The Weekly Croissant: Dispatch from Australia

Scenes from the road

Steve and I are waiting outside of the stage they call “The Mystery Bus”. What happens in the bus, stays in the bus! they chant at the end of every set. All of the conductors on the mystery bus are named Barry, and nobody knows what happens when the curtains go up

Our van is not arriving and we need to get to our next stage for soundcheck. We pace nervously around in the muck. It has been raining all week and the color of our boots is barely discernible. Steve is jealous of my yellow gumboots, which I have worn for every gig out of necessity; Even stepping from the stage to the bathroom requires trudging through mud, which begins to smell like sewage by the end of the week.

As our soundcheck time draws nearer, we decide to flag down a festival worker driving by on a golf cart. He is leathered and wearing only a high-vis vest and shorts over his tanned skin.

Hey! I yell, Could we get a ride to Luna Stage?

He lets us climb on his golf cart, mumbling something about there not being much room.

His name is Cowboy, and he has ten or eleven time-worn festival wristbands around his left hand. He is clearly a part of the festival furniture.

I can only take you halfway, he says, through a long white beard

Thanks so much, I say, our ride never showed up

That’s all right, he says, It’s all about the journey (pronouncing in “Juh-nay”).

That evening we play on the big stage, it’s New Year’s Eve and the air is static with energy.

Let’s scream it out for the new year, I say, before playing “Hope It hurts”, a song in which the instrumental solo consists only of human vocalizations.

We scream. The audience screams.

At 11:30, the entire festival goes quiet for three minutes. We light candles and try to feel something as the wax burns our fingers, and hushed giggles surround the place.

Back in the green room, we sing Fleetwood Mac, Gillian Welch, Roger Miller, someone tries India Arie and I’m too high to even attempt the BGV’s. “Just sing this part”, she says, her words spilling in effortless rhythm. “There’s no way”, I say, “I can’t sing like that.”

At four AM we hike a steep, muddy hill. I’m delirious and can barely put one foot in front of the other. We crouch on the top and listen to a Mongolian throat singer create incredible vibrations. I wonder about our (white people’s) weird attachment to Eastern traditions when we want to feel spiritual. Still, it is inarguably beautiful.

The sun rises above the horizon, and the outlines of ancient volcanoes emerge. The unfamiliar birds sing unfamiliar songs. A hippie upfront twirls a blue tie-dye handkerchief incessantly in the air, tossing it from hand to hand. It is the first day of the new year, and it feels right to have stayed up all night to welcome it in.