THE ARENA Tour Diary Part 2

FRI 13TH NOV - WILLIAM FARRER, WAGGA WAGGA.

It was a nice relaxing morning in Melbourne - a big breakfast and a chance to reflect on a tour that had nearly been derailed at the first hurdle, but nonetheless was still on track, albeit with a fairly significant detour ahead courtesy of a stolen station wagon which needed to be collected from Canberra. Or Queanbeyan specifically, but more on that later...

Wagga wagga has always treated me kindly. To be fair, it's not exactly spitting distance from anywhere in particular but I've always found the locals to be a pretty welcoming bunch, and although the shows are generally pretty low key they are always good fun. I still have no idea where the second Wagga is, or perhaps it's the first, but popular opinion is divided on whether the town should be referred to as one or two Waggas. One is easier; two may or may not get you into trouble, depending on who you talk to.

The show went off without a hitch, including a god-awful but strangely well-received version of Sinatra's classic "New York, New York". Years ago, long before I ever started writing music myself, this song was my never-fail drunk Karaoke show-stopper. Any sight of a microphone and a cheesy backing track and I was Frank for a night! That said however, it's just not the same without that terrible yet eerily familiar backing music and the little karaoke screen, and I'll be damned if I know how to play it on an acoustic guitar. Obviously something I am going to have to work on in the future, although even my rough (rough!) attempt got by far the biggest cheer of the night. And for just a few short minutes, it's fair to say those little town blues did really melt away....


SAT 14TH NOV - LOCOMOTIVE HOTEL, JUNEE, AND OTHER CALAMITIES...

Deep breath....

Well it ended up being a pretty late night in Wagga (Wagga), and not exactly what I needed given the day I had ahead of me. There was a show to play in Junee, but prior to that I had to get to Canberra to retrieve a stolen car, pay for the towing, return a rental car, swap my gear between vehicles, and visit the Australian Federal Police to file some sort of incident report. There was enough time to complete these tasks of course, but even so I was coming up to my 7th gig on the trot and the miles were starting to take their toll. The entire operation would have to be handled smoothly and efficiently. There was little margin for error.

I should point out here that if it wasn't for the help of my good friends Jayson and Lyn I would have been completely stuffed. The job ahead was far too great for one man - I needed backup. First of all, there was the small problem of my stolen car being conveniently located in Queanbeyan, not Canberra itself. This meant a guided trip to Queanbeyan in the rental car to pick up the stolen car, at which point there would be two cars in my possession, hence the need for a second driver (Lyn) to help get one of the cars back to the Budget rentals depot in Canberra City, before changing back to the stolen car for the trip home. Already sounds confusing doesn't it. My friends, the saga has barely even started...

(If you are wondering where Jayson comes into it, he is Lyn’s husband and my old boss from Sydney. Also the poor bloke who answered the phone when I called the only people knew in Canberra to explain my predicament. Fortunately he was kind enough to lend me his wife for a few hours, despite the family gathering that had been planned for that day).

When my car was initially stolen, the police had asked me if I was happy to use their list of "preferred towing companies". Of course, that's something one is happy to agree to at midnight on a Monday night on 3hrs sleep, but on reflection you have to wonder why the "preferred companies" in Canberra are in fact based in Queanbeyan. Little do I need to tell you - this is not a "preferred" scenario when you are traveling from Wagga to pick up a stolen car and your mate's wife is having to drive around with you to facilitate this process.

