Easter Saturday at Bluesfest 2016

Easter Saturday at Bluesfest 2016 started off under wonderful blue skies filled with skydivers filling the blue above us and making their way back to the airfield next door to the festival grounds.

Skydivers filling the blue sky above Bluesfest

But that wasn't going to last long with Thor hanging around Bluesfest with his family. 

Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky at
the Byron Bay Bluesfest on Friday

BLUESFEST DAY 3: Rain followed the god of thunder
"...but it only took one quick sighting of the God of Thunder, Thor (or in this case, Australian actor Chris Hemsworth) just before 7pm for the sky to turn dark, the wind to blow and the rain to fall over revellers at Bluesfest 2016.

But a Bluesfest without rain is just not the same.
The Hollywood actor, his wife actress Elsa Pataky and their three children were seen entering the VIP area and into the backstage of the festival.
At 7pm, American singer Elle King started her second show at Delta stage, and complained a couple of times of some rain falling over her.
There were gushes of water coming down from what looked like drains from the left hand side of some tents over the Delta and Crossroads stages yesterday."

My view of the rain bucketing down Easter Saturday

Tell me about it, I'll be sending you my dry-cleaning bill Hemsworth. :-(

Harts playing the Mojo stage at
Bluefest and he hasn't lost his Mojo

My Easter Saturday would begin and end in the Mojo tent and the first act I would see was a guy who goes by the stage name Harts and whose real name is Darren Hart.

That road sign on the cover is #23
and I was born on the 23rd of Sept

I ended up buying his CD and getting him to sign it. 

This was the second time I've had another Darren sign a CD for me.

The other Darren was Darren Hanlon a while back at Woodford -

Darren Hanlon and "A Descant for Gossips"

Darren Hart's CD is like a cross between Hendrix and Prince ... or whatever Prince is calling himself these days.

Then it was off to the Crossroads tent to see a bit of Allen Stone's gig.

Allen Stone playing at the Crossroads stage

One of the best acts I would see all weekend at the festival.

Eagles of Death Metal on the Mojo stage.

I have to admit that I was in two minds about going to see The Eagles of Death Metal play the Mojo tent on Easter Saturday after what happened to this band in Paris.
I couldn't help thinking that someone was going to die at Bluesfest before they played, or during their gig.
But on the other hand, I thought nothing bad was going to happen in this tent, hence I went in to see them play, but I was never really comfortable, especially when I saw all these guys in front of me wearing camouflage pants (see the photo above);-)   

I could have got a spot on the front barrier, but I thought if a bomb went off and I was on the barrier I'd be blown in half, so I hang to the side of the tent for a quick exit in case lightning did strike twice.
I noticed also that the tent didn't really start filling up until the band did a few songs, as if the others outside the tent were waiting to see if anything was going to happen to the people already in the tent like me.

Eagles of Death Metal on the Mojo stage

The weird thing though is that at 2:30pm a man was found dead in the carpark, not all that far from where my car was parked.
The Eagles of Death Metal went on stage at 3:00pm, so my death feeling was not unfounded.
Man found dead at Byron Bay Bluesfest

"Police are investigating after a 44-year-old man was found dead in his car at Bluesfest in Byron Bay over the Easter long weekend.
The man’s body was found in a car near the festival at Tyagarah, just north of Byron Bay, on Saturday afternoon.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said emergency services were called to the campsite at 2.30pm after reports a man was unconscious.
“Paramedics performed CPR, but the man could not be revived,” the spokeswoman said.
Officers from Tweed Byron unit will investigate the circumstances and a post mortem will be conducted.
Police do not believe the death is suspicious." 
But I wouldn't hear of this death until reading the news the next morning.

Jesse "The Devil" Hughes
taking a stroll around Bluesfest 

I snapped the above photo of Jesse Hughes when I was waiting in line for Grace Potter to sign my CD of hers.

Grace Potter at the signing tent Easter Saturday

The weird thing about snapping a photo of Jesse "The Devil" Hughes while I was waiting in line for Grace to sign my CD of hers was that the guy behind me was wearing a new Grace Potter t-shirt, which Grace told him was the first person she had seen in Australia wearing one.

Since I'd been talking to the guy for the last 20 minutes while in line, I told Grace that he came all the way from Tasmania to see her, and she caught her breath and said that's funny because my nickname is The Tasmanian Devil.

We all had a laugh over that one. 
But I certainly wasn't about to tell her that I was from Queensland.  

"The Tasmanian Devil, commonly referred to as Taz, is an animated cartoon character featured in the Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" series of cartoons."

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band
playing Crossroads stage

After seeing Grace and getting my heartbeat back to normal, I went over and checked out The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band playing the Crossroads tent.
Looks like I made a good decision seeing Tex Perkins and the Ape the night before, instead of The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band

Graham Nash in the Radio National
  tent giving an interview

I also got to hear more than see Graham Nash from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young giving an interview on live radio.
That was interesting.

Rain poring off the Mojo tent while
waiting for Hiatus Kaiyote

After getting some food and getting caught in a massive down pour on my way to the Mojo tent (damn you Hemsworth;-) I sat down and waited for Hiatus Kaiyote to hit the stage.

To this day I don't know if I liked, or hated this band, seriously.
I think on psychedelic drugs this band would be awesome somehow, but I was sober sitting through this gig, so I'm undecided as to whether they were good, or not.
My gut feeling though is that the lead singer is a genius ahead of her time.
It's just that I need more time to catch up;-)

Then it was DÁngelo's time to hit the stage and being wet and miserable by now I decided to give him a chance until I saw a break in the weather and run back to my car and drive back to a nice warm shower and bed.
Unfortunately, for him the break in the weather won out on the night and I left Bluesfest to return to my nice motel room, laugh at the campers as I rushed back to my car, wondering why the cops had cordoned off some of the carpark and a plain clothes cop was talking to a security guard as I entered the carpark.
Got out of there as fast as I could, had a nice warm shower, hit my nice warm bed and vowed never ever to camp at Bluesfest.

I think you get the picture when it comes to me and camping, it's a no brainer for me when it comes to a nice motel room, or a tent.