GreazeFest 2009 | Review by Lori Lee | Photos thanks to Pix by Pete - Soraya Franklin - Thalia Giannake

What originally started as an alternative hot rod show and rockabilly gathering ten years ago, has become the place to visit for a killer rockabilly weekender in Australia. The turnout to GreazeFest over the four days from Thursday to Sunday was simply enormous. Every advance ticket had been snapped up ahead of time and the GreazeFest Hot Rod Show was overflowing with vehicle entrants and punters. Here’s a rundown on the big weekend:

Pre Party

Thursday night was a meet’n’greet night, this year held at the Step Inn. The Pre-Party has a great vibe and it’s the night for the truly dedicated GreazeFest fans, those who fly in early and the locals who are ready to go the four-day distance. The party kicked off with a sweet set of rockabilly from The Sugarshakers, lead by Emma Louise on vocals. It had been ages since The Ten Fours performed, so tonight they kicked it into gear and played an extra long set until they were pried off the stage at closing time.

Friday night

Friday night rolled around quickly. Just like Saturday night, the show had sold out prior to the actual gig and excited rockers quickly filled the room in anticipation of a huge night. DJ Mike da Moocha was in his element, spinning track after track of scene setting tunes. The room was ready to bop when Miss Teresa & Her Rhythmaires hit the stage and turned on a killer set of rockabilly. The talented foursome played a set built from a mixture of obscure fillybilly tunes, impressive Miss Teresa originals and topped off with classics such as Wanda Jackson’s “Tongue Tied”. Johnny Law from Perth was the first of the interstate guests for the weekend. Johnny and the east coast assembly of Pistol Packin’ Daddies, after just one rehearsal, put in an exciting and energetic set of European flavoured rockabilly and rock-a-ballads, opening with Izabela. Check the youtube video. Audience favourites, Men Into Space staged a fun set of astro rockabilly with heaps of audience interaction. An enthusiastic trio of gals was coerced into wearing Spock-ears and joined the flight crew onstage for space-screams.

It had been eight years since The Satellites had performed at a GreazeFest and this time they brought half of the Adelaide rockabilly scene with them. The Satellites always put everything into their shows and they were on fire tonight with covers like Loretta Lynn’s “Have Mercy” and tracks from their new cd release. Unbeknownst to the audience I was backstage having a reasonably heated discussion with the venue management who demanded the live music to cease at half past midnight, some 30 minutes earlier than the usual schedule (that I have run with at this venue for the past six years). So the Satellites set had to consequently finish a couple of songs early, which was a bummer at the time, but a minor glitch over the entire weekend.

The energy level on Saturday night was building as DJs Limpin’ Jimmy & The Swingin’ Kitten played their best sides to keep feeding the fire. Show opener, Doug Wilshire had just returned from a tour of the European rockabilly festival scene, where he also recorded a soon to be released album on Rhythm Bomb. Back on his home turf the front man and his Tailspinners were in top form and performed a tasty set of country-flavoured rockabilly. The thumping opening riffs of Speedcar Demon signaled the start of The Flattrakkers set which had the room rockin’ from go to whoa. Their hot rod racing songs and kustom attitude went down a real treat with the audience, who by this stage were greased and gassed and having a ball.

It was all eyes to the front when extra special guest, Marti Brom, launched into ‘That Crazy Beat’ and followed with a flawless set, much to the delight of the audience who were lapping up every note and every wiggle of her tasseled dress. Marti strutted around the stage, mike stand grasped firmly in both hands and lent towards the audience to sing favs such as “Eat My Words”, “Blue Tattoo”, “All I Can Do Is Cry’, “Black Cadillac” and encoring with “Jeopardy”. The audience, who you could hear singing along with many songs, responded with howls of joy and rapturous applause. Marti Brom’s backing band starred Dangerous Dan on guitar, Coojee Timms on drums and Jon Flynn on double bass, collectively known as The Lone Star Valley Boys. The trio has played with many GreazeFest artists including Deke Dickerson and Big Sandy and they were in top form on this night, clearly shown by Marti Brom’s comments and the rapport happening on stage.

The Bone Rattlers from Tasmania had the challenging job of following the Marti Brom set, but they pulled it off like champions. Once they hit the stage, the energy in the room exploded and the punters down the front went psycho over their full tilt set of razor edged rockabilly. It was a perfect spot for this trio and a sensational way to wrap up Saturday night.

Sunday – what a day!

After just a couple of hours sleep, it was back on site to run the GreazeFest Hot Rod Show, which to describe in one word was ‘enormous’. The Brisbane winter weather turned into a warm blue-sky day and the people came out in their thousands.

The GreazeFest Hot Rod Show was a massive collection of hot rods, kustoms, cruisers and classics. Stretched across the oval was a dazzling display of kustom and stock Caddys, Chevs, Fords, Vals, Holdens, deuces and highboys, pick ups, ground grazing Mercs and a sprinkling of muscle. The vehicles were in all states of finish such as rusty bare metal, primer, suede, stock, flaked, flamed, scalloped and slick. Clubs and builders brought along projects in the making and young’uns (and some grown ups) peddled in on their treadleys.

GreazeFest Hot Rod Awards 2009

The selection of GreazeFest Awards at Hot Rod Show is fast paced to fit in with the tight schedule of the day. The recipients in each category are chosen who most represent the DIY and non-competitive spirit of the GreazeFest.

