Darling Harbor
9/15/00
11:00 AM
Eleven AM! Holy crap! Alright, I really need to record the other night at Croc’s. But let me say this: I am SO excited … but not about a $2.75 coffee.
Ok, ok. I’m really afraid I’m not going to do this justice. So back to Cow Bay. We come out of the forest to the sounds of guitars and singing. Two brown-skinned, true Queenslander blokes were playing Aussie music. Nothing but. Strange, though. Many of the songs I thought were American or English are actually Tasmanian. Interesting. But oh, they played some beautiful music, some happy, some sad. The songs told of gum trees and bandicoots, sun burnt lands and beautiful blue seas. More than once the theme of shattered romantic images of walkabout rose from the lyrics. It touched me. And of all songs, they played “Wish You Were Here.” I almost had to sing “Sloop John B,” but got out of it. The owner was drunk: “let’s do the three quadrants.” Some rain briefly came down & we cheered. First rain in 8 weeks. Mick Casey at the bar ended up taking a liking to me. Asked my name, gave me happy hour priced beers, told MC they needed more guys like me. It was Andros all over again. Eventually it got late, they shut off the diesel generator, and we all drifted off to our beds. Magical.