THE 2003

JACK BRUCE CONGRESS

Marc Wickert, author, and host of the 'Knucklepit' website, organised the 2003 Jack Bruce Congress at the Gold Coast in Queensland. It was the first such event, designed to allow Australian fans of Jack's music the chance to meet each other after communicating by email for so long. Dennis Lawrenson, host of the Cuicoland Express website and I decided to form a pick up band for the weekend. After one practice in about May, at which we annoyed the caretaker of the Old Bar Caravan Park, Den and I headed up together to perform at the 'Crazy Bull' Mexican Restaurant at Tugun.

A problem was encountered when on the Thursday night I was run over by a van, causing some significant pain to the chest and ribs. Undaunted we travelled to Kirra Beach where neither Den nor I could remember the name of the place we had booked into. Eventually found it and the next day we met Marc and his niece Yasmin (hope I spelt that correctly). We had a bit of a practice in the restaurant that afternoon which didn't augur well. My ribs were playing up and I was having difficulty breathing, which made reaching high notes very inconvenient.

The night started with my playing solo for a bracket doing some quieter stuff on the keyboard so as not to offend the other restaurant patrons. It obviously didn't work because within 15 minutes of my completing the bracket all patrons bar the Congress members had departed, leaving the place to us.

Den and I then did a bracket of Jack Bruce and Cream material including Badge, Strangebrew, Born Under a Bad Sign, Sitting on Top of the World, Crossroads, 52nd Street, Theme From An Imaginary Western, Sunshine of Your Love and White Room.

The congress members were a great audience as were our hosts for the night, Leah and Graham Eadie. Residents of NSW and Qld will of course remember Graham as 'Wombat' the star Manly and Australian Rugby League full back.  He and Leah were fantastic hosts, urging us to keep playing and so Den proved his adaptability by playing along with songs we'd never rehearsed.  We went till about midnight. Graham and Leah let us come back the next day to pack up. Thanks to Graham and Marc for their assistance with the packing and for looking after an invalid muso.

Here are some shots taken by Yasmine on the night.

If you click the following links you can also see a couple of video clips of some of the tracks that we played on the night, including BADGE, BLACK MAGIC WOMAN, BREAKDOWN, FEELIN' ALLRIGHT, CROSSROADS, WALKING and 52nd STREET

Den really had a ball. It seemed as though he had 'St Vitus Dance' and couldn't stay in the one place.

That's Marc's bonce you can see the back of at the bottom of the shot.

By this time Den was getting his rocks off, and the Congress members were leaving a significant number of empty bottles in their wake. I was chastised by Graham Eadie the next day when a bottle of beer only partially drunk was discovered in the vicinity of where I had been playing.