Last weekend we did a bit of a 'gig' for some friends who were holding a 'tribal dance' weekend workshop. To help cover the cost of bringing the American dance teacher to Oz they organised a private evening of dance, food and a 'volunteer band' thrown together with several local musos. Of course Robin was the one in demand really, but I did a few songs with him. When they first mentioned tribal dance I immediately thought of something like the first image. But instead, it was really just belly dance from what I could see.
So many women in one place makes me a bit uncomfortable. I am not really one for the female bonding experience. There were about 50 women of all sizes and ages, the slim and gorgeous, several older women and a hell of a lot of very buxom girls. Of course in this type of dance the more you have to shake the better, and I have to admit, I enjoyed watching all that flesh more than the slimmer dancers.They were very supportive of each other which is usually the case with these things (I have attended 'find your inner Amazon' workshops myself) And the costumes were fantastic, so many layers of rich fabric, loads of ornamental jewellery and even false coloured dreadlock hairpieces. There were women down from Bunbury and somewhere else and I think they really enjoyed themselves.
In the end we provided the sound equipment because plans changed at the last minute so we had the added drama of stacking the car with speakers and microphone stands for the 15km drive out to Karri View winery. The acoustics were excellent, though with a drummer, 2 guitarists, lead singer and backup the space was a bit small for the dancers. I wasn't in the main 'band'. They sounded brilliant on most of the songs, there had been no rehearsal but they were all pros so pulled it off.
I was very rusty on my bass and therefore average, but was very excited about nailing a couple of songs. It is an uplifting experience when you have the audience singing along loudly with you. Being a mob of women watching another one do their thing I guess they were also being supportive of me.
