Winter Blues--Echuca

Sitting outside in front of the smoky fire at Echuca's Oscar W’s bar on the historic street, you couldn’t help but feel like you’d stepped out of a musical time machine. You could hear the blues in every direction. Harmonica's, pedal steels and banjos all seemed to blend together into a giant wailing chorus, and the chugging and whistling of the historic steam engine rolling back and forth on the gravel road seemed to keep rhythm. Echuca is the perfect town for a blues festival. The old colonial shops, paddlesteamers rolling past, and the guy on a penny farthing riding up and down the main street, all combined to make it feel like we were in an aussie version of the deep south.

The great thing about the festival was that everywhere you walked, you were immersed in music. There were acts playing all along the footpath of the main street and in lots of the cafes and bars. As you walked through the centre of town, as soon the music of one performer faded, you could hear the sounds of the next.

It was mostly an older crowd huddled together on the streets and in the venues trying to keep warm. They were made up of blues hipsters with cool hats and goatees, rough blokes with ZZ-Top beards and Jack Daniels t-shirts, and general country folk.

There was so much music going on that it was difficult to choose who to see. Most of the performers played long sets so we decided that, to see as much music as possible, ducking in and out of various shows was the best plan of attack.

We spent most of Saturday afternoon at Oscar Ws (a great venue looking out over the river) where we caught the end of Collard Greens and Gravy's set. The three piece (guitar, drums and vocals/harmonica) were certainly the tightest, most accomplished band that I saw on the weekend. They played a swampy brand of blues with electric slide guitar, laid-back vocals and sensational, wailing harmonica.

Stringybark McDowell and Homesick Joe came on next. It was hard to miss McDowell walking round the streets of Echuca. With his long dreadlocks, hat and tattered overalls, he looked like a cross between a down-home hillbilly and the Mad Hatter. He played excellent fingerpicking style acoustic guitar and banjo, covering classics from country blues legends like Mississippi John Hurt and R.L. Burnside and sometimes adding his own verses. While his voice didn't have the depth that some other performers had at the festival, he definitely did the songs justice.

We then squeezed into the Star bar next door to see Jury and Spencer who were by far the stand out act at the festival. Wayne Jury sang his lungs out and was backed up superbly by Bob Spencer on electric guitar. They won the crowd over completely with their cover of Satisfaction where Jury stomped around the Star bar banging an elaborate lagerphone (complete with shrunken head) on the wooden floorboards.

Back to Oscar Ws to see The Mojo Corner — definitely the youngest performers of the weekend. Their mixture of standards from blues legends like Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins and Little Walter, and a handful of originals, enticed a swarm of oldies to get up and shake it on the dance floor. This is a band full of fantastic musicians who are on the verge of developing their own sound.

After surviving Echuca's arctic conditions on Saturday night, we braved the weather on Sunday to catch Michael Cooper at Echuca's Irish bar — the Shamrock Hotel. Cooper is the classic one man band, simultaneously playing guitar, harmonica, kazoo and drums — very entertaining. We were also amused by an eccentric character on a Penny Farthing riding up and down the street. He dropped into the pub after the rain got too much for him. We popped out to sample a couple of beers at the Echuca Brewery (I recommend The Paddlesteamer lager... don't go anywhere near the stout) and to watch Dave Steel sing a couple of graceful gospel-inspired tunes. After that, the conditions got the better of us--it was time to drag our sorry, frostbitten bodies back to Melbourne to thaw out.