 |
|
|
Written for and printed in Lutheran Youth of Queensland's 'Good News' magazine, 2001.
For the third year in a row, the Easter weekend saw Christians and Christian artists alike from all over Australia converge on the normally sleepy town of Toowoomba for Australia's biggest annual Christian music event - the Australian Gospel Music Festival (AGMF). Since its inauguration in 1999, the AGMF has attracted big name artists such as Paul Colman Trio, Steve Grace and Alabaster Box, long name artists such as Celebration Vocal Band, The Screamin' Jamaican & The Teapot Dome Scandal as well as thousands of eager music fans for the 3 day music festival. Some were even rumoured to be coming just to hear the Geoff Rankin band!
One of the 130 acts that performed at this year's AGMF, the Geoff Rankin band is a great new Brisbane-based band that plays original Christian acoustic folk rock songs. The band consists of Geoff Rankin on vocals & acoustic guitar, Renata Curnow on cello & vocals, Weide Curnow on cello, and Daniel Saunders on bass guitar. Neil Andrews was also playing drums for us for our Saturday morning performance. We had two performances on Easter Saturday and were heading up Good Friday night just to be on the safe side.
Good Friday Night...
Dan had already headed to his parent's home in Gatton and was then going up for the Big Rock Show in Queen's Park on Good Friday night where we were to meet him. Meanwhile, back in Brisbane, Geoff, Weide and I fitted our 3 overnight bags, 3 sleeping bags, 3 pillows, 2 cellos, 1 guitar, the three of us and everything else we needed into our tour bus, Weide's little 2-door Toyota Starlet.
After a brief stop at McDonalds we eventually arrived at the festival a couple of hours later than planned to meet our trusty bass player Dan. Since he was our accommodation guide for the night (we were staying at his parent's place somewhere in Gatton) we knew that if we didn't find him before he went home, we were sleeping in the car. He wasn't even sure if we were definitely coming up that night.
Luckily, while checking out the great range of Geoff Rankin CDs on offer, we found him and went back to meet the parents.
We're told the Big Rock Show was a raging success. We actually got there as the last band finished. Go to www.agmf.com.au to find out more about it.
Easter Saturday Morning...
Saturday morning was outreach day for the AGMF and was set in the heart of Toowoomba's CBD. Streets were closed for the day as 4 stages were set up. We were to play for 25 minutes on the second biggest stage and in fashionable style were running late for our 10:30am start, no thanks to a big and hearty breakfast at Dan's parent's place. Very out of character for Geoff, it seems it had slipped his mind to prearrange to have chairs available for Weide and myself to sit on while performing. Luckily a last minute phone call to my parents in Brisbane ensured that chairs would come up that morning with them. And the chairs arrived just in time, with Weide and I running to the car to get them as the performer prior to us, Adam Lester, was finishing 10-15 minutes early!
Playing outdoors is always a challenge, especially with hard-to-amplify cellos and music on music stands. And it didn't at all help that it was windy now that Cyclone Geoff had hit town. Our music was blowing off our music stands (which the stage manager found harder to unfold and set up than something that IS actually hard to unfold and set up) and when the music was pegged down (thanks to our wonderful sponsor & supplier of fine pegs Mrs Saunders) the music stands were blowing over. But in the end we performed 6 songs to a rapturous passing audience - some of which even stopped occasionally to listen :).
Plenty of other great performers strutted their stuff to the adoring Toowoomba masses that day. Go to www.agmf.com.au to see the complete list.
Easter Saturday Afternoon...
Late Saturday afternoon saw us playing in the Festival Café, which was more like a circus tent than a café and was strangely lacking in food. This was our big gig with 50 minutes of stage time. And let me say we didn't disappoint! Some of the highlights of our performance included our celebrity drummers -
Matt from Compliment of Gus, Ben from Alabaster Box, Zane from Soulframe & Kristen from Famularo stepping in for late withdrawal - Steve Apirana. During one of our songs, we offered a Geoff Rankin CD to the best dancer, which was well and truly won by Bruce! We also included an audience participation song 'The Farmyard Animals', which Bruce, Zane, Matt and Anita well and truly helped us out with.
After entertaining the crowd in the big top, we packed up our gear, tried some of the local cuisine (strangely Toowoomba Subway tastes just like Brisbane Subway) and headed back to join the huge crowd in Queen's Park for The Main Event - Paul Colman Trio and Steve Grace in concert. After an awesome and inspiring show and a great fireworks display, our stay in Toowoomba had sadly come to an end. We drove away into the night, heading back to the big smoke, tired, refreshed and yet somewhat regretful that we'd left a huge blueberry muffin back in The Saunders' family fridge.
Overall, it was an awesome experience to spend part of our Easter weekend with so many other Christians and Christian artists sharing their God-given talents with the wider Toowoomba community. Go to www.agmf.com.au for all the information possible on the AGMF. Go to www.brisbanechristianchat.com/music/geoffrankin for more info on the Geoff Rankin
band.
By Renata & Geoff.
|
|
 |
