The Tweed Coast’s own Round Mountain Girls are packing up their instruments and heading south for the summer – well just for a few days.
The Round Mountain Girls, our own all-male blue grass band, will make their annual pilgrimage to the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
The “Girls” head down for four days and will do eight performances at various Hotels and Clubs all over Tamworth.
“This is our fourth visit,” the band’s Chris Brooker said.
“Our first visit in 2009 was a bit of a sighter. We played a few gigs to see if audiences were responsive to us. We went down really well and the following year we were headhunted by the Diggers club for 10 performances.
“The crowds are definitely getting bigger. Our first show at the Albert Hotel last year was amazing.
“They have this huge ‘back-bar’ with a big stage and we knew we had struck a chord with country fans because we had a line up at our merch desk 10 deep before we even played a note! That was really encouraging.
“There must’ve been 550-600 people there dancing, sweating and just having fun. Tamworth is a hot place, but without the humidity of up here. It is a great place to have a beer and catch some music.
“We’ve seen and met some awesome musicians in Tamworth too. I really like seeing the unknown bands at the pubs and listening to their style of country. We will be documenting our Tamworth trip on Facebook.”
Leading up to the trip the “Girls” have been practising in a shed on the Tweed Coast.
“It is a secret location on Round Mountain!” Chris laughed.
“It is after all our spiritual home! We are in the process of organising new cover versions and writing original songs. For info about our EP launch check our website www.roundmountaingirls.com.”
He said the band were really excited about making this year’s trip south, enjoying all the fun of festivals.
“We performed at Gympie Muster in 2011,” he said.
“We had the best time there and it was really wet and muddy. The crowd up there are there to party. We did two shows and it went really well for us. Most people hadn’t heard of us but got the chance to see RMG at Gympie and this is what it is all about for us – travelling and spreading RMG’s music. From Gympie we met new fans and organisers from other big festivals. Gympie is different to Tamworth in that Tamworth is focused around the pubs and clubs, Gympie is a festival.
“Both are good and have a completely different feel. We also performed at the inaugural Ballina Coastal Country Music Festival, which has a similar type of set-up as Tamworth. It was a great first festival and organisers were really happy with the event. 2012 Ballina CMF will be even bigger.”
And so what will 2012 bring for the RMG?
“RMG are releasing a four track EP of their most requested cover songs,” he said.
“It’s called “Cover Girls”. It features a disturbing picture of RMG in bikinis! We recorded it over four days in November at Rocking Horse Studios in Coorabel with engineer Anthony Lycenko. It has come up very well and has captured the ‘fun’ of our live performances. We will launch it at the end of February/March at a local venue to be announced. We are also in the middle of writing and road-testing new material for our third album.
“We have some big festivals in the pipeline and we are looking forward to announcing them when we can.”
The year could also bring award or two to the “Girls” with the band and their fiddler Rabbit Robinson nominated for “Best Band Featuring a Fiddler” at the 2012 Golden Fiddle Awards. They have also been asked to perform at the awards ceremony.
