The story of Yentl As Anything (& our last performance)

For me, the story of Yentl As Anything starts in late 2019. After residing in Melbourne for about five months, I wanted to stay longer in Australia. Adding an extra year to my working holiday visa meant I had to do 88 rural workdays. Still living in Melbourne at that time, I went searching for a unique, though beautiful place with a steady job to collect those 88 days. There are many bad stories of backpackers getting exploited by rural farms, so I did my quest very carefully. My eyes fell on King Island. A small picturesque island in the middle of the Bass Strait looking for people to make cheese in the all-time famous King Island Dairy factory. Additionally, it had a good reputation as most previous backpackers loved their time on the island. I applied, got accepted and left Melbourne only two days later. 

Parenna Place Studio and King Island.

Living together on an island in the middle of the Bass Strait, King Islanders consist of a super friendly but talkative community. It all started with a phone call from Wade Roskam, the owner of Parenna Place Studio and King Island Radio. By the time I spent two days on the island, the word was out that a musician from Belgium had arrived. Wade called, picked me up and gave me a tour in the Parenna Place Studio, the beating heart of the music scene on the island. I realised at that point that the island had plenty of possibilities for musicians. However, since I was only going to stay for a maximum of four months, it wasn’t very realistic to make big things happen. 

On the other hand, Wade made sure I was busy. I played a gig with the local band Rusty Falcon and became a member and teacher of The Lanky’s. Moreover, I played in the King Island Christmas ensemble and jumped on stage a couple of times with Cole Smith. I bumped into Jess Boyes at one of those gigs, an unknown person to me. She told me that she wanted to start a band. Thinking that I only would stay a couple of months more, I got away with, “yeah, we should do a jam one day”. 

The early days. 

I wandered around the Christmas street market when suddenly a person walked towards me, asking me, “are you that drummer from Belgium?” I didn’t know at that time this was Tommy, one of the leading music characters on the island. He said; we should have a play together and gave me his phone number. As I didn’t know his name, he ended up on my phone as Someone on King Island. Now, more than two years and plenty of adventures later, he still holds that name proudly in my contacts.

The first time we played together was around the same time we first heard of the impending Covid-19 pandemic. However, at that point, there weren’t any restrictions yet. I remember saying that unless covid would get out of hand, I would still be leaving the island. But, we did take our chances. We started a quest for people to play with and for songs that would fit the idea of a new King Island Band. Running into Jess earlier, we asked her to come and sing. Tommy also knew someone who would be interested, and that’s how Leon ‘Jack’ Barnes became our male vocalist. Later we added Michael Waythe, a school teacher, as a rhythmical guitarist. And, since I decided that I wanted to play the guitar after a lifetime of playing the drums in Belgium, Daniel Baer became our drummer. 

The story and the start of Yentl As Anything.

Having the band’s first members together and some songs that we all agreed on, we started to rehearse. First at Tommy’s little home studio and later at Wade’s Parenna Studio Place. The first months were pretty hard; we rehearsed on and off, following the guidelines from Tasmania. Covid-19 eventually did have a more significant impact than anticipated, and I decided to stay for an undisclosed amount of time on the island. On the way, we sadly had to let go of our Rhythmical guitarist, Michael. He was a teacher at the local school, and it was pretty hard for him to combine the band, schoolwork, and last-minute cancellations due to Covid. But despite that, we kept meeting up with the other band members and even got our first setlist together.

It wasn’t until August that we played our debut concert in the Currie Club. Our debut concert wasn’t even close to the performances our band would play later. Dancing wasn’t allowed, and everybody had to stay seated. It was a pretty depressing sight, but seeing everybody moving on their chairs gave us the energy to continue. Besides, since my second year in Australia had started and covid was still around, I decided to keep working. That way, I could add a third year to my adventures and allow the band to keep playing until February. 

Yentl As Anything became a four-piece band.

Tasmania had a gathering limit of four people, and with a five-piece band, we got stuck. It took us multiple weeks before we started to play again. Impatiently, we decided first to put a setlist with Jess together and later one with Leon. Unfortunately, the limit was still there weeks later, and Leon had decided to start his solo project. With Karaoke Jack, he had a little more freedom and didn’t have to wait for the band to catch up. Karaoke Jack now plays at the Brewhouse intermittently, so check him out when you get a chance! Yentl As Anything became the strong four-piece band it is today, and from there, things went off. 