Anyway, Queanbeyan it was, and after following the various circles, loops, curves, round-abouts and u-turns that make up the Canberra road network, we finally stumbled on the towing company's garage - a small lot down a long narrow street in the middle of nowhere, in between the picturesque villages of anywhere, somewhere and neitherhernorthere. Why my car had to be towed in the first place is beyond me. It was being driven when it was found, why could they not have driven it somewhere (in Canberra perhaps) to be kept until I arrived to pick it up? Is the point of a tow truck company not to help move a car when it cannot move itself? Apparently not in Canberra, or Queanbeyan for that matter, where they like to tow perfectly good, functional vehicles, just for the hell of it. Therefore the owner, who is already dealing with the with the inconvenience of a stolen car, also has to fork out his hard earned cash for an additional towing expense, not forgetting the extra km's travelled to get to Quean-be-f...ing-an!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw my car. In some sense, it was like recovering a lost artifact from a previous life. The police had told me on the phone that they needed to fingerprint the vehicle (this despite apprehending the thief when they found the car being driven around Canberra... another anomaly in this improbable chain of events), but they certainly didn’t explain the specifics of the fingerprinting process, which had turned my beautiful little red car into a sad sight indeed. Have you ever seen fingerprinting dust? It's like a thick white powder that sticks to everything, and it had been generously applied to both the inside and the outside of my vehicle. As you can imagine, that made it look pretty stupid, and this is before I noticed the little stickers that had been carefully applied alongside each of the “prints” that had been found. It’s not a fossil guys, it’s a f….ing fingerprint. The police make no attempt to remove the dust or the stickers, they just leave it all there for the owner to discover when he goes to collect his vehicle. (From Queanbeyan...)

A quick check of the contents of the vehicle revealed that, thankfully, the members of the Canberra underworld had decided (no doubt employing a similar process of logic which resulted in them stealing my 23-yo station wagon in the first place) that a box of Renny Field's latest album was useless to them. So instead of stealing some $3000 worth of my CD's, they decided to run off with (i) a sleeping bag, (ii) a microphone stand, and (iii) a book called "Round Ireland with a Fridge". No doubt they are enjoying that last one in Goulburn Prison at the moment, or at the very least getting lessons on how to read it. Sure enough, the inside of the car looked like a bomb had gone off, but fortunately most of my music gear had been in a motel room the night the car was stolen, so there wasn't much for them to find. I imagine they would have been pretty disappointed really, driving round in rusting old Toyota with no air conditioning, a minor oil leak and a box of Renny Field CD's in the boot. Why they continued driving it till they were arrested is beyond me. But it's a good thing they did.

Dropping the rental car off should have been one of the easiest parts of this operation, but alas we missed the 12.00 Saturday closing time (of course - we are in Canberra) by all of 5 minutes! I am guessing the woman probably knocked off at 11.45, but in any case it meant a trip back out to the airport (the alternative rental depot), thus pushing Lyn (the 2nd driver - remember her...?) to breaking point. The temperature was increasing by the second, and what was meant to be a one-hour operation had instead turned into a 3-hr odyssey.

Funnily enough, even after all this driving round Canberra, I was still no closer to appreciating the oft-lauded town planning skills of the late Walter Burleigh Griffin. A man apparently loved by those who have taken up residence in his fine creation of a city, but loathed by anyone who should accidentally pass through... A harsher man than me might suggest that the town's current population of 350,000 is made up of roughly 100,000 public servants and 250,000 other folks who stopped for petrol one day and never found their way back out.

Anyway having finally returned the rental car, and Lyn, time was improbably still on my side. Time enough to visit the police station to file a report which was apparently not required (this despite 3 phone conversations to the contrary), then get myself to the nearest drive-thru car wash to remove some of this fingerprinting dust, which had turned my red station wagon into a kind of poor-man’s mobile winter-wonderland Christmas decoration. Sadly, as I soon discovered, the old federal police fingerprinting dust is in fact pretty sticky stuff - far too sticky for the average $20 Caltex drive-thru mega-wax "buff & coat" special. Thus with the temperature still soaring and my energy levels suffering the type of decline usually reserved for retiring Australian cricket Captains, I was forced to relocate to the service station car park, load up on the free paper towel, and continue the polishing assault by hand. Inside and out. Including those stupid fingerprint stickers I was describing earlier (which I am still finding in my car to this day - how many prints to you need you muppets?!). Sure it was hot, sure I was bothered, but I gave that little car one of the greatest "shimmy-shams" you've ever seen. By the time I had finished, I could see my reflection on at least 35% of the vehicle. It was as close to new as a 23 year-old station wagon can be!

