Greeking the blues

Megan and I head a band striking up at the taverna opposite our docking place in Kevala. We wandered over, and found a passable blues band in full swing. They were advertising a blues festival that was to take place on Friday and Saturday. Megan and I, staunch blues fans, thought we'd attend.

Main stage before the festival began.

Beach resort was the festival site

We sorted out the buses, and caught a ride out to a very fancy beach club at Batis Beach, the site of the Bikes and Blues Festival. Now, this was a very slick event. The promoter had the use of a very exclusive beach resort just for the festival. Entry cost the enormous amount of one Euro  (about $1.50 for Australian readers). All proceeds of the event were going to charity. The event was very well promoted, with signs and advertising posters everywhere. It had to be the cheapest and best deal in music festivals. 2 full 14 hour days of music with over 50 musicians. 

View of the beach

Great location for a festival

There were bars, cafe's and restaurants on site. Beautiful sandy beach with sun beds and shade umbrella's. Really great bands playing authentic and excellent blues and roots music.

First band to play, 3 hour set.

Blues fusion trio, the Trio Muthafckers

There were great exhibits of bikes and classic cars. There were stalls selling t-shirts, and handmade goods.

Beautiful old BMW, fully restored

A modern Triumph

Triumph racing bike.

Really loved this vintage BMW

There was only one problem in this whole fantastic scenario. No one came! We were the only audience. There was about 6 sound guys, about 20 or so 'backstage people' and lots of other ancillary staff. But Megan and I were the only audience. We told the organiser that we felt honoured that they'd held the festival just for our benefit, but then, we did travel all the way from Australia for the event!

Completely empty venue

Unusual ring around the sun

There was even an unusual astronomical event to portent the festival. We felt very guilty when we left in the early afternoon, after hearing two bands, swimming and having the whole premises to ourselves. After all, those bands were playing through to 1.00am in the morning. Maybe the Greeks (particularly the poor organiser) just had to get a real case of the blues!