The Steamtug Blog

It’s bonfire time again! We spent ages constructing it, lots of time to make the beer, 6 months working on the music playlist, and it was all over in one insane night of fire, beer and song! But don’t be the first to fall asleep, or bad things may happen to you…. read on and see! We had such a great time last time we did this bonfire thing, that it just had to happen again. Neil was getting a big stack of old trees and rubbish down on the farm a couple of years ago, and I suggest to him that he waits before he lights it up, for me to bring some mates, a music machine and a keg of beer and we can sit and watch it burn. He thought it was a great idea and brought some of his mates too. Then our other mate Scott, who owns Red Duck brewery, and makes his living out of making beer offered to come with some extra kegs and some other blokes to share our fire! And it was born.

It’s all about that primal male instinct of burning things, rock music and drinking lots of beer. I went down the farm last year and used Neil’s tractor to drag old braches back to our stack behind the shearing shed. It’s the perfect spot, because it has electric power close by, and a quick walk back to the farm house if you forget something like the sauce. When Neil was younger he was a mad sports nut, and wizz with a hockey stick. That’s how he met Jane who went to university with Anita. But the old hockey knees finally gave out on him, and he needed a reconstuction about the time we were ready for our fire, at the end of winter before fire restrictions started. So, we had to postpone and build our fire stack even bigger over the summer. Then finally May arrived and fire restrictions were off, and away we went.

We killed a sheep that happened to be walking past, wired onto a sheet of concrete rio, and suspended it above a nice steady fire. Last year it took a long time to cook, so this year Neil lit the fire and put it on at 10 am. It cooked much faster this time and we had to take it off at 4 pm to give it a rest. The theme was a cave man BBQ, and guests were invited to bring something they had made themselves. I brought my home made beer, Foot brought some home made Thai Chang-Mai spicy sausages, Grumps brought some pickles he had made, and Goofa brought his kids he made! Scotty arrived later with some hoppy amber ale in a keg. My beer had been fermented with a dodgy batch of yeast and it took 6 weeks for the fermentation to complete. It had an unusual taste which was nice, but different. I gave Scotty a taste. He is a professional beer judge, as well as a brewer and as he sipped it back, looked at me and said “It’s sour”. Yeah! He was right on the money. That was the taste… sour! “Is it meant to be sour?” No… but it works. Very unusual but good! And by the next morning there was hardly any left, so it was popular!

Foot was talking funny by 5 pm and reminded me that last year, he was drunk by 6 pm and was really trying to do better this year. I told him his next drink had to be a water so he could go the distance. But… by 8 pm, he was the first to flake out in his chair beside the bar, and music system which we had set up in the boot of my car. Bad mistake… we could not help making fun of him as he snored through his hat! The music playlist had been hatched over the past 6 months. I thought really hard about it, and would come up with another song that just had to be put on. Then another, and another. Before I knew it, I had a play list that went for 12 hours! So I had to cull a lot of stuff out as the new stuff I wanted went on. It was mostly based on 70’s rock. This was the greatest era for music in my opinion. When the new music revolution from the 50’s morphed into 60’s rock, then the daggy-ness got left behind as the inabitions, and freedom to go just let the art carry them, with blues music getting mixed in some great aussie rock music resulted before it all went disco and electronic.

I’m talking great aussie bands like the original AC/DC, chain, Spectrum, Brian Cadd, The Loved ones, Daddy Cool,  Blood Sweat & Tears, Creedance, Rolling stones, etc! I went from the modern radio stuff from the 90’s then blended across before anybody realised into Oz rock then went back in time, did blues, punk, grunge then threw in some Kevin Bloody Wilson, Rodney Rude and back into some classic 70’s heavy metal with Black Sabbath’s war pigs… a bit out there but it worked! Then Deep Purples “Lazy” from Japan, and a fair bit of Led Zeppelin mixed in. I got lots of comments about the music. I guess because we are all old farts now and grew up with a lot of this stuff.

Well it was my play list, and my pride and joy. So I could not go to bed before the last song! And that came at 2.30 am! I was the only one left sitting barely awake by the fire. Foot had crashed on the sofa beside the fire nearby, and everyone else was in bed. So I can again claim “Last man standing” status. But the next morning I was the last out of bed. And I was suffering… nausea, bum cramps, legs cramps, headache, oh… I was a mess. I could not even lift myself out of my chair as I sat and watched them all finish eating their breakfasts… even my hair hurt!

But I don’t care, we all had a great night and for sure I will do it again. Are you coming too next year??????