And so, filled with the sense of achievement that only polishing a stolen car in a service station car park can give you, I set off towards my next port of call - The Locomotive Hotel, Junee. All I needed was a nice smooth run to the show. If only life were that simple...

The drive from Canberra to Junee is relatively straight-forward. Back out to the Hume Highway, turn right towards Junee just North of Gundagai. Duration - approx 2hrs. After circumnavigating Canberra 5 times, it should have been a piece of cake. For some reason however I mustn't have been paying attention just north of Gundagai (perhaps I was trying to remove one of those stickers…), and before I knew it I had gone too far. Not that this was a great problem mind you - I had an old NSW road map, and this clearly indicated another road (albeit a smaller road) south of Gundagai which I could use instead. A "short cut" if you like... Another person might have accepted the mistake, turned around and driven the 5 minutes back to the main road, but in keeping with the spirit of the day, and after all I had been through, I wasn't about to start to taking the easy option. And besides, the "short cut" was a no-brainer. Any old hack could have figured it out.

I sensed there was a problem when, after about 30mins on the "short cut" (roughly the time I calculated it should have taken me to get to Junee) I came across an intersection with several signs, one of which said "Junee" and pointed straight back in the direction I just came from. I can remember this being quite a disappointing discovery. Upsetting even. Deflating perhaps. Notwithstanding the fact that the short cut had now turned into a dirt road, hence undoing my hours of hard work in the aforementioned service station car park. So after a brief period of reflection, I turned around and headed back in the direction I came from, with my only two points of comfort being:

(i) I knew I was closer to Junee than I had been in Canberra.

(ii) At least the dirt road wouldn't leave fingerprinting stickers on my car.

With my eyes peeled, I carefully retraced my steps, desperately searching for the turn-off that would put me back on the required course. I have always thought of myself as a fairly handy navigator, so needless to say when I saw the main highway looming up again I was somewhat dismayed. I had come full circle and was still no closer to the gig, which by this stage I was running late for. My last remaining hope was an old timber house across the road with a couple of tattooed bikers enjoying a quiet Saturday evening beer on the deck out front. Fortunately they were of the helpful biker variety, and not the type inclined to shoot first when a red '86 Corona turned into their driveway. But then again, in their assessment of the threat level, I can see that my car would have caused them no great alarm.

Sure enough, a mildly amusing and often confusing conversation ensued, at the end of which I was given a hand-drawn map, supposedly leading me straight to the foot of the rainbow. I use the rainbow analogy because if you could imagine a map to the foot of a rainbow, that's about how it looked - a series of black lines scrawled roughly across an old faded strip of paper with a a small box indicating a corner store at about the half-way point. (No I don't know why he put the corner store there either). The true beauty of the hand-scribbled map of course being that you always run out of paper before the directions have actually finished, hence forcing you to cram the final 30% of the journey into a space not much larger than the average fingernail. No doubt my friend's powers of illustration (and speech for that matter) had been ably assisted by 22 stubbies of VB that afternoon. It was a rough guide at best, and by no means a sure fix for my current predicament, but it was all I had. Off I went then, in search of a bridge on my right...

By this stage of course, there was a growing sense of urgency accompanying my journey, and with it a growing danger that I would fall victim to an assault from the local wildlife. Kangaroos are known to be attracted to cars on country roads, particularly at dusk (when driving is better avoided), so whilst hurtling round each bend on two wheels I was also having to keep a watchful eye out for any potential attacks. I could never have imagined that, rather than a Kangaroo, an innocuous farm animal would nearly bring about my undoing.

Having sped through a series of sharp turns near the riverbank (a stretch of road I had now become quite familiar with), I was aware that the turn-off would soon be looming up on my right hand side, along with an old wooden bridge - a key reference point for my trip according to my friends back near the highway. I may have been in a rural area, but even so I was surprised to see an emaciated old sheep looking lovingly at my vehicle as I approached the critical junction. I say lovingly, because as the sheep caught my eye I had a real sense that it wanted to get to know me and my car A LOT better. So you can imagine the type of mental conversation that transpired, as I locked eyes with the sheep, and it returned my gaze with the type of confused fascination that only a sheep is capable of:

Sheep: I like the look of your car. I think I might run towards it.