We took a couple of months to ourselves to practise an entirely new playlist and to play it better and more robust than on our first gig in August. On the way, we invited people to our rehearsals for the needed input. We even did a virtual gig in cooperation with King Island Radio to get feedback from overseas listeners. From there, things went quickly. With barely any covid restrictions, the Harbour Bash festival and our Boxing day gig went crazy. These gigs were precisely everything that we ever wanted with Yentl As Anything. 

The story of the first ending of Yentl As Anything.

The story of Yentl As Anything was about to end. Things went quickly, and so did time. There were only a couple of weeks between our two ‘ more robust than ever gigs’ and me leaving the island. We added the Australia Day concert in Naracoopa and our final performance in the King Island Pub to the program, and that was it. The end of Yentl As Anything or at least the first end. 

Our final performance in the King Island Pub didn’t go well. We had a big crowd, but the pub was scared about breaching the covid rules. Everyone that came out wasn’t allowed to dance, or the gig would have to stop. We had put plenty of energy into the band, and this couldn’t be our last gig. For us, it was going back to August. We laid the first foundation for doing a Yentl As Anything reunion on that night. A couple of months later, between my travels in Tasmania and my travels in Victoria, I flew back to King Island for an open rehearsal and our final gig. However, on that same night, the King Island Club offered to fly me in just before heading to New Zealand and play what really would be our last gig at the end of June. 

The story of the second ending of Yentl As Anything.

As the ongoing pandemic impacted most people’s travels and daily plans, so did it with mine. With New Zealand closing its borders for the second time, I stayed in Australia. I got stuck in Melbourne and started my third year with one of the biggest things on my bucket list; spending more time on K’gari or Fraser Island. I even lived for two months on the world’s biggest sand island. But not going to New Zealand also meant I had to rearrange all my plans, so I ended up again on King Island. It was a well-considered choice and allowed the band to play for an additional six months. 

We started to play again, made a new playlist, and kicked off with the 60s and 70s night. That night might even be one of the biggest nights we ever played. The atmosphere and amount of people that came to see us were just fantastic. The Phoenix Community Festival followed, and Yentl As Anything was on track again. Our next gig would have been the New Year’s Eve party, but unfortunately, we had to cancel this due to covid cases on the island. Even worse, our beloved King Island Festival (FOKI) also got cancelled. As a last resort, we played another gig about a month ago to make sure we would all play together for one last time. However, looking back at the previous two years, it is hard to say that we will never play again. There is still a chance of more Yentl As Anything to follow. 

Yentl As Anything’s last performance – Pictures and Playlist. 

As I said in the Yentl As Anything interview post, I am more than happy to share the pictures and playlist of our last gig. It was a great night, and we couldn’t have been happier to have had that chance of an additional six months to play together. It was everything that our friendship needed, and we closed off with one of the strongest setlists we have ever played. 

Furthermore, I want to thank everybody that came out to one of the Yentl As Anything gigs or was involved in them. None of the Yentl As Anything story would have been possible without them. Also, a big shoutout to Wade Roskam. For introducing me to the island music scene, making the sound for all our gigs and his eternal positivism. Last but not least, thank you to all members of Yentl As Anything for giving me a better experience on the other side of the world than I could have ever dreamed. Finally, Michael Laskey, friend and colleague at King Island Dairy, for making sure these memories will live on forever in his photography work. 

There are multiple ways to keep up-to-date with future posts and maybe another Yentl As Anything story follow-up. Besides checking this website regularly, there is the monthly newsletter to subscribe to or the Facebook and Instagram pages to follow. 

Our last playlist

Set 1

• Dani California – Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Son Of A Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield
• Valerie – Amy Winehouse
• Eagle Rock – Daddy Cool
• Grease Medley – Grease
• Another Brick In The Wall – Pink Floyd
• Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Like A Stone – Audioslave
• Proud Mary – Creedence Clearwater Revival
• American Idiot – Green Day
• Don’t You Want Somebody To Love – Jefferson Airplane
• Hotel California – The Eagles
• Paradise City – Guns N’ Roses

Set 2

• Durango 95 – The Ramones
• Black Hole – Be Your Own Pet
• Moving To NY – The Wombats
• I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor – Arctic Monkeys
• Prisoner Of Society – The Living End
• Basket Case – Green Day
• Tomorrow – Silverchair
• I Love It – Icona Pop
• Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
• Just Ace – Grinspoon
• I Hate Everything About You – Three Days Grace
• Joker And The Thief – Wolfmother
• Last Resort – Papa Roach
• Killing In The Name – Rage Against The Machine

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