Dorrigo Folk Festival, NSW, Australia, 2006
I was lucky enough to play at this festival my bluegrass band, "The Lawnmowers". We sound like this.
The band members are Dave Hellens on Banjo, Rob Long on guitar, Andrew Clermont on mandolin and fiddle, Liz Frencham on bass and Tony Eyers on harmonica.
Here are the Lawnmowers on stage at the Dorrigo festival. Dorrigo is a small town in northern NSW, Australia.
Music festivals are common in countries like Australia and the USA. These festivals usually run for several days, and are often held in beautiful locations. Many bands come to the festivals, and play concerts at different times. At a festival, a band will usually play one concert every day. The rest of the time, we stand around and play music together. The picture above shows Sandy, Cat and Ruth doing this. They play in another band with Liz Frencham, called "Devlish Mary". I got to play some music with these girls after our Saturday night concerts at Dorrigo.
The Lawnmowers had to travel a long way to play at the festival in Dorrigo. We stopped in Tamworth, in Northern NSW the night before the festival, and played a concert there. This picture is me and Liz on stage in Tamworth.
We arrived in Dorrigo the morning after our concert in Tamworth. The first thing we did in Dorrigo was present a workshop in a tent, as shown above. Here we talked about our music after each song, and answered questions from the audience. We really enjoyed this.
At the festival, people like to sit in the sun, talk to their friends, and listen to music. I have many music friends from all over Australia who I meet at festivals
This is one of my friends, Quentin Fraser, playing outside at the Dorrigo festival. Here he is playing an instrument called the Dobro. Quentin also plays bass and guitar. Notice the green band on his wrist. Every person at the festival wears one of these plastic bands, to show that they have paid the entry fee. The green bands are for the performers. Of course, we don't have to pay to get in!
The Lawnmowers took every opportunity to play with their friends while not on stage. Here is Andrew, playing guitar with Nigel, one of our good music friends. Nigel is from Sydney, like me, and plays mandolin and guitar.
In this picture Rob, the guitar player from the Lawnmowers, is playing with Nigel. Making music like this is called "picking". We enjoy relaxed music like this just as much as we enjoy playing on stage before an audience.