The Tamworth Country Music Festival HOME or.."Three Rodeo Girls Go Round The Outside"
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	Tamworth.. The Australian Capital of Country Music. In Summer.
	I headed off for Country Music's Mecca in a maroon Celica, armed with nothing but a short Camcorder video of the interior of the gig - a 4500 seater indoor stadium. I had been very very sick between New Year's Eve and about January 9th and therefore couldnt do much with the prep of the equipment to travel to Tamworth, some four and a half hours drive from Sydney. I had to trust a 19yo lad called Dale to make sure we had everything that was specified on the lighting plan given to us. Plus have enough spares in case either something failed, or we are required to add extra lighting - such as overhead lighting for merchandise tables and whatnot.
	While I was there at the factory for a couple of days prior to loading the 48ft semi, the prep was mostly done, and would be a waste of time for me and an insult to Dale if I went ahead and re-checked all the roadcases, of which there were quite a few dozen. Fingers crossed.
	Our first night in Tamworth was taken up by an invitation from the Boss, Colin Baldwin, that everyone be on deck because he's buying us all dinner at a Steak House. Nice. It came to be known as the calm before the storm.
	One thing I've learned from a veritable lifetime on the road with rockbands, is that the sheer repitition teaches you to have an eye for detail.. The little 'tricks' that you pick up. Unfortunately, 99.9% of the time these skills are only acquired this way, and a 19yo doesnt have the luxury of that experience. I shouldnt have worried. He did really well.
	We had quite a few technical issues with the lighting system during the setup and this put us behind time considerably. The stage was in place when we arrived, completely the opposite of what was agreed before the event, in addition to being off centre by about 30cm.
	These screwups may seem insignificant, but with the stage in place and being off-centre, taking into account the lighting design, it meant that the vertical truss-sections, which are bolted tight to the horizontal truss-sections, would be hanging over on one side - but too much, and the other truss-section would be on the stage edge. The vertical truss-sections had a Mac250 moving light bolted at the bottom of each. One of their jobs was to point down on the front of each column - the front four only - and change colour and stuff, making a "tv studio look".
	Someone who gets paid a lot more money than me made the decision that the stage was to remain in place and we were going to 'work around it'. Sigh.
	We eventually reached the point of show ready. That was a relief.
	It should be noted here that the Staff at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre - TREC - were nothing short of brilliant. They really went out of their way to help us, even though for the entire duration of the setup (2 full days of about 10 or 11 hours, the air-conditioning in the building was not switched on. The rear of the building building faced west. Ouch. No shade at all.
	Working for 9 days straight, sometimes upwards of 3 distinctly different shows in any given day, often starting our day with an 8:00am CrewCall. In between shows, there were rehearsals for either the next show some 2 hours later, or something from a competition or whatever to be held in a few days. If I get time I'll add a schedule here.
	Then on Thursday January 22nd after 3 shows in the day, we packed it all up and put all the cases in a shed out the back of the stadium. It was a 21hour working day. Then we had two days off, the first of which was spent trying to get limbs to move freely again and catching up on some rest.
	Our accomodation was a three bedroom house not far from the gig. Nice. The property also had the garage walled off and a fourth bedroom appeared. Complete with it's own air-conditioner. I snagged this room and was prepared to engage in physical violence should anyone oppose me :)
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