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Here’s the short version for the busy or uninterested:
It went off like a rocket!!! Check the
web for photos.
Here’s the long version for everyone else:
The final week of GreazeFest started off fairly calmly. Without the
presence of an overseas guest, the Robot office was a little lonelier than
last year, but far less stressful. The only curveballs thrown at us were
from the Brisbane City Council, who insisted at the last minute that we
have no amplified music on the oval at the car show, the second curveball
was thrown by my back-bone, which rattled out of shape just two days
before the weekend. The spine shift resulted in me missing out on The
Horrorpops show, which could have been a good thing going by some of the
reviews. Luckily, I already hold a frequent crackers card at the local
bone-doctor and the Robot body was swiftly cracked and popped back into
shape for the big weekend.
Friday Nite
 Friday nite attracted a diverse crowd with all the regular rockabillies,
dancers and greazers mixing it up with local punks, glammers and
rock-chicks. Miss Teresa and Her Western Rhythmaires
kicked off the weekend with a fine set of vintage she-billy and cowgirl
bop, but the crowd was hanging back a little. Next up were el
Borracho, who punched through a fast set of cowpunk and asked the
audience “who came along to dance tonite?”, as the crowd was still holding
back. Most of the audience was hanging out on the deck or at the bar,
catching up with old pals and new ones in the usual GreazeFest tradition.
By the time The Ten Fours came on, with a strong set of
ROCKabilly and voodoo blues, the audience was primed and ready to dance.
After the Ten Fours finished, the dance floor quickly turned into a
starting grid with punters vying for pole position for Zombie
Ghost Train. The Zombies put in a killer set of trashy, horror
movie inspired psychobilly, drawn from their first EP and the recent ‘Glad
Rags and Body Bags’ full player. Songs included Graveyard Queen, Deadcat
Rumble and Devil Child, plus a cover of Crazy Cavan’s ‘Teddy Boy Boogie’
and Devo’s ‘Girl U Want’, and yes that was me doing ‘the robot’ up the
back of the room. Even a broken guitar string didn’t slow down the
Zombies, with the Ten Four’s Gretsch quickly being borrowed to keep the
show rolling.
 Let me say it now, as I said this a few times over the GreazeFest weekend,
I reckon that Zombie Ghost Train are contenders for the best psychobilly
band in the world today.
They are a very talented trio who don’t take
themselves too seriously, they have a great rapport with their audience,
and they put on a professional show, filled with humour, connecting with
the audience on their level, resulting in everyone having a great time.
ZGT are off on their first tour of the USA and let’s hope they find every
success with American audiences.
It was an early finish on Friday nite – early in the morning that is, I
think I hit the hay around 4am. Ahem.
Saturday Nite GreazeBall
 Saturday evening saw a huge crowd roll in all at the one time for the
GreazeBall, filling the room almost to capacity very early in the
evening. It’s been a long time between drinks for The Chrome
Daddies and the GreazeFest, but as they opened proceedings for
the night, they made up for lost time with a solid set of
country-rockabilly that was warmly received by the audience. Up next was
the debut gig from Rumble Kings, who filled the room with
a sonic, nitro-fueled, rockabilly and surf sound. Rumble Kings stem from
The Shedmen and West Texas Crude and bring with them a kit of killer tunes
that had the dance floor filled with jivers and boppers. During the
bands, Mike da Moocha did a sensational job at the dj
desk, matching the music to the moment and keeping the dancers happy.
Thank you Mike, love your work.
 Keeping the BIG sound rolling was The Bone Daddies, aka
Zombie Ghost Train Unmasked, who floored everyone with a mixed bag of trad
rockabilly covers from Buddy Holly (Blue Days…) to the Stray Cats (Rumble
In Brighton). I always dig it when bands cover original tunes
note-for-note and the Bone Daddies did this on two tunes tonite – The
Collins Kids ‘Hot Rod’, brought in at the original 2 minutes 15 seconds,
plus Crazy Cavan’s ‘My Little Sisters Got a Motorbike’, complete with
mandatory motorcycle sound effects, errrum, rrruummm,
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm, ba ba ba ba ba. This
tune is one of my favourite rockabilly tracks and I was jumping all over
the place when they played it. Thank you Bone Daddies - that was one of
the best moments of the weekend for me. Check the
web for more photos.
