THE GREAZEPEST NEST - GREAZEFEST 2017

GREAZEFEST 2017 !!!!!!!

OK So Greazefest WAS a month ago BUT my life has been a bit..... well.... it's been a big pile of topsy turvy poo-poo lately what with abruptly loosing my job and becoming a lady of anxiety ridden leisure.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER THOUGH EH?

This year 6 of us stuffed into a hotel about a 10 minute walk from the Cleveland showgrounds and promptly set up a Tiki bar in the lounge room (as you do), filled the kitchen with bottles of whiskey, gin and various mixes and named our room The Greazepest's Nest.

What can I say?  

As usual, it was an utterly exhausting weekend and my feet will never be the same again after nearly 3 days of solid walking, bopping up & down and dancing in shoes that would make a podiatrist rip his/her own face off. I may have been showing my age a tad, when I decided to bring a bucket with mint foot gel so after we got back to the room I could have a noice soak with my night cap of Earl Grey & Scotch Finger Bickie.

Next year, I swear to Gawd I am wearing either ugg boots or fugly orthodic shoes and stuff the haters.

This old grey mare ain't what she used to be.

I was pretty chuffed with myself that I made my whole Greazefest wardrobe this year. 

Friday night I declared WESTERN NIGHT

I wore my Vintage Vogue V8728 made out of the most fabulous western print cotton that I bought from Etsy The Busy Bee Quilting

Saturday I wore one of my FAVOURITE patterns, Vintage Vogue V900 made from the fab novelty print sewing measuring tape print cotton from Lincraft.

Saturday night I glammed it up in a stretch cotton sateen from Lincraft. I tried a new pattern from Simplicity. 8245. I was super happy with how it turned out.

Photo care of Lisa G Photography

Sunday I went all tropical and wore a divine vintagey Hawaiian print cotton rayon from East Coast Fabrics.  Vogue pattern V9021.

Well enough about my totes glam wardrobe and let's get to the MOOOOSIC.

Once again Mz Lori Lee had put together a brilliant mix of live acts including Pike Cavalero from Spain and Eddie Gazel from France.   I was super bummed because I missed Eddie due to me being a bloody social butterfly and I lost track of time nattering to anyone who would stand still long enough.

I heard he was absolutely fantastic!!!

Highlights for me were: Benny and the Flyby Nighters, Rusty Pinto, Pike Cavalero, The High-boys and The Lincolns (damn I do LOVE a Teddy boy).

I was very disappointed in myself this year. 

Normally, I spend all weekend sitting and watching the bands but this year I had my busy-bee hat on because I seemed to spend all my time out in the field chatting to people. Don't get me wrong I frigging LOVE shootin the shit with everyone and nervously blathering on to people I've been stalking on social media for years......BUT .......

Emma from Rockabilly Jnr

I just HAD to buy this bag. RAFFIA!!!!

I missed so much of the music of Greazefest that I love because of my gosh darned friendly personality and love of a good chat.

DAMMIT.

Even my selfie game was well below par this year. 

I'm losing my touch!!!

Obligatory toilet selfie 

The Divine ladies from Fractured Lace.

Other notable mentions for the weekend was the discovery of Los Flamingo. 

http://www.losflamingo.com.au/

I have a very unhealthy (for my purse) love of chunky brightly coloured bangles. Now because I would rather spend all my money on fabric and patterns, I simply cannot bring myself to spend $200 on a single vintage Bakelite bracelet.  

This is where Los Flamingos comes in. HOLY SHIT. 

If I wasn't an unemployed shleb I would have bought every single bangle in every colour and style.

What I call FAKELITE bangles. They look like fricking gorgeous vintage bangles but are only about $12 each!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I was hyperventilating with excitement AND they gave away delicious cupcakes with each purchase.

(I have not been paid to rave about this company btw).

OTHER RANDOM HIGHLIGHTS

Riding the tea cup ride with my fellow children Greig and Prudy and unknowingly flashing my fugly beige grannie undies to everyone around the ride. LOVELY.