King Rat - Lyndon Stephenson's rusty, supercharged 32 Ford pick up
Trophy Queen - Andrea Thomson's baby blue 59 El Camino
King Kustom - Dale Meredith's bottle green 51 Mercury
King Rod - Bridger's vintage green 32 Ford 3 window coupe
King Lowrider - Kamikaze's red metal flake cycle
King Kroozer - Kane’s 68 Chevrolet
King Ride - Graham Hunwick’s 1942 WLA Harley

Check the photos at on the [ Car Show ] page

Brisbane based car club, The Asphalt Demons are a busy bunch of kustom kulture kreators who were coincidentally celebrating the 10th anniversary of their club at the GreazeFest. The Demons have been showing cars and digging the bands at GreazeFest since the very early daze. In a sweet gesture, The Demons presented me with a commemorative thank you gift, a framed Demons club shirt, which is now hanging here at the Robot Ranch. The gift was very thoughtful and really appreciated.

Low Brow Art Show

The largest ever art display area was assembled for the GreazeFest Low Brow Art Show this year and, just like everything else today, it filled up really quickly. The vast array of artwork was truly inspiring and it revealed talent that may be going hidden in day to day life.

Two artists were selected to receive the Boss Artist award, Dean Thompson for his 'AV8ER' a huge acrylic on canvas painting of a modified Model A. The other award went to Andy Monks from Trick Monkey for his colourful and action-packed 'GreazeFest Freakout' painting.

Check the photos on the [ Art Show ] page

Live Entertainment

Old skool greazer, DJ Leapin’ Lawrie and new arrival from the UK, DJ Stew, were both spinning a fine selection of old and new rockabilly tracks throughout the day. Sydneysiders, Jordan & The Original Six, were first live band on stage. You’d remember Jordan from The Nervous Wreckers and The Creepers, and his new outfit had a swingin’ edge sure sounded swell. Paulie & The Crazy Rhythm Boys put in a nifty set of Carl Mann style rockabilly tunes and rock-a-ballads that had the dance floor jumping. Next up were Danny & The Cosmic Tremors followed by The Pat Capocci Combo, who both need no introduction to GreazeFest or Australian audiences. These cats are constantly touring and recording and their talent really cuts through. Balancing out all this traditional style rockabilly was the young punksters, Checkered Fist, who also have been busy touring and recording. The trio always had a snug sound, but with some miles on the clock, they’re even tighter and they put on a great show today for both young and old fans. Accomplished foursome, Warren Earl & The Atomic Rockers wrapped up the outdoor entertainment with a slick set of mid-century rockabilly and hillbilly swing.

The cool winter breeze that swept in from the Brisbane River signaled that it was time to move the party indoors, where Ezra Lee put on a fantastic show of pumpin’ piano rock’n’roll. I’ve seen Ezra many times and he’s been cool, but tonight he was right in the zone and he had the audience right in there with him. The young piano wizz pounded his 88 keys as he built each tune into a hip shakin’ frenzy. Where to go from here, but crank it up a bit more with Captain Twilight & The Six Shooters. This talented Brisbane trio combines punk values with rockin’ tunes in a Mike Ness kinda way and it works in spades. A solid set of songs from the Captain & co was the perfect way to (reluctantly) wrap up a wonderful weekend.

GreazeFest Gives Back

Once again, the GreazeFest has carbon offset the hot rod show, not just for our emissions, but for all the cars and bikes on display. We regularly support Carbon Neutral, an Australian organisation who plant trees on our behalf and for this GreazeFest we bought another 100 trees.

The 80 trees we bought last year were allocated to a 25 hectare site planted with 30,964 seedlings in Coomberdale, WA. You can monitor the progress of this planting by visiting here - www.carbonneutral.com.au/plantingprojects.htm - click on 2008 and then ‘098 Coomberdale’.

Photos

As well as the photos on the GreazeFest web pages here, you can also check out:

GreazeFest on myspace: www.myspace.com/greazefest

Reg’s GreazeFest album: picasaweb.google.com/logancitycustom/RegGreazeFest#

Feedback:

Here are some of your comments received so far:

“another great GreazeFest…we had a great time”

“wow, what a weekend...I had a fun fun fun time”

“my friends have been raving about it all week.”

“the bands were FANTASTIC”

“had a kick @$$ time!”

”thanks again for a rad weekend! I had a ball!”

Thank you

Special thanks to Johnny for everything. Special thanks go to Marti Brom for visiting. Thanks to Mal for hosting the Kitten Katwalk and for looking after Marti. Thank you to Jon, Dan, Coojee, Warren, Paulie and Mark for backing the visiting musicians. Thanks to the wonderful GreazeFest team for keeping the weekend running and especially Derek who went above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks to Brendan Wright and his crew for the great sound production. Thanks to Rob Hudson for the top notch publicity. Thanks to Pete Walker, Soraya Franklin and Thalia Giannake for all their great photographs. Thanks also to Cruzin Magazine. Thanks to Danny Kohut and family, Barry, Vee, Shaun, Lysl, Mal, Clayton and Kelly. Thanks also to everyone who has provided feedback, comments and information on the GreazeFest weekend.

The biggest thanks go to everyone who attended GreazeFest, the rockers, the rodders, the bands and everyone who traveled from interstate and overseas. You are an inspiration - it is you who make the GreazeFest such an incredible weekend.

See you all at GreazeFest in 2010.

Lori Lee o-[*_*]-o
GreazeFest Director