Sleepless Nights

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Grinderman. Also, how awesome has my week been? #936mofo

Backstory for what I’ve been doing this week.

From being deafened by the Red Rivals, to discovering Lincoln LeFevre, to spectacular classical composed piano playing from Phillip Glass, to rocking out with The Break and Grinderman, I think I’ve just had a week that can’t be beaten.

I haven’t researched any of the bands before I saw them, which meant that nearly every band has surprised me in some way. I wanted to go into every performance with an open mind, and I’ve managed that all right.

Mona Foma continues and last night was The Break and Grinderman.

It was. Well. I don’t think there are enough adjectives to describe how amazing it was.

The Break – Ex-Midnight Oil, minus Peter Garrett and plus Brian Ritchie was heaps beachier than I expected, but psychedelic surf music is what they do and the crowd wasn’t disappointed. They were brilliant and I’m fairly sure Brian Ritchie just brought yellow pants back into fashion.

Nick Cave with Grinderman was the headline event and you could feel it in the room as the start time got closer. I pushed my way to the front and somehow, eventually, ended up 2 rows from the front, albeit to the side rather a lot.

His stage presence is phenomenal, my GOD that man has some energy. He fed off the crowd and the crowd, in return, fed off him.

We haven’t seem much interaction with the crowd so far and really, it’s been the only thing missing. Nick Cave stood on the barriers, using the fans hands to steady himself. He leapt, he danced, he sung. It was, so so brilliant. Absolutely unmissable.

If you’re a fan of Cave and you get a chance to see Grinderman, DO IT. You won’t regret it for a moment.

I did have a small awkward moment during the encore performances, with a group of older middle aged women, stroking my hair and telling me how beautiful I was. Okay, they were very drunk, but still. Weird.

And my award for tweets that probably shouldn’t have been read aloud on the Radio goes to this one:

It was true though. No wonder the women were all screaming during the songs.

Or maybe it had something to do with the buttons Cave was undoing the hotter he got. Either either.

Big shout out to his roadies, who were complete professionals. A can of beer was thrown and Cave flicked it away with his hand, spilling beer everywhere. The roadies and their energy had it cleaned up before most people had realised what had gone on. The darted all around the stage, retrieving thrown microphones and percussion instruments. They also did a great job of dealing with the one very drunk guy who jumped on stage and played air guitar along with the band. He was allowed a minute or two and then whipped backstage and then back out into the crowd with a small shove.

It was an absolutely spectacular night, even if my hearing hasn’t quite recovered this morning.

January 20, 2011
MONA FOMA, with photos of @neilhimself and @amandapalmer

I spent the entire day yesterday down at MONA FOMA, listening to bands, helping collect money for the QLD Flood Relief and wandering around getting sunburned. The line-up for the evening was what I was most interested in, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentleman, then Neil Gaiman, then Amanda Palmer.

The moment the doors opened to let us into the main stage area, the atmosphere was electric.

Unfortunately, there was no seating available, so we had to suffer through, sitting on a thin mat on top of concrete. It wasn’t ideal and I have the bruises and sore hips to prove it.

Mikelangelo was excellent. Funny too – his voice is like melted honey and you just want to listen to him sing for hours. They were consummate performers and the crowd adored them.

Then there was, of course, Neil Gaiman and his cult following. I love his books and I was looking forward to this.

I’d bailed out of sitting on the floor and headed up to where frogpondsrock and my brother were sitting, up in the tiered seating, we had an excellent view of the stage and during Mikelangelo, excellent sound.

That wasn’t the case with Neil Gaiman. Something happened with the PA system and when he started to speak, we could hear barely anything and what we did catch sounded blurry. I caught every 3rd word, which is a shame, as hearing him read was what I was most looking forward to. I could hear the sound of Neil’s voice and it sounds like it would have been brilliant too.

Instead I took photos, enjoyed the atmosphere and wished that the seating and sound were better.

As Neil finished, the roadies started setting up for Amanda Palmer and the crowd flocked in. Because she was singing, we were hopeful that the sound would be better, and it was, a bit.

Can I just say, that Amanda Palmer is brilliant? Her voice, her stage presence, all brilliant. I adored what I got to see.

Digression: My body is broken. It doesn’t work as well as I’d like and I get to do fun things like dislocate joints, or spend hours throwing up for no reason. This makes things interesting and my body has crappy timing, generally.

