Joseph and Dark Mofo

I love my city in winter.  Not only is winter in Hobart beautiful but the arts scene comes alive.  Dark Mofo is central to this.  If you have never been in Hobart during this festival then you are missing out and you should remedy this at your earliest opportunity.  The town is rocking.  The streets are filled with people and you never know what unusual happenings you will find around the next corner.  This year's Dark Mofo featured light and sound installations, a controversial if not  artistic slaughtering of a bull, a daily helicopter and siren song performance at dusk, a nude winter solstice swim and an Indonesian-style parade of ogoh-ogoh which finished in flames.  There is music both to challenge you and to sooth you.  There is fabulous food and great locally produced drinks. It is a real attack on the sense.

As part of Dark MoFo the first act I went to see was Buried Country.  This was a celebration of  the story of Aboriginal Country Music.  It was fantastic.  Warren H Williams gave us a great toe tapping start followed by a young man singing recetnly late grandmother Audry Andrew's songs before his father joined him.

Footage of Lionel Rose, Auriel Andrew and a slim Jimmy Little played in the background whilst, James Henry, Jimmy Little's grandson, performed.  L J Hill was next and he was magnificent.  He is the composer of a song called "Pretty Bird Tree"  that i most recently heard Paul Kelly cover.  It is an emotional song at the best of times but hearing such a sad song sung by the composer for whom the lyrics are true is heart rending.

Frances Little gave us a great version of "Brown Skinned Baby" which was chilling and poignant.  A young man called Luke Peacock gave us a more modern take on some classic songs.  The show was wrapped up by the ensemble cast giving a few numbers to send us on our way.  It was a fabulous night full of Australian storytelling but not the white man point of view that I'm used to hearing.

The highlight of the festival for me is the Mid-Winter Feast.  Amazing food and drink. But the best is all the entertainment.  There is usually three acts playing at any given time - something for everyone.

On my first visit to the feast I enjoyed Dewayne Everettsmith's artistry.  His version of Tracey Chapman's "Fast Car" was particularly good as was his Adele cover.  I then saw a trio of women lovely harmonies with a little fun doing a quirky version of Michael Jackson's "Beat It".




After enjoying these artists I moseyed on down to the Federation Concert Hall.  Here I stumbled upon a busker on what would have be Hunter Island in colonial times.  He was pretty good under the streetlights on the Hobart docks he belted out Oasis "Wonderwall" and a pretty decent version of  Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah".  It was nice just to sit on a park bench and be his audience of one on the clear and cool evening.

I was actually on my way to see the magnificent Paul Kelly play at the Federation Concert Hall (home of the Tasmania Symphony Orchestra).  His show, Ancient Rain featured Paul and Irish Singer Camille O'Sullivan performing songs inspired by one hundred years of Irish letters from Yeats and Heaney to Kavanagh. Joyce and more.  It was hauntingly beautiful.  The lighting was particularly atmospheric.  It was a bit like a super classy poetry night but with music. Compelling.

Over the next few evenings Of the festival I continually dropped in to the Mid-Winter Feast to grab a bite to eat and enjoy the music. There was a great Irish band, O Reely who did a fantastic version "Black Velvet Band" and The Pogues "Dirty old town.  The Blonde and I met Nigel and his wife from Burnie who were clearly intent on having a fabulous night and were supplying hugs all round.    I met the bass player from a famous eighties Australian band and a music industry photographer who were here to soak in the atmosphere.  It's that kind of festival.

I saw a couple of jazz bands one with a gypsy influence (I now know that gypsy jazz is a thing) I loved hearing something new and the musicians were so smooth.  Another jazz band played a popular tunes from the 1930s they were very good and got the crowd dancing around the open fires with mulled cider in hand.  It was really great to be so close to the artists and see the interplay between the musicians.  The Crooked Fiddle band played on the main stage and the crowd really got into the swing off it dancing and singing.

 

On my way home on the final night I wandered through St David's Park.  This park is a English style formal walled park that dates from the beginning of colonial Hobart Town in 1804.  It is the site of the first European burial ground in Hobart.  Most of the original 900 internees now lay peacefully under lush turf of the park including my ancestor, Joseph Castle.  Joseph, his wife, Edith and their four children came out from Somerset, England to start a new life in the colonies.  I often think about how brave this was and what motivated their adventurous spirit.  Joseph was injured by a spear in an altercation with the Indigenous population and was never the same and died a short time later after wasting away as a result of his wounds.  A victim of the Black War in Tasmania.  

As I walked through the park on that night I went and visited Joseph's headstone that is embedded in a wall in the park.  I stood there on that unseasonably warm winter night and wondered what he would make of all of this.  The fabulous indigenous storytelling, the bizarre siren song and helicopters in the sky, the slaughtering of a bull for art rather than sustenance.  I am quite sure that Joseph would have found it all very strange but I am also sure that it would have appealed to his sense of adventure.  I think that Dark Mofo is so good not only because of the insight of the organisers but because it is underpinned by the bleak but hopeful history that pervades Tasmanian life.  What I know for sure, though, is that I am very very glad that he and Edith decided to make this amazing place their home.  I will be forever grateful.