Dispatches from the Fury Road: Ingham

Driving from Innisfail to Ingham today stirred a range of emotions.

Staring out the window, I noticed more closing down signs peppering the empty streets. Rusty radars in overgrown backyards search for signals overhead, surrounded by car tyres replacing missing section’s of a collapsing fence. A young boy crossed the road on an old BMX bike, the stickers long faded, no helmet needed out here.

We drove between the sugar cane and banana fields down the sweet serotonin highway on this overcast day, with rain falling suddenly but also finishing as abruptly as it began. I zoned out watching fat drops exploding across the window screen. The edge of the mountain tops cut a sharp division between the earth and the sky. The bloated clouds appeared to be painted flat on the blue canvas of our destination. All we had to do was drive through the grey, and we’d be okay.

This is a hungry tour for the vegetarians. Every menu is a list of carnage and slaughter. Thank goodness for pumpkin. Salad. Patties. Fries. Is there anything pumpkin can’t do? If you don’t like meat, your options are orange. I find all of this entertaining, although my diet is struggling and at this age, it only takes a few days before my body shape begins to morph into Norm from the old “Life Be In It” adverts.

Tonight’s gig had some big laughers. There was one woman in particular in the audience that I could pinpoint throughout everyone’s set, and for me she was the MVP. She set the tone. She gave everyone permission to laugh. At one point during one of my routines, I had to stop for a moment so I could enjoy her, out there in the dark, laughing her arse off. I hope she found it at the end of the night. She was hidden somewhere in the dark so I never saw her face, but I thought she was just great.

It feels good to be back here, on the road, telling jokes. There was a point where I convinced myself that I didn’t enjoy travelling for gigs. This was probably a self defence mechanism to help me cope through the Covid lockdowns. I convinced myself of a lot of things back then.

Out here there’s nothing to overthink. You have one job, and that is to do your best to give everyone a good time. Away from the politics of the big cities, you can embrace the romanticism of travelling from place to place, some jokes in your pocket, and an audience who wants to hear them. It is a relief to feel comfortable in my own skin, to be able to declare without any caveats that I love this job. Probably more than I have in a long time. Sitting here in my room writing this for you, I feel lucky to be able to say that I once visited Ingham and had a fantastic time.

And how grateful I am for the versatility of pumpkin.

Justin Hamilton

Ingham

30th of April, 2024