Susanna Freymark
Kerrie Gambley stood on the stage at Tunglebung Hall.
She leaned into her double bass.
“I last played on this stage 38 years ago,” Kerrie said.
It was standing room only at the hall. The crowd had come to see the Haystack Mountain Hermits and for Kerrie it was a home crowd on Saturday, September 2.
Her parents Lyn and Kevin Gambley sat with proud smiles at the merch table next to the stage.
They still live at the cattle farm at Old Bonalbo where Kerrie grew up. The views across to Haystack Mountain became the band name for Kerrie, her husband Dave and their four children Ella, Lachlan, Jackson and Marcus.
On stage, the family band exudes warmth. They joke, play and sometimes there’s a “barny”, Kerrie said.
But what the audience sees on stage, is pretty much how the family is, Kerrie said.
They helped me get through breast cancer, she said.
The concert was funded by a Resilience Recovery grant.
I take every opportunity to get back here to play, Kerrie said.
The band played Dire Straits and Beatles hits as well as original songs.
One of those songs is The Horses Stay Behind (One Last Ride) released before Anzac Day this year.
“My great grandfather was a Light Horse Man,” Kerrie said.
She wrote the song before covid and applied for a grant to record the song and make a film clip with support from the Australian Light Horse Association.
“It’s a snippet of my family story,” Kerrie said.
“But it’s an Australian story and profits go to the RSL.”
The Haystack Mountain Hermits live in Queensland are finalists in two Australian Folk Music Awards.
Go to their website to find out more.
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