Well, what can I say. Port Fairy was great! I know because I still have a large ball of Kilkenny stuck behind my right eye.

I can recommend this festival to anyone who has not yet been. There was an abundance of great Australian talent and plenty of quality Aussie instruments on display. There also appeared to be a great sense of community at this event. I believe it is this type of gathering which helps raise the spirits of everyone in the face of predicted storms which may well be heading our way with the dreaded GCC.

As you could well imagine, Maton was well represented with many of our guitars, and staff, on display. Might I just add that by a certain time of each night, thankfully it was our instruments doing the talking and not the latter.

We had players on show like Nick Charles, Josh Owen Band (a must see), Mark Seymour, The Waifs, Tripod, The S.W.L.G and many more. Leroy Lee won the Maton best young talent award and he is an awesome talent! Check him out at www.myspace.com/leroyleemusic.

Pat Evans kicked off the Maton Guitar Concert with a fantastic speech . Nick Charles took over as MC and together with guys like Preston Reed, Doug Macleod and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt proceeded to delight the thousands in attendance with incredible guitar playing. This was one and three quarter hours of guitar mastery at its best.

All in all, it was three days of fun and music. Everyone was well in the spirit of things and we had a great time. It just goes to show that no matter how bad things can get, people always want to be entertained. I guess that is something to remember when selling guitars!

Michael Foley