This year’s Beer and BBQ Festival marked ten years of the event, and was the final one in the current format. Organisers have announced that the event will continue on in some form that is still to be decided. With that in mind, there was a mixture of celebration and sadness on the final day of the festival.
Sunday’s day event was family and dog friendly, with the Bootleg Choir taking centre stage. However, the evening session helped shake off the winter blues and let the show go out in style. Carla Lippis fronts Mondo Psycho with a force that grinds the audience into submission. Dressed in tight black latex, despite the cold, she pranced and growled her way around the stage as the band unleashed a fury of noise behind her.
Meanwhile, over at the not-so-hidden Secret Pickle Saloon, in between line dancing sessions, Drew Akin gave us no nonsense country boy rock and roll. There was no compartmentalisation of music as Kelly’s Wayke then proceeded to bring the best of Celtic dance tunes to the party. Over at the The Last Resort bar, The Dead Regulars bought some shimmering sparkle to the event.
The BMX team were back, although minus one, who had broken his wrist on a poor landing Friday night. It just goes to prove that adventurous looking stunts do come with a real danger. However, the only real danger at the Silent Disco is that you might tune into the wrong channel and miss out on a communal dance move.
The tattoo parlour was doing good trade, the record store seemed consistently busy. Most of the craft beer vendors reported a steady trade of people over the weekend. Plenty of food and beer was consumed. So although numbers were down on previous years, it was still a positive experience.
Henry Wagons popped up on the Kevin Bacon Stage to perform songs from Johnny Cash’s late recordings, which was a pleasant interlude. The legendary Tim Finn closed off the evening on that stage with an upbeat trip down memory lane. Starting with “Shark Attack” and “Six Months in a Leaky Boat” there was a party-like atmosphere as the crowd sung along to their favourite tunes.
The party didn’t end there though, with Captain Hellfire and the Wretched Brethren bringing old-fashioned shanty tunes to the Secret Pickle stage. Like being trapped on a leaky boat, these feisty pirates kept the rollicking tunes going until the wee hours.
All in all, the Beer and BBQ Festival is an important event in the brewing landscape. We look forward to see what emerges in the future and it will surely be worth celebrating. Check out the photos from Sunday below.
To keep up to date with what’s happening with the Beer and BBQ Festival, check out the website here
