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On the road again with The Basics

A couple of week back we invited Aussie rockers, The Basics, to write a diary for us as they toured the deepest reaches of the vast Australian continent. This is the second half of their installments: ‘Tuesday, November 18: ‘We have an interview with the Longreach Leader newspaper today, before playing Longreach State School. It’s been a little hard to get press for this part of our tour, and understandably- no-one from the public can come to the school gigs we’re doing, and we’re not in any one town long enough to do a face to face interview that can actually go to print before we’ve moved on somewhere else. But the Longreach Leader has generously offered to do a short piece on our travels and about the Lifeline charity we’re supporting with our gigs out here. The editor of the paper is an older woman, maybe 50, with grey hair and a firm handshake. She’s straight-to-the-point. No wasting time here. What are our names? Where have we travelled? What’s the charity name? Okay, that sounds like enough. Thanks very much for your time gentlemen, and we’re out the door. It has to be the quickest interview we’ve ever done. Which is kinda nice.It means we can go to the bakery for lunch before the show today’.

‘Friday November 21. Today’s workshop at Blackall State School is a bit of a fizzer. We’re left alone with a group of about eight students, without a teacher or any direction as to what might be relevant to the student’s current music study, performance level or interest in the music industry. When we contacted schools about doing these performances and workshops, we said we’d be self-sufficient. I guess the Blackall music staff really took us for our word. Our experience so far has been that music teachers at other schools have given us an idea of what the students are learning in their music classes, what range of instruments they play, some possible performance or music industry advice that might be helpful to their current activities at the school, and generally they’ve stuck around to throw some questions forward when the students are shy or unsure of how to interact. Today though, we get through a short get-to-know-you (names, the band’s history, a few questions about the students’ instruments and possible music career aspirations) before it becomes clear that none of the students here have any questions for us, or interest in writing songs, or of forming a band and playing shows/doing recordings/making a career etc. My suggestion that we try and get the kids involved in singing and playing instruments on The Basics song Yeah, Yeah ends largely with bemused or embarassed silence from the students. Being  a teacher must be a real challenge most of the time. We decide simply to do an acoustic rendition of Yeah, Yeah ourselves and are out the door almost before the final chord has rung out’.

Monday 24 Nov. It’s an early start today. We’re playing Woodcrest College in Springfield (a suburb of Brisbane) at 10:30am, and my stomach is still churning from Saturday night’s performance of The Marriage of Cerveza and Tequila. Two days on and I still feel shaky- not good. I might have to see the doctor later about some antacid medication. I had gastritis (a hyper-production of stomach acid which makes eating painful and a stomach ache your constant companion) a couple of years ago and these prolonged tummy cramps feel remarkably similar. The waves of nausea abate a little for our setup and performance. We’re in a the school auditorium, which is a nice change from heat and dust of the outback Queensland schools that saw us setting up on basketball courts, football ovals and next to the school canteen on some concrete. Woodcrest is the only school on this tour that contacted us after hearing about our travels. They asked if we could make a stop to play for them, so the teachers and students are very enthusiastic. There are requests for autographs and drum sticks afterwards, and a photo with some students that seems to last longer than the actual performance. “Just one more” the photographer repeats about 35 times. It’s fine though- always nice when people are appreciative of us coming out to play’.

Tagged: Australian bands, Australian rock bands, tour diaries

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