A total change of pace followed when
Satellite V hit the stage with a raw and primitive set of
hillbilly boogie. The original crazed hillbilly, Tim Knuckey, led the
band through a modest set of hillbilly favourites including Washing
Machine Boogie, Beatles Will Miss You Johnny, Speed Limit Daddy, Luther
Plays the Boogie. I tried to sneak off before closing, knowing there was
an early start on Greazy Sunday, but it was so hard to leave the
GreazeFest when all your pals are still partying and there are folks you
are still determined to catch up with. I finally got out of the venue, in
time for three short hours sleep, before rising again, like a zombie from
the grave, all stiff and lifeless, but determined to complete my mission,
to organise the final day of the weekend.
Greazy Sunday
The weather for Greazy Sunday was spectacular with blue skies and warm
sunshine lighting up these tired eyes. I met up with the GreazeFest Team
at the tender hour of 7am, to set up the Vintage Market Village, the
Lowbrow Art Show and of course, the Hot Rod & Lowrider Show. The Markets
saw a record number of traders turn up for the day with choices from hot
rod clothing, car accessories, hillbilly duds, records and cds, custom
grill works, second hand frocks, number plates, decals and bric-a-brac.
The Lowbrow Art show was filled to capacity with a quality display of
works from local kustom kulture artists showing stuff such as
illustrations, paintings, collages, pinstripings, tiki carvings and
photography. Special thanks to Peter Walker for pulling together the
Lowbrow Art Show. Pete also took most of the photos on the
GreazeFest web site, so be sure to
check ‘em out.
The big deal of the day was of course the hot rod and lowrider show and,
wow, we sure received a huge turn up of vehicles. I guess that after six
years now, everyone knows what GreazeFest is all about and they know how
it works – just rumble in on Sunday, whether you drive a dinged up daily
driver or a street rod – just turn up, park, chill out, enjoy the bands
and the company and just be part of the day. There were so many cars that
I haven’t seen before, plus there were many that have shed their skin or
changed their spots since last year. The lowrider bicycle turnout was the
biggest we’ve even seen and the show had a strong peppering of bobbers and
motorbikes. Make sure you check out the photos on the
GreazeFest web site.
GreazeFest Trophies
Regular GreazeFest patrons would know that the GreazeFest ‘King’ trophies
are awarded as a fitting representation of the spirit of the GreazeFest,
rather than about tech specs or who is better than the rest. The only
rule at GreazeFest is that there are no rules. Having said that, here are
the ‘winners’:
King Rat – Rob Cleave’s Ford pick up
‘Moonshine Runner’ that starred in the gloriously b-grade movie, ‘Hot Rod
Chicks From Hell’.
King Rod – John Singleton’s 32 Ford
green metal flake pick up. There is no eye-candy sweeter than a full-body
metal-flake paintjob twinkling in the August sunshine.
 King Kustom – Little Mick’s ‘Moonrunner’. This is the
first time Mick has brought his
California sixties inspired bubble car and it just had to take the kustom
award, ‘nuff said.
King Kroozer (longest distance) – George Lazaridis –
sorry, didn’t take a photo – it was the red Falcon XP coupe with flames,
driven all the way from
Melbourne to
Brisbane . Thanks for coming, George.
King Cycle – Stan Thompson’s ‘Bones Lowrider’ – chosen
for its basic, black anti-bling attitude.
 Trophy Queen – Mandy Pukis – 55 Ford Pickup – Mandy just
got this project on the road this year and is very deserving of the first
ever Trophy Queen award.
Cindy from Sh-boomm kindly donated custom number plates for the above
awards and my only regret is not getting more photos of them, as they just
looked so cool and were warmly received by the recipients. Check their
website for details:
http://www.sh-boomm.com.au
Sunday
Bands
Meanwhile, back in the clubhouse, the bands had been rockin’ since 10am in
the morning, but not many people realised. In a frustrating twist of
events, the council forbid us to place any amplified music on the oval, so
I had to restrict all music to inside the clubhouse.
The BobKats kicked off proceedings with a catchy set of
trad rockabilly very early in the morning and DJ Leapin’ Lawrie kept the
vintage tunes spinning with a mighty fine selection of hillbilly tracks.
Next up was Corn Liquor, re-established from the now
defunct Tractor Jacks, who put in a very fine set of mid-fifties country-billy.
