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Aunty turns 75

This year the ABC turns 75 and what better way than a party at the riverstage with a sway of ABC personalities and entertainment for the kids (Bananas in Pajamas, Fireman Sam etc) and music and comedy for the big kids (The Boat People, Troy Cassar-Daly, Craig Reucassel from The Chaser, Scared Wierd Little Guys, Aunty Jack and Thin Arthur and The Great Debate).

I have mentioned before how much a large part of my life the the ABC has been both the radio, tv and now the internet. That is why there would be nothing holding me back from going along for the show. Was a really great day and a perfect 3rd concert for my 4 concerts in 4 days weekend.

First up on show were local lads The Boat People. I remember hearing a lot of these fellas back in the end of Highschool/early Uni when I was listening to 4ZZZ a fair bit. Since then I don’t think I have consciously listened to them. This meant that I was blown away quite nicely on Sunday arvo.
The Boat People - Keys 2 The Boat People - Guitar 2 The Boat People - Guitar 1 The Boat People - Bass 2 The Boat People The Boat People - Bass 1 Robin Waters, The Boat People Robin of the The Boat People The Boat People - Natalie watching

Scared Weird Little Guys
I have only been exposed to the Scaredies once before and that was on Music Tour in year 12 when Ms Jabs played the Macadamia EP on the bus and we were all curled up our seats doing the actions. It was a funny event. With their matching suits, mis-matching heights and some rather topical lyrics they proved a hit with all members of the audience. At one stage they were siniging three songs between them (Summer Nights, Louie Louie and X) whilst the crowd sung Wild Thing (all four songs have the same basic chords in them)

Scared Weird Little Guys John from the Scared Weird Little Guys Rusty from the Scared Weird Little Guys

Aunty Jack and Thin Arthur
I have heard a lot about The Aunty Jack show over the years but this was my first exposure and they were pretty funny.

Thin Arthur 1 Thin Arthur 2 Aunty Jack 4 Aunty Jack

Craig Reucassel from The Chaser
Of The Chaser guys, Chas takes out first place for my favourite and Craig is a close second. Having him up to muse out the next 75 years of the ABC/Australia and what is happening currently was rather funny. His prediction is that in 75 years time John Howard will still be PM and Maxine McKew will be opposition leader (which thinking about now is rather flawed sine Maxine is running against Howard for the seat of Bennelong). To finish off his segment he picked out people in the audience with Andrew Hansen hair, the crowd then voted for the person who had the most Andrew Hansesn like hair (read weird) and they had to sing a closing song for the segment. The girl who won though by her own admission had a few drinks under the belt and really should have thought more I thought about what words she lets out her mouth at such a day. Moving right along…

Craig Reucassel Craig 2 Craig and the Andrews

The Great Debate.
This was quite an event and a lot of fun. The question of the debate was “Are interviews more important than music?” in regards to radio. Heading the affirmative team was 612 ABC’s drive presenter Kelly Higgins-Devine with John from the Scaredies and Craig Reucassel from The Chaser. Heading the negative team was AM presenter Tony Eeastly with Rosie Beaton from Triple J/jTV and Rusty from the Scaredies. It was really amusing to listen and watch and at the end of the day the crowd decided that interviews were more important than music.

The Great Debate - loosers The Great Debate - Tony The Great Debate - winners The Great Debate - Craig 2 The Great Debate - John The Great Debate - rosie 2 The Great Debate - KHD The Great Debate - music The Great Debate - Rosie The Great Debate - Rosie and co The Great Debate The Great Debate - Craig The Great Debate - Kelly Higgins Devine The Great Debate - Tony Eastly

Troy Cassar-Daly
Troy is a bit of a legend in the Australian country music scene, everyone knows who he is and it was great to see him live for the first time. He really got the crowd going with lots of participation which was really good.

Troy - Bass Troy Cassar-DAly troy - keys Troy - Drummer Troy and band

ABC Personalities.
These are just the