Renny: I can see you like the look of my car. And I can also see you would like to run towards it. But I am going to speed up slightly so as to avoid hitting you and causing damage to you and/or my vehicle.

Sheep: I can see you are speeding up to avoid me, but I really really want to get to know your car. So I am going to speed up as well, and increase the chance of making physical contact with your beautiful red wagon.

Renny: I appreciate your fascination, but I am running late for a show, and I really don't need a collision with a sheep right now. You leave me no option but to swerve further to the other side of the road, and apply slightly more pressure to the accelerator.

Sheep: I can see you are speeding up again, quite obviously you don't understand my willingness to cause injury to myself and the car. And the more you try to avoid me, the faster I will run, so there is no way you can get past me, you are just going to have to accept that I am a talking sheep, and the will of the world is on my side, and therefore......

BANG!!!!!!

For f..... sake.

Sometimes in life, we must accept that once a certain chain of events has been set in motion, there is absolutely nothing we can do to alter its course. And so it was, that despite my best efforts to avoid the inevitable, my friend the sheep had managed to head-butt my left-hand rear view mirror and smash it to smithereens before tumbling underneath the car and ripping the rear bumper bar clean off. (It was at about this point of the day that I seem to remember having some trouble holding myself together). Stepping out to survey the damage, I expected to see a mangled old sheep lying flat on the ground somewhere, but aside from my rear bumper, the road was bare. I looked left and right in astonishment as I slowly trudged back to retrieve the missing piece of my car, but there was still no sign of the sheep that had run head-first jungle-warrior style towards my left passenger door. Vanished into thin air. Incredible.

It's a lonely old job I tells ya - putting your dusty rear bumper bar it the boot of your beat-up station wagon, having just crashed into a sheep somewhere on a back road to Junee at 8pm on a Saturday night. The real kicker here being that, once I eventually reached the crucial turn-off (alongside the bridge as described), it became apparent that the earlier navigational blunders could NEVER have been avoided. Why? Because the key road sign - the one that clearly said "Junee" - the one I had been unsuccessfully searching for all this time - had been bent back in the WRONG direction. So in my several trips past this particular intersection, I would never have known to take the turn-off, because the one true indicator of my whereabouts had been sabotaged! And as you might expect, after making this discovery, the remaining 20mins of my journey (strangely uneventful and somehow accurately depicted on my hand-drawn map) was filled with the most glorious barrage of obscenities you can possibly imagine. All of them perfectly articulated, exquisitely delivered, and heard by the only person in the world who could truly appreciate them - me.

Despite everything that had happened, I pulled up outside the Locomotive Hotel a fairly respectable 10 minutes late for the show. This was a minor miracle. I could have explained the story to Karen the bar manager, but in all honesty who would believe a story like that?! I figured it was safer to just apologise, briefly mention the stolen car in Canberra, and set up my gear as quickly as possible. That way, my legions of adoring fans (who were no doubt eagerly anticipating my arrival) would not have to wait any longer than necessary to see their acoustic folk hero take the stage (read: starving artist set up on the floor in front of the TAB screens).

Now by this stage of my little adventure, it's fair to say I had built up a certain immunity to the range of emotions that fall between disappointment and heartbreak. This was fortunate, because on any other day I would probably have been crestfallen when I walked into the Locomotive Hotel to be greeted by a crowd of 2 people, including the bar manager.

1 customer.

On a Saturday night.

Karen: "Looks like you'll be playing to me tonight Renny. Ha ha ha!"

It would have been tempting to pull the pin right then and there; head back to Sydney, stop the tour, retire, sell my guitars, get a real job. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t question the point of what I had just put myself through, and the point of what I was about to do. But clinging to the positives like I have never clung to positives before, I figured one person was still better than none... And seeing as I had actually beaten the odds to get here in the first place, I was damned if I wasn't going to set my gear up and belt out a few of the old classics - just to say I did. Surely it couldn't get any worse?

