Sunday scribblings "A Thousand Years"

G'Day,
I have just had a lovely weekend. One which I have been eagerly awaiting since, um, probably early December last year. My Christmas present. I have been speaking out for the last few Christmases and cheekily telling my family what I wanted. That is something I have previously thought a bit pushy. But now I think.....well, why not speak up when asked. Anyway I have been to a great concert last night. The tickets were my Christmas present. It was at Bowral in the southern highlands, just a few hours drive from here, at the Centennial winery. I even had a bottle of classic white, very nice too, which set the mood. The concert? Called a day at the green, had 4 different artists , the first being "The Dingoes" an Aussie group still going strong since the eighties. Their best known song , you may recall it, was "Way out West".
The second artist attending was Diesel. He has been a part of the Aussie music scene for the last 25 yrs or so. I never liked him before. I hadn't seen him live until last night and disliked him because I thought , from seeing him in interviews on the television, that he had too big a head and was far too intent on telling everyone how good he was. But, he is good, he is. He has contributed heaps to the songs that we hear and love on our radios every day.
The third artist. Wow. Hahaha, so much good old fashioned rock and roll fun. George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers. Woo Hoo, up dancing, singing and having fun. The people beside us were going around and pulling everyone else up to dance with them and I joined in and had a great time. Bad to the bone, hahaha. A few thousand old rockers all together.
Another lady who was sitting in front of us had a big bowl full of fresh prawns which she told everyone that she couldn't take home with her, (she was from Orange) so she passed them around and shared them, unloading the remainder onto us. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but she was insistent. Another dancing partner.
The fourth artist, one of my all time favorites and the master, the one I wanted to see more than any of the others. Joe Cocker. He was great, as I had expected. A laugh, a sentimental tear and nothing lost to his age in the quality of his fantastic voice. Nothing at all. The lady from Orange said he was 67 years old.
Well now that I am talking about age. The audience was great too. They had a big screen at the side of the stage and during the intermissions between the artists. Cameras kept scanning the crowd and focusing on individuals. It was great entertainment just watching that alone, for an avid people watcher like myself. As a people watcher I really loved looking at the faces as everyone went past, back and forwards to the grog, food tents and toilets.
At the toilets, I was joking with a couple of ladies behind me in the line up who said, "Babe you are going in after the men, it is all up to you, oh you are so brave". Hahaha. The toilets were transportable ones, which are usually foul, but I am sure the guy in the line in front of me must have been listening as when I got there it wasn't too bad. When I came out the ladies were waiting expectantly so I reported to them "Well...I have seen worse", and they breathed an exaggerated sight of relief. Funny.
As you would expect the crowd was made up of a variety of ages, many of them would have been young in the 70's when Joe Cocker was one of the wild boys of the music scene so where of similar age to us. The faces of the gorgeous young dolly birds of the day and the way that they had aged was fascinating to watch. I don't feel so bad, cos' well some of them.....Makes me wish though that I hadn't worried so much and been so self conscious of my looks when I was young. It was all such a waste of time doing that. But..... yeah I know....different ages and different stages. There was one old girl, I don't know if she was in her usual style of dress, but she had blond hair, bleached to within a quarter of an inch of it's life and teased out into an early 80's style frizz that looked like something from the Rocky Horror Show. Hahaha. Oh dear, I am nasty aren't I? Some of the old guys had the most fantastic beards you would ever see anywhere.
But those faces, a thousand years and more of Aussie genes, shared from all around the world. All aging, growing, glowing, loving taking a trip down memory lane. Fantastic.
The lady beside us, the one who got everyone up dancing, had come down from Cairns, she had her ticket given to her by friends as a present. She took some photos for me to share. I gave her my email address to send them too, I sure hope she remembers to send them, or doesn't loose the address I gave her. I of course left my camera behind, sitting right here on the computer table. Fun!
A thousand years and more of Genes.
Bye.
Love Linda
Woo Hoo!