Here's What Sahara Beck Got Up To Backstage At Bluesfest

 

Dancing on the tables in the VIP/artist area to the Blues Brothers who were playing on the stage right behind us. There was so many people out there and we were so drunk (from celebrating of course), we decided seeing as we could hear them so clearly and we were all gathered so well already where we were, we would have a boogie there… especially seeing as all the other artists had cleared out the artist area to go watch the Blues Brothers. We did a similar thing with Tom Jones where we couldn’t squeeze into the crowd due to all the people and there was already too many people backstage that only a few of us were allowed in, so I left the side of stage area and went down to the grass area behind the tent with my whole crew and band and we danced like mad men through his set.

 

 

On our way to Bluesfest, I can’t even describe with words the amount of exciting energy buzzing around in the car. On the way we stopped at a BP and we all bought ourselves two donuts each. Parmis became friends with these two cops because she got caught by another cop on the highway that morning speeding and tried to find out if we could schmoooooze our way out of a ticket. Her and those other two cops were probably the loudest people at that BP because they were just laughing and laughing about all the cops shows they liked and how to know if you’ve actually been caught with a hand held camera or not.

 

On our first night of Bluesfest just after we had finished the show, the band went back to our dressing room to get changed and collect all of our gear and equipment, meanwhile DJ and I are running around doing interviews with all these awesome blogs and radio stations. It was a real "Is this actually happening? I can’t believe how amazing this is!" day. We had to celebrate!

 

 

Here we all are hanging out, outside of the artist dressing rooms. It’s such a beautiful area, right next to this giant lake. I’ll never forget sitting back there on that bench surrounded by all of my favourite people. I had this sweet moment where everyone was talking to each other drinking our rider and just laughing and laughing and laughing and I thought to myself, "I can’t believe I’ve ended up with all of these, not only talented, but kind and HILARIOUS people who want to be a part of my journey and perform with me."

 

Here we are standing side of stage about 10 minutes before going on, DJ was still setting up his drums, I always feel so bad because as a guitarist and singer I don’t have half as much to set up as DJ has as a drummer. I also had Rohin helping me with the guitar tech side of things. I was going to wear this big blue hat on stage but during our line check, Tahlia (DJ's fiance and one of my best friends) pointed out there was a lot of red curtains behind me and I should remove the hat. It probably would have fallen off anyway seeing as I needed to put on and remove a different guitar after every song.

 

 

I don’t remember taking this photo but I am proud of it. This photo marks the moment that I finally got a duck face photo with everyone in the band.

 

 

Every time we have a show where my mum can’t make it I get everyone to gather around and take a photo in the spirit of Lollo. This one was back at the campsite, DJ had just bought back a couple of bottles of rose… if you don’t know DJ then you need to know that if you see him with a bottle of rose that means he is getting on the draaaank tonight and uhh, yeah we certainly all did that… IN THE SPIRIT OF LOLLO!

 

 

Here we are backstage just before going out to do our first Bluesfest show. I was so extremely nervous, but covering up those nerves with the excitement of the idea that I’ve wanted to be here since I was a little kid. To be able to not only cross that off my list of goals, but also to have all these guys around me doing it with me, was the best feeling ever. I refer to them as my "Po Boys" which is a type of sandwich in case you didn’t know. A delicious… delicious type of sandwich.

 

 

Here I am in the dressing room with Emma and Parmis. All of us applying our faces about an hour before we had to go set up on stage. At one point there was three of us all hovering around this full length mirror, I had the bottom third, Parmis in the middle and Tahlia on top. Gotta make use with what you’ve got.

 

 

This was just after DJ's pep talk just before our second show. We wait until we have 5 minutes 'til we have to go on stage and I grab DJ and say "IT'S TIME!" and I gather everyone up and we all get excited together. The speech usually ends with us singing one of Rupert's songs that he wrote when he was in a band when he was around my age, but for some reason this time we all naturally just started singing the hokey pokey… you know, whatever works.

 

 

Here we are in the van being driven by the Easter Bunny on our way to the first show at Bluesfest trying to contain our excitement, about the show but mainly about how cool the Easter Bunny was.

 

 

This was what I was doing just before both sets… well before every set we have. As it doesn’t take me as long to set up as it does the others, I sit backstage writing out a million set lists for everyone and then running around stage laying them in the best place for everyone.

 

Campsite drunken mischief. Me and Jeff trying to yell into each other's ears over the loud music on the stage right next to our tents.

 

 

This was at the merch tent straight after our second performance at Bluesfest. I remember rocking up and walking into the tent and thinking, "oh wow I’m on the artist side of the desk…" and looking out and seeing a super long line of people all look over each other's shoulders at me and smiling at me, the most surreal feeling. I had so much fun meeting them all and talking about all the music we had seen that weekend.