Alas, it seemed my improbable run of good fortune was still one step away from its spectacular conclusion. For just as I plugged in my guitar, ready to deliver the performance of a lifetime, there was a call from the bar:

Karen: "Hey Renny"

Renny: "Yep?"

Karen: "Do you mind watching the bar for 15 minutes? I've just gotta run this bloke home - he's wasted and he can't drive"

Renny: "Sure, no problems".

Karen: "If anyone comes, just tell them I'll be back soon".

Renny: “Ah, no worries”.

And as Karen took off with the only audience member in sight, the final stage of my incredible demise was complete. Less than a week earlier I had been playing to a room full of people with a ten-pice band. Now, here I was, standing in an empty pub in at 9pm on a Saturday night, with only my guitar and the gentle hum of the TAB screens to keep me company. In the name of rock & roll, I had fought through one of the most calamitous and exasperating days you could possibly imagine, and this was my reward at the end of it all. The dizzy heights of fame, it appeared, would have to wait.

People who experience major trauma often say they can’t really recall the precise moment of the incident. And as I think back to that 15mins alone in the Locomotive Hotel (aptly nicknamed “The Loco”), it’s fair to say I have a hazy memory at best. I imagine I was going through something akin to shock, at least on an emotional level, but in spite of it all I do remember there was this strange sense of calm that had come over me. It’s hard to describe, other than to say I was comforted by some sort of deeper understanding. An acceptance if you like. A knowledge that for the rest of my life I would have this story to tell. And if the truth be known, that’s probably the one thing that keeps me going a lot of the time – the story. The long drives in the searing heat, the late nights and the early starts, the shows to people who couldn’t care less if I was there or not, the occasional collision with a farm animal… All of it would seem pointless, but for this innate sense of purpose that seems to prevail. Sure I hope for a greater stage, sure I hope for a smoother passage, sure I hope that one day I can play in towns that know I am coming. But no matter where the road leads, no matter what happens along the way, the true victory will always be in the journey itself. And that’s the one real achievement worth striving for – the ability to look back and say you did.

And so it was, with this same sense of purpose, I was able to strum away for the required 3 sets in the lonely old Locomotive Hotel in Junee (once Karen had returned of course). Sure it wasn’t my finest performance, but funnily enough it wasn’t my worst either. And the crowd did in fact swell to at least 4 or 5 people at one point, which I can remember thinking was pretty cool at the time. They even clapped on the odd occasion!

By the time midnight rolled around, it was all I could do to pack up my gear and trudge up the staircase to my bed for the night. The Locomotive hotel no longer has rooms for the public, so it’s a good thing Karen was happy to let me crash in an old spare room usually reserved for the staff. I vaguely remember her apologising for the dusty shower (“It’s clean, it’s just a bit dusty”), but by that stage I was oblivious to that type of information. I didn’t even care that I would have to be locked in the hotel, again by myself, until Karen came to collect me in the morning. And calling on my last remaining drop of energy, I somehow managed to summon the required concentration to set my alarm for the morning. The sleep-in would have to wait - there were 2 shows to play in Melbourne the next day, and a 5hr drive to get to there.

To be continued…

PS - I do have a photo from the night at “The Loco” – I just have to find the cord so I can get it off my phone… stand by…

PPS – And would you believe I am heading back there on Friday 5th Feb, but I might actually have a crowd this time... Playing the night before the “Junee Poker Run”, which as far as I can gather is a day-long pub-crawl culminating with a night of music at the Locomotive Hotel. Apparently you get a card at each pub, and the winner is the person with the best hand at the end of the day, with the money raised going towards Can Assist (a charity for Cancer patients in rural NSW). One of the bigger local events of the year Karen tells me, and pretty wild the night before. Methinks I better start learning The Gambler by Kenny Rogers…. Anyone game to tag along?!