Up early to watch the Hawks game against the Gold Coast Suns. Given the unexpected defeat of Geelong yesterday, this game assumed extra importance, since a win would see the Hawks go to the top of the table, pending the result of the Sydney-Bulldogs game next week in the last of the split round games. After their customary slow start, they got their game together after quarter time to record a comfortable 86-60 win and sit at the top of the table. The strangest thing about the game was the special jumpers worn by the Hawks to recognise their support of the Tasmanian Cancer Council - fairly appropriate given Jarryd Roughhead’s ongoing battle with cancer, but strange nonetheless to be wearing brown&pink rather than brown&gold (still better than some of their truly awful away jumpers!).

In the afternoon, I got on with removing the paint from the front gates, while Rita and Jackie got stuck into the planting of the front garden. In the late afternoon, we headed up town for the last of the concerts in the Festival des Voix. The first concert by Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Lunch on the Grass) was a six-piece accordion band. They started really slowly and seemed to have no energy (maybe too many lunches on the grass, if you know what I mean), so while Rita went up front, Jackie and I sat down the back and had a quiet drink. But after a while they livened up, and soon had the crowd dancing in circles. They ended up playing AC-DC’s “Highway to Hell”, which was a big change from how they started. And then they finished by going really slow again, and ended up posed like statues. A most unusual performance.

While the accordians were playing, I noticed that the main stage was being set up behind us for what looked like a 20-piece band (judging from all the instruments on stage). But when Les Ogres de Barback et le Bal Brotto Lopez took the stage for the concert finale, there were only six musicians. But as we were to soon find out, they each played a variety of instruments, and were good on all of them. They must have played a lot of popular songs, because the crowd knew many of the words and sang along vociferously. I tried to sing along too, but got some very quizzical looks from the French people around me.

The organisers of Festival des Voix always try to finish with a big band that plays popular and traditional French songs which can get the audience dancing and singing, and they succeeded again this year. Some of their performances had a touch of the Melbourne Ska Orchestra about them. A great way to finish the Festival.

A great innovation this year has been the advent of Moissac TV, a website and Facebook page that features videos and other features about Moissac. During the Festival des Voix, they ran interviews with all the artists featuring on that day’s program. So you could learn a bit about the artists as well as go and watch their performance. I look forward to seeing what else Moissac TV has in store for us this year.

When we got home after the concerts, I found out that two Australian bike riders had won their first Grand Prix events this weekend. Last night, Jason Doyle won the Czech Speedway Grand Prix and today Jack Miller won the Dutch MotoGP, The MotoGP was a rain affected event, with many riders falling in the wet and slippery conditions. But Jack Miller is a good wet weather rider, and with rider skill and not bike performance being the main criteria, he kept his cool to take the lead 6 laps from the finish (shown below going under Marc Marquez) and held on for his first ever GP win.