Dingos in the Desert

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q278/al_pckr/passenger.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0"></a><br><br><font size="3"><br>Since 1999 I have been in the Australian Music and Poetry Band "Dingo's Breakfast". I originally started out playing keyboards but switched to mandolin and dobro (and my son Corrin took over the keyboards role).<br>These days "Dingos" just get together to play specific gigs and the line-up is quite fluid. Corrin often now plays mandolin as I live quite some distance from the rest of the band and don't play on some gigs.<br>"Woolshed Dances" are one of the fortes of the band and over the years this has taken us to some pretty unusual gigs - here is just one of them. </font><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3">Glenelg Rock Narembeen: </font></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3">We set out early in two cars to travel the 175 miles to Narembeen. On arrival we were told that the dance was not in the Town Hall as we'd been told but to be held in the open air a "few" miles out of town.<br>"You go down that road a bit until you come to a "T" junction and then you turn left".....<br>So we went down that road about 25 miles!.....<br>"Then you go up that road a bit until you come to a dirt road".....<br>5 more miles.....<br>"Then you follow the dirt road for a bit until you come to a big granite rock".....<br>Another 5 miles.....<br>"And then you're there"<br>It was a huge granite outcrop about 50 ft high and several acres in area. At the bottom was parked a semi with a flatbed trailer. The stage. A hundred yards or so away was parked another truck with a generator on it. The power. No people.<br>Anyway we set up and did a soundcheck. Still no people.<br>It got dark.....<br>And then down the dirt road came a procession of more than a hundred headlights. The entire population of the little town of Narembeen was coming to the dance.<br>With the dust from a hundred cars still in the air we launched into our first set. At first only the women and children danced while the men stood in the shadows beyond the lighting and drank beer.....<br>Now the dust of a hundred cars AND two hundred pairs of dancing feet was in the air.....<br>The first set over, we gathered around the BBQ for some dinner.....<br>Then into the second set. The beer was starting to take effect and several of the braver men joined the dancing. The dust grew thicker. By now the audience was just a dusty haze.....<br>The second set over, WE gathered round and drank some beer.....<br>Now it was the last set and everybody was dancing. The dust was so thick we couldn't see each other, let alone the audience.<br>Finally around midnight the dance was over and the 100 car convoy departed for the 30 mile trip back to town. As the dust cloud settled we packed up and set out on our 225 mile return trip.<br>One of the cars ran out of petrol. They had to camp the night.<br>In the leading car we didn't know about their problem. We were listening to Pink Floyd.....<br> Almost 24 hours after setting out we returned home.</font></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"> </font></p>