The new band on everyone’s lips, Big Kitty and The Scaredy Cats,
produced a strong set of bluesy rockabilly, led by the vocally blessed Big
Kitty (aka Anna), who I’m sure we’ll hear from again in the future. The
final band of the day was The Lone Star Valley Boys, who
once again played a very entertaining set of honky tonk and hillbilly
boogie. The Lone Stars kicked off the rockabilly jam that included a
brief reunion of The Slingshots with Pony, Dan & Tyrone up front (we
couldn’t find you Geoff…?). Also on stage were new southern settlers from
Melbourne, Brandi and The Badcats. I missed a fair bit of the jam, so I
can’t give you many more details. Thanks to everyone who took part.
GreazeFest Post Party
Sounds like a big weekend so far, eh? Well, if that wasn’t enough, we all
headed into Satchmos Café in
West End on Sunday nite to witness what will go down as a legendary gig in
GreazeFest history. The medium sized café in West End had no idea what
was about to happen, as sixty or so greazers and psychos descended into
the room to have one final drink and one final dance. West Texas
Crude was in the corner belting out a killer set of
thick’n’chunky rockabilly. Tables were swiftly moved out of the way as
the whole joint started to rock. People were dancing everywhere – on
tables, out the front, out the back, on the stage, even the café owners
were swinging out in front of the band.
Local diners looked on bewildered as psychobillies, rockabillies, cats and
kittens roared their approval of the Crude’s songs, toasted each other and
the good times just had and danced right up until the final note, not
wanting the weekend to come to a close. C’mon everybody, just one more
encore, eh? So sad to see it end. I don’t think
West End has ever seen anything like what happened in that café that nite,
it was a truly wonderful rockabilly moment.
Thank you
As always, the GreazeFest is very thankful to people who rally
together and make the weekend a success. Very special thanks go to - my
husband Johnny; The GreazeFest Team – Mandy, Benita, Annette, Mimi, Helen,
Sarah, Derek, Richard, Kyle, Sasha, Mick, Glen and Greg; Jim and Tony and
all the team at Souths; Wright Productions; Pete Walker; Rob Walker; Faye
and Vick; Stumpy and Beau and Trash Video; Scotty Makin; Jon Flynn; Andy
Dashwood; Johnny & Veronica; Mike da Moocher; Leapin’ Lawrie; Cindy from
Sh-Boomm; Cruzin Magazine; all the bands; all the lowbrow artists; all the
car show participants; everyone who attended from interstate and overseas;
Satchmos Café; Wintersun; Miami Security; Channel 7; Channel 9, Kerry
Burrows and Quest Newspapers. And a BIG THANK YOU to all the people who
attended GreazeFest for 2005. I hope to see y’all again next year.
See a Photo You Like?
Pete Walker was chief photographer at GreazeFest and has taken
hundreds of snaps from the weekend. You can check the
GreazeFest web site for a small
sample of the photos. You can also purchase any of these photos directly
from Pete, just drop him an
email for details.
Any negatives?
The whole GreazeFest weekend was relatively incident free. The
drinkers were well behaved and no one was asked to leave (except for
someone on Sunday, who thought the atm machine was a urinal). We had
three punk thieves sneak in without paying on Friday, but with such a
great vibe in the audience that night, they were only cheating themselves
from sharing the good times. Some folks said they couldn’t get inside to
the bands on Sunday, but perhaps they didn’t penetrate past the packed
courtyard, as inside the band room there was plenty of room to mingle and
dance.
A few folks brought their own liquor onto the oval on Sunday, which had
the potential to cause problems. Remember the oval is for professional
football – any broken glass amongst the grass would be disastrous in a
heavy tackle, so we’ll have to tighten up this area next year. Under the
oval is an expensive underground sprinkler system, that was indicated by
flags – the idea was to drive around the flags, not score points for
flattening them, so maybe we’ll use witches hats next year.
Remember I'm the one responsible for the oval, so everytime you do a
burnout, chop up the turf or do a donut, I have to open my wallet and pay
for the damage, so please lighten up on the gas pedal until you hit the
asphalt. Thanks.
Where to From Here?
After such a big show of support this year, it looks like the
GreazeFest is here to stay. I’ll be working on improving some areas of
the festival including public safety and vehicle movement, better
amenities, shorter queues for food and hopefully resolve the sound
restriction issue at the car show.
Dates for 2006
Lock these into your planner for next year – August 4, 5, 6,
2006.
Thanks again to everyone who came to GreazeFest this year.
See you all again soon,
Lori Lee @ Robot International
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