Being educated in the world of pin up by having some ladies explain to my elderly brain what PUG is.  They seemed to be genuinely MORTIFIED I didn't know what it stood for. For Christ's sake can't you just say "Pin Up Girl". Honestly you would think I'd said I support the torture of baby pandas!

Having a very drunk lady walk directly up to my face outside the toilets, and almost nose to nose,  do a huge kransky/rum scented belch in my face and keep walking. I looked to another lady next to me and said "Did that just happen?" The lady nodded horrified.

Group singing on the way back to the unit to the nesting plovers "Plover Plover Plover Plover you don't treat me no good no more. No good no more ore ore ore" and running through the footy field sprinklers.

Discovering Western Wac sells divine Avanti tea-timers and shirts.

Dancing with some very patient blokes who put up with my gasping for air while trying to remember how to follow a lead and trying to ignore the tearing feeling in my feet.

It's no wonder I have never missed a single Greazefest in 18 years!

I love everything about it. The people, the music, the excuse to get frocked up and basically running amok.

Thanks Lori and all your Robot Productions staff once again.

MERRY GREAZMESS.

This is the Heavy Heavy Monster Sound

So, yawl might remember my blog post about seeing Bad Manners where The Sunny Coast Rude Boys supported.   

WELL

How excited was I to find out through the miracle of social media that TSCRB had their very own gig at The Triffid as part of the Rude Boy/Rude Girl Dance Club?!!!

This time I was stoked that hubby came along too.

After some great traditional ska music from DJ Dave Slater it was time show time.

As usual, I was right up the front with a huge goofy smile on my face.

Looking around I was so excited to see the venue was full and the local ska loving community had come out to support the night. 

Well, what can I say?

As usual, TSCRB were brilliant.  So tight and Michael (the lead singer)'s vocals were fantastic.

Even though they are essentially a covers band I love how they put their own spin on a lot of the tunes.  They offer such a variety too.  Gorgeous melodic reggae to traditional ska to knees up nutty ska.   

Looking around the room it was obvious the crowd was LOVING IT and GOING ORRRFF!

A number of times the rude boy skanking next to me would look at me and scream "How fucking great is this??!!!"   I was bouncing up & down and skanking like a crazy woman.

Highlights for me were their cover of Paul Kelly's "Dumb Things" which it turns out is PERFECT for a ska cover,  "Town Like Malice" and needless to say, EVERYBODY lost their shit when they played "One Step Beyond".

Sadly it finally came to an end and I was one VERY sweaty, stinky, aching, sore exhilarated gal.

Now if these guys would just play once a week I would be fit as !!!!

Not only are these guys incredible musicians are are all really friendly and it is obvious they love what they do and are having a great time on stage.  It must be so great to play to a room of people who are passionate about your genre of music.  I know that down in the pit the vibe is just fantastic.

If you are a person who doesn't know what SKA music you really should check it out.

It is FUN music that never fails to put it's listener in a Great mood.

Here's a crowd favourite as a sampler:

Sure my knees, feet and calves feel like I've done the Tough Mudder Course 6 times in a row 

but   SO WORTH IT!

XOXOXOXOXXO

http://www.sunnycoastrudeboys.com/

Bad Manners at The Triffid.

My wonderful, sweet amazing husband bought me a ticket to see Bad Manners at The Triffid.

Bad Manners are one of my all time FAVOURITE bands but more importantly they are one of my all time favourite bands to see LIVE.

Visualise about 300 skin heads, rude boys and girls,  punks and average punters all bouncing up and down, arms around each other's shoulders, laughing & singing along to "My Girl Lollipop".

I mean some of these blokes look bloody hard core. 

The fun atmosphere at a ska gig just cannot be beat.

I took along my faux son Tom who was super excited to go as well.

The Triffid is just such a freaking great venue and I was really really happy when I read they would be playing there. The last time I saw BM it was at The Step Inn which was TINY and not much chop.

One thing that I LOVE about going to see old school ska bands like BM is just how friendly the people are that go.  Tom & I grabbed a bite to eat before the show & the table full of rudies next to us just struck up a conversation and soon we were all talking music & shows. 

(turns out they had flown down from Darwin to see the show).  

