Back to Previous Years page

GreazeFest 2003

The GreazeFest moves to South's at Davies Park in West End to make room for more cars to bring the festival closer to Brisbane city. Overseas guests include Big Sandy plus Johnny Sun & The Memphis Maulers.

GreazeFest Friday nite
The move to the new venue was a hit with GreazeFest veterans and newer folks turned out in their thousands to see what everyone's been talking about.  The GreazeFest also got real lucky in the mainstream press in Brisbane and landed a huge article and photo on the front page of The Courier Mail plus a full page spread on rockabilly on page (lucky) 13.   Plus the GreazeFest was featured on Nine News, so the greaze has been spread wide and low across Queensland.

Friday nite kicked off with a full house of rockers at The Winery, all very curious to see Johnny Sun and catch up with The Detonators.   Mike da Moocha was spinning discs and had the packed room pumped for The Tractor Jacks to open the weekend. 

After a fine set of rockabilly from these Brisbane cats, Johnny Sun & The Memphis Maulers  (who dedicated the weekend to the late Sam Phillips) turned the room right around with a snotty nosed set of seventies punk, Memphis style. 

About five songs in, The Maulers suddenly pulled the handbrake on their frantic pace when drummer, Aaron, stepped up to the mike to "play something nice and purty" and floored the crowd with a couple of slow peg-nose hillbilly tunes (I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive & Walking The Floor Over You), just solo at the mike with his guitar.  I heard a rocker in the audience yell out "Hank the fourth" and Aaron did sound that good.  The crowd went nuts. The Maulers jumped back on stage to finish the rest of their set with originals from their cd and wrapped up the show with a cover of The Ramones' 'Blitzkrieg Bop'

Any rockabilly purists that sat on their hands during the 'Memphis Mohawks' were quick to respond with a full dance floor for West Texas Crude.  These mountain men rocked out with yet another killer set of rockabilly tunes - the energy in the room was peaking and the timber dance floor was flexing. 

Only Rockbottom James and The Detonators could satisfy a crowd after the Crude and they did just that with a blasting set of rockin' rhythm and blues.  The crowd of rockers was thick across the dance floor now with only enough room for hip shaking and air punching.   It's been years since the Detonators have played under a Queensland moon and old favourites such as 'Skinny Skinny Skinny' and 'Hot Rod Tip Truck' were coming thick and fast and had everyone singing along and rubber necking. 

 Saturday GreazeBall
Saturday evening's GreazeBall rolled around quicker than a blink, as hot rods and rockers dressed to the nines started to rumble into the Winery in the early evening.  Guest DJ Ashley from Melbourne filled the dance floor early with a popular set of tracks for the dancers. 

The Shakin' Quavers kicked off the events on stage, warming both the crowd and the dance floor with first-class vintage rockabilly.  My favourite song of their set was when bass player Jon Flynn growled out the classic 'Daddy Yah', done Paladins style. 

The Starlite Ramblers came up next on stage, charmed the crowd with their fillbilly bop and came away with a roomful of new fans.  The Flamin' Locos cranked up the pace with their top gear country rock and rockabilly and had the crowd raving about them for the rest of the weekend. 

 The room was buzzing with anticipation waiting for Big Sandy and The Oz-Rite Boys to come on and when show-time hit, the crowd pushed to the front for a standing room only show. 

Big Sandy is a born performer, a professional showman and an absolute pleasure to watch.  He had the crowd in the palm of his hand for the next hour as he sung hit after hit including 'Hey Lowdown', 'Jumping from 6 to 6', 'Hi Billy Music', 'Pretty Girls Everywhere' and 'Feelin Kinda Lucky'.  The Oz-Rite Boys (Dangerous Dan, Jon Flynn, Nick Summers & Coojee Timms) did an exceptional job backing up Big Sandy with only one rehearsal under their belts. 

After such a fine set plus two encores it was hard to pull up stumps, but the nite had to close to make way for Greazy Sunday's events. 

Greazy Sunday
I made it back to Souths at dawn on Sunday (with only one hour's sleep under my lids) and watched the day start early as rods, rats and customs cruised onto the grounds of Souths to assemble for the RataRama car show.  

Around 150 cars, some 20 or so custom cycles, a smattering of vintage motorcycles and thousands and thousands of people filled the oval at Souths for the biggest ever Sunday in the history of the GreazeFest.   Inside The Winery, The Salt Flat Trio from Perth was the first band up and they set the mood of the day with some traditional drummerless rockabilly.   The Winery was now jam-packed with punters and The Fuelers kept the atmosphere alive throughout the arvo.

The Lowbrow Art Show was a hit with the public and the quality and variety of the art on display was really inspiring.  A big round of thanks goes to the Eye Saws for organising and assembling the art display.  Another contribution from the Eye Saws was the custom pin striped GreazeFest trophies for the RataRama show. 

The cars and bikes that were awarded GreazeFest Trophies were selected as a fitting representation of the GreazeFest and there were many cars that were more than worthy.  There were also cars on display that were technically ahead of the pack, but as I've said before, the GreazeFest isn't about rules and competitions, it's about spirit and good times.  So the pinstriped hubcaps for this year went to:

King Rat - Dan Moran's flat black and red scalloped 1951 Chev coupe

King Rod - Darren Cahill's red primered 1934 Chev coupe

Venue Choice - Tony Davis' Dragnet Ink Valiant wagon staff car

 
Once the trophies were awarded, the stage was set for the annual GreazeFest Rockabilly Jam and this year it went off like I've never seen before.  The next two hours were like a mini-GreazeFest, as most bands that played over the weekend were all in the room and keen to get on stage for a few songs each.  Big Sandy kicked off the party and it was great to get another fix after the night before. 

Other musicians that followed included The Tractor Jacks, West Texas Crude, the Salt Flat Trio, The Starlite Ramblers, The Flamin Locos, Dave Cantrell, Mark Doherty and even the sound man, Cyril had a turn on the drum kit.  If I've overlooked anyone, it would just because I was catching my breath at the bar, so forgive me.  Thanks to Dan Nosovich and Jon Flynn for hosting and coordinating the jam. 

See you all again next year...

Lori Lee Cash
GreazeFest Director

2003 images...click to enlarge

Johnny Sun & The Memphis Maulers
 

Paulie & Andy from West Texas Crude
 

Big Sandy

Big Sandy

Dangerous Dan & Big Sandy
 

Nick Summers on pedal

Dangerous Dan

The Shakin' Quavers

Rockbottom James & The Detonators
 

Big Sandy from back stage

GreazeFest Rockabilly Jam:

Dave Cantrel & Teresa Rambler

Felix from Salt Flat Trio

Dangerous Dan, Dave Cantrel

Big Sandy jammin'

Salt Flat Trio

Dangerous Dan, Des Johnson, Mark Doherty, Jon Flynn

Sue, accepting for Hillbilly Dan for the King Rat

King Kroozer, Mick Partridge who drove his 58 Customline from Victoria

Johnny Sun at the Robot garage

Black'n'white snaps by Pete Walker:

Tim from The Memphis Maulers

Ben from The Starlite Ramblers

Rupert Jenner

Jon Flynn

The Starlite Ramblers

Dangerous Dan