The next show was on the Saturday night in Wentworth at the Royal Hotel, Again Gibbo was on board for this one along with Dave Ickovic. We got in early as we were filming for the We are here documentary which is highlighting the town of Wentworth.
We got to go on a speed boat up the Murray and Darling rivers as they were filming Kev's arrival using drones then we went to the Wentworth Gaol which was in use back in the bushranger's day they would have a lot of people go in to town to send their money at the pub and then after a fight they would get locked up. I did an interview with Dave who looks after the Gaol. It opened in 1881 and closed in 1927 and was very barren,dry and hot the temperature can get up to 50 degrees which is around 122 fahrenheit.
Then we headed off to the river to do a interview at a paddle steamer the Ruby P.S. We met with the caretaker Ian who came off a bit abrupt at first but once we got in to the interview he turned out to be a champion. He was a real crack up and a real character I am really getting in to learning about all the old things about this country like i do when i am in America,like how things were done back in the day and you get a sense of how easy it is today and I think it is important to appreciate how easy we have it these days.
The following morning we headed off to a cattle station and had a chat with two 5th generation farmersagain it was really cool to see what they do what they go through each day to put meat on our tables in the city, you get a disconnect with were it all comes from,you would be spending most of your day finding and killing your food with out these guys.
Now for the show, I was told there would be a huge crowd for this one as there was a country music festival and a rowing regatta here at the same time,so the plan was to have the show outside in the beer garden luckily it was moved inside to the dining area because it wasn't a huge crowd. It was the dinners and we kept them there.
We had a late start as the kitchen was running behind time so by the time I got on meals were still being served.
First up was Gibbo he was fun did some classic tunes that sounded great, unfortunately most of the audience were chatting and catching up but they were giving him a round of applause after each song. I was up next as an Emcee for the show and again got stuck in to the crowd work there was a lot of material in the room for me to make fun of and I bounced off the audience well. I did get pretty dirty with this show without being crass I am starting to really work out how to get away with murder up there I think the fact I am finding my voice now is helping.
Because we were running late and behind time we didn't have a break, But when I did the Intro for Dave he said aint we having a break? No! He said, "nah lets have a break I'm going for a piss" and walked out then most of the crowd walked out too.
That's the reason you don't have a break when its getting late because people are tiered they have been held up already so you need to jump on and get going, So when he came back in I did the intro again to only a few people. His set was always going to be hard as most of the crowd had left, he tried his hand at roasting me but it just came out like a rude insult. I did hear one of the best Heckles i have ever heard he had his guitar out and was playing a tune but before he started singing a drunk sang the works, "listening to you is like watching paint dry" The people who were still there lost their shit!
Again we hung out with the crowd after and had a few laughs sang some songs they were a really cool bunch.
The next show is in Morgan South Australia which is Kev's home town so it will be a great show.
Lessons on this leg;
Again flicking the switch and just going for it sets the tone for a show and lets the crowd know that you are in control.
And getting back to crowd work, I haven't done much of late and you tend to jump in to your material but I am really a lot more comfortable on stage now, after the hard shows I have done this year I feel like I cant be broken as I have already been to hell There isn't anything they can do that's worse than what I have been facing.
I am looking forward to some gigs this week and maybe just doing crowd work and a couple of new bits. If I can get really strong with the crowd work i think I can take on any crowd.
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stay funny
Flemo