Lenstock: Peter Lalor stables, Grand Final Day.

Here's a few of the acts from Lenstock, one balmy Saturday evening in the Ballarat as the crowd started really piling in the doors after 6ish (about the third eccie was being popped around Hawthorn)

Firstly, Pig's Arse. They make the White Stripes look like Yngwie Malmsteen in complexity. Note that Ollie displays his skills in being able to knock back the entire pot of beer just in time for the lead break. Gold for Australia.



Secondly, irrepressible Adam Simmons. Only in Ballarat do you find one of Australia's greatest jazz musicians standing in a pub getting a room full of lagered-up rock and roll veterans to sing a drover's folk song they've never heard before...

Then, Earl Leonard. One man and a guitar knockin' it up while the band tastefully organise themselves behind him. Tasteful and elegant as the room gets slowly more liquored up on a quickly emptying bar fridge and the company who'd come to kick on...

Then, (after a beer, a snag, a chat) those delightful deliverers of the disturbed and droll drumbeats of dystopian doom, the beloved Brand X came on to give it a red-hot and kicked it well and truly in the guts...

Lenstock: Ballarat kicks on through Grand Final Day

It was grand. It was a kick-on. Below is a first taste of what it was like in the Stables on Grand Final night in B-town, when all of Ballarat's rock and roll survivors from the turbulent 90s gathered to kick on in honour of a true soldier of the Great Fight Against Boring...

Thankyou so much to everyone who organised it - first place getter Rockin' Ronnie - who got the bands togther (and off again) the whole day (while pausing to knock out a high voltage set with the 23rd of Elvis); Roddie Ramos, who made the stage look space-rock-a-go-go (and was nice enough to get up and beat the living bejesus into the Fat Thing's set), Suds McNulty who brewed a special slab of beer for the occasion, Big Beats Bad Boy Corey on the barbie and wryness, Shep "No Bullshit Bids" Huntley whipping the ker-lassic t-shirt auction into shape... and there was the bands.

The bands. We love you all. We forgive you, man of the broken lead on the Gibson for the Rye Catchers. That epic set-up time. That edgy drummer who kept nailing sweet little hardcore double bass/snare riffs. And then, the sonic horror. Those shallow Generation Whatevers know it in GuitarHero talk as the 'bit where the bottles start hitting you' - but here, in Ballarat, we love you for getting up and having a crack. It was rock, the crowd was loaded, and the night was magnificent. And I am so broken.

For now... A quiet Sunday arvo and some time with a cup of tea and a media encoder... Stay tuned for more... including these guys, featuring the man himself - Kan- ... er - Len, ripping the guts out and flaying them in sacrifice to the Gods of Rock themselves.