Bunbury Holidays

The first gig we played on this tour was in a placecalled Bunbury in a joint called The Prince of Wales, while the gig itself was as uneventful as the place I did have one interesting experience which might sum up the gig, Bunbury, and in fact most of Western Australia. On arrival and after eight hours of travel getting to this Mecca of sterility we stumbled in the back door of the hotel. Right in front of the stage sat 4 old people, all well into their eighties, all drinking beer from a pint glass all complaining loudly about the noise we might be about to make. I was immediately enamoured by this sight so I sat down with them and got chatting. We made some decent conversation despite the obvious inhibitors created by the hearing aids and my mumbling and I discovered that this group of 4 was once a group of 20 and had been travelling down to this pub from Perth by train every year to attend the Bunbury races (trots and normal horses). The absence of the other 16 members of the group was due to death which I was loudly informed by the only women who hadn’t as yet spoken, would happen to me sometime so I had better get used to it (I presume she was talking about old age preceding death but it doesn’t matter). I wished them all the best, told them not to loose to much money and headed off to my room. Strange place to come for a holiday I thought, this was no pleasant English country pub rather a dank smelling beer drenched pub, the walls covered in posters of other touring bands, the flat screen TVs adorning the walls blaring out video hits and announcements of the weekly bingo games or dog racing and where I believe one of the owners of the sound system is currently doing some time because of an untimely death to one of his ex mates. Oh well I though, maybe it was different 40 years ago.

The next morning I got up, showered the headach out of my head, and not daring to sample the breakfast on offer I decided to go for a walk. I had to pass through the hotel and here were the 4 elderly people sitting around the same table with beers in hand and empty glasses on the table in front of them. “Are you heading off to the races?” I asked after some cordial small talk.
“No Why would we do that,” they answered, “we’ve never been. We’ve got all we want here, beer, there’s no crowd (there was defiantly none of that) and the race is on the TV all day.

“Fantastic” I thought, what a great 40 year annual holiday you can have in this part of the world.