Sweetwaters Music Festival

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Far off the beaten track and trail
        on quest for music’s Holy Grail
led pilgrims on biblical scale 
         more than can be counted.
With midsummer sun on our cheek
in tents to shelter we did seek
and pitched them at its highest peak
                 on a hilltop mounted

As we climbed the lean of the hill
my beer I would try not to spill
and sat with the great unwashed till
                           olé and adios.
It was I, El Skeet, amigo,
           in my poncho and sombrero 
half-cut like a loco gringo
        who waved “vaya con dios!”

We lit yet another hash bong
 all up in smoke like Cheech & Chong
and passed it to each one along
                 under the cop radars.
Till late as wasted brain cells flag
 with every mind trip headfu-ck drag 
I tucked in to my sleeping bag
         on the hill ‘neath the stars

As music and mayhem did rage
back in next summer’s youthful age
we camped closer to the big stage
                  by a shallow hollow.
I’d sit and watch the crowds go by
      in the hot sun and dust and dry 
under a big Waikato sky
       from our camp on tent row

And as I ripped in with the guys
          to our grog trailer of supplies
we made a hanging chain of ties
             with every pull tab rent.
Waiting for Cold Chisel that night
      with a superdoob glowing bright
I was fuc-kin’ high as a kite
      and lurched back to my tent

The next day I woke in a daze
and walked off my drunken malaise
when I heard singing songs of praise
         in some weird sh-it I saw.
Tambourine hippies, punks and geeks
and chanting Hari Krishna freaks
  burnt incense in clay painted cheeks
          so I got high some more

Yet in a hot wet and wild hour
            stoned in the unisex shower
I gazed many a sweet flower
          in their naked splendour.
We bathed too in waters that flowed
down where the lazy river bowed
lest my head spontaneous explode
          on my three day bender

That night by the stars we were led
as above a smoky sky bled
when out The Enz rocked “I See Red”
          and fired a burning flare.
In the spirit of Sweetwaters
     we lived among at close quarters
sons of Bacchus and his daughters
            and I so revelled there


    Written: November 2009


Sweetwaters was an annual three
 day music festival back in 1980s.

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