The first band was the Sunny Coast Rude Boys. HOLY SHIT. They were just incredible. So tight and they played heaps of "ska greatest hits" from Madness & The Specials etc. I would have been happy to watch just them all night. I cannot wait to go and see one of their shows up the Sunshine Coast one day.  The crowd LOVED them & it was obvious they were having a great time themselves.

Sunny Coast Rude Boys

Next up were The Funaddicts, a Brissy ska band that has been around forever. 

The crowd was starting to move closer to the stage now 

(not me, I was up the front right from the get go).  

Again, a great fun band. I must admit, the lead singer reminded me of my Dad 

(this is not a bad thing).  My calf muscles were already starting to burn from skanking. 

The Funaddicts

Then, it was time for the (not so) big man himself.  Now normally at a Bad Manners gig the crowd will start chanting "You Fat Bastard You Fat Bastard!!!" before the band comes out - but Buster (the lead singer) has now lost about 100 kg and he isn't really fat anymore so when some people tried to start the chant the crowd just wasn't into it.  

It was strange because normally that is like a part of the show. But nup.

Then out he came. The mega tongued slimmed down bastard himself and the crowd LOST ITS SHIT.  I was literally front row centre and when the inevitable surge forward came I was braced and ready.  As always they didn't disappoint. Buster's mic kept dropping out which was a piss off but he kept going.  I felt that his voice wasn't so good but no matter, as the crowd did a lot of the singing for him.  I was all smiles and singing at the top of my lungs and trying to bop around as much as I could in the 5cm of space I had.

BUSTER

Then the crowd of young-uns behind us started to get a little bit too 'enthusiastic'. 

There were two 20 something skinhead lads who decided that EVERYBODY should be in a mosh pit instead of skanking and having a good time. It very quickly escalated into a stack of very agro shoving and jumping on to unsuspecting punters (like me). 

Now, I except a bit of push & shove at these gigs but this group weren't interested in the band AT ALL. They just wanted argy bargy. I had to laugh at 3 guys who looked like the Bondi Hipsters chanting "skin head skin head skin head" in their buttoned up chambray shirts, full heads of hair and sockless kmart kung-fu shoes.

I started getting really shitty because dammit I was TRYING to dance & watch the band and this one "skinhead" who had watched Romper Stomper too many times kept smashing into me and at one stage clashed his head into mine and I saw stars.

Well, the angry Mz Vicki came out and so did my pointy elbows and my VERY un-ladylike language.

The other more "mature" ladies next to me did the same and in slightly more direct terms told these blokes to "please calm down & stop pushing us". (we actually screamed "FUCK OFF AND STOP PUSHING US YOU HIPSTER FUCKHEADS). Of course, they looked at us like we were idiot pensioners and continued their assault. My poor ribs were crushed into the stage.  

I kept motioning to the band to try & get security in there but alas.

NOTE - MOSH PIT WANKER BEHIND US

The final straw was when a young weedy looking skinhead who was covered in tattoos of guns (so tough * face palm* geez) tried to do an AFL mark up the lady next to me & my backs to get onto stage. Even though he was slippery like an eel with sweat we grabbed him & hauled him back & told him to "please go away and stop being silly". 

(We actually screamed in his face to FUCK OFF YOU DICKHEAD).

He grinned and ran around the side of the stage & walked onto stage anyway.

I have NO IDEA where security was during this gig but it was pretty shit.  One young gal behind me fell to the ground and the young skins nearly stomped her.

Enough was enough and I was OUTTA THERE so I quickly elbowed my way through the crowd to the cool space up the back to finish the show.

The other thing  I was really excited about was, that this time Bad Manners had merchandise!! 

For some reason in previous shows they haven't had any.  

I couldn't decide which T-shirt to buy so gosh darn it I had to buy both!!!

Even though there were a couple of wankers it still didn't spoil the night for me.  It is impossible NOT to have a good time at a ska gig and I got to meet a heap of really great friendly people.

Sure, I might have to duck into Terry White to get some osteo-panadol and some Deep heat because my hips & calves aren't what they used to be but it was so worth it.

BRILLIANT