stricken drummer. It seems, from his testomony, that he was “bitten” during his sleep – and that whatever creature was responsible for the bite had subsequently sped across the room and disappeared into thin air, avoiding capture.

The girl behind the desk explained the next day that it was “probably a bush mouse – nothing to worry about”, but the cockroaches we stumbled across whilst trying to track down our furry friend left us a little uneasy.

Still, our humble accommodation was in fact rather lovely, and it is is one of the reasons we very much hope to be returning to the Sunshine Coast very soon.

The second, and far more important, reason would be the audiences. Our next two shows easily lived up to the promise of Joe’s – although a waterhole was certainly missing from Saturday Night’s  “House with No Walls”.

This gig is possibly one of the best kept secrets on the live touring circuit. 80 or so people cram into a stunning home (yes it IS somebody’s home) half an hour from Noosa amongst a dense forest and beneath a spectacular starry sky. For a few hours we felt thoroughly transported into another world – it was hard (even for me) to be cynical and make wisecracks in such a setting.  Still, I managed.

After some sleazy onstage banter towards directed towards opening act The Hussy Hicks we settled in to a rather enjoyable set. The house really did have no walls – not even surrounding the bathroom or the toilet (which was, of course, a drop dunny). Luckily as a male of the species toilets really do have no walls at all in this world, but it was a little confronting for the ladies at first. You might think that, on this description, the house would be a vouyeur’s dream, but on the contrary – there is something so pure and good about this place and its owners and supporters that such purile thoughts could not have been further from our minds. We would like to thank Lynda and her partner, as well as the uber-talented Hari and the affable Hussy Hicks – not to mention the most delightfully hippy audience we have played to for quite some time – for making this such a magical evening. getting to crank up electric guitars in the woods is a very rare treat – we hope to get to do it again!

Also magic was Sunday afternoon at Peregian Beach. Hundreds of sun-drenched and barely dressed locals lounging attentively on the shore-front grass made us wonder why we insist on living down south – we really did feel like uptight Melbourne hipsters in our Jeans, shirts and shoes – all of which were foregone by most of the locals (I mentioned that if they ventured into most of the places we play dressed as they were they would need a series of injections). Topped off by Thai food with new friends Dan and Mary in the Peregian Beach square this would probably have been the perfect day (were it not for our delayed flights back to Melbourne).  Still, Tiger rewarded Mat, Shaun and I with exit rows again – so who are we to complain?

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