I was enjoying the show, and taking photos at the same time, right up until the lady in front of me sprayed perfume and I had a minor body rebellion. I figured it wouldn’t be polite of me to throw up down her back, so I bailed out.

I spent the rest of the gig listening from the flood relief tables and chatting to the lovely Stephen and his wife Mary. I would have loved to have seen the rest, because like I said, she is brilliant. Absolutely fucking fantastic.

So, that is what I did last night. What have you been up to?

***

Oh and can I just shout out to Nathan – who is spending the days at home with the kids alone while I attend all these gigs and review them on twitter. Thankyou honey. I rather love you. xx

More photos over at Frogpondsrock

January 16, 2011
So excited, MONA FOMA and I’m going to be a very busy girl

A few weeks ago, I applied to 93.6 ABC Radio for a chance to be a micro-critic at the upcoming festival of art and music – MONA FOMA (Mueseum of Old and New Art, Festival of Music and Art).

I’d thought about it and figured that it wouldn’t hurt to apply, I was incredibly interested in a lot of what they were doing and already had plans to see Grinderman and Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer.

I got a phone call this morning – I was selected to be one of the micro-critics. I get free tickets to the ticketed events and to attend as much as possible of the free stuff and then tell everyone what I think on twitter.

You guys, I am so excited. I’ve got to head down and give an interview on the radio with the other micro-critics later this week, my tweets will be getting read out on the radio during the festival and it’s all just very cool.

There are some amazing people coming to Tassie for it and I can’t wait.

I’m going to be so busy for the week of the festival and I’m planning on dragging Frogpondsrock around to as much as possible (helps that she is my driver), while Nat stays home with the children.

I’m so excited that even falling on an electric fence, while standing in a puddle with wet shoes couldn’t make me grumpy. A perpetually breaking hose pipe didn’t bother me. Even scrubbing water troughs and baths filled with algae didn’t upset me (although, totally not my favourite job – can I run a competition to allow someone else to scrub the duck water out for me?).

Thankyou to ABC Radio for offering this chance too. I’m getting to work with some pretty cool people (I can’t name the other micro-critics until everyone has confirmed, but I have been cleared to say I’ve been chosen) that I like a lot.

And thanks even more to Stephen Estcourt, because without his gift of an iPhone, I wouldn’t have been able to apply!

Now ‘scuse me, I’m off to continue dancing around the house.

I’m staying well away from electric fences however.

January 10, 2011
Sunday Selections – everything is flowering!

The garden, despite the frost a few days ago, it doing rather well. The frost killed off the top leaves on a lot of my plants, but the plants haven’t died, thank God and they’re flowering now.

I’m crossing my fingers that everything goes well from here.

For more Sunday Selections, go and see Frogpondsrock

January 9, 2011
Birds falling from the sky?

I originally wrote this in August 2009, after Nathan and I witnessed the middle of a flock of birds falling out of the sky. In light of recent events with birds dropping dead in Arkansas, Louisiana and now Sweden, I thought I’d repost it.

***

A few days ago, our local newspaper ran a story on sparrows being found dead throughout Hobart, or disappearing entirely.

Nathan and I read it and remarked that there were entirely too many sparrows about in our parts and good riddance. We were talking about it again today as we were driving. We pointed out the huge flocks of sparrows (and starlings) sitting on the fences and power lines.

Then we saw the weirdest thing ever.

A group of sparrows flew towards the road. There were probably 50-60 birds? As they flew in a group, they banked over the Highway to turn around …

… and the middle just fell out of the group. Mid flight, twenty birds dropped to the ground dead. Nathan and I were stunned. It wasn’t the kind of thing we were expecting to see at all.

As we drove through the dead birds littering the Highway, I peered out of the window expecting to see one or two shaking out their feathers and hopping away, stunned, but not dead.

No.

They were dead.

Twenty or so birds, just fell out of the sky with no warning. All at once.

30 metres up the road, another six or seven birds were dead in a group on the road.

It was honestly the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen.

Ever.

***

Afterwards, the deaths were deemed to be caused by Salmonella poisoning, but I’m not convinced. Surely if it were Salmonella poisoning, they would have died on the ground, not on the wing and all at once?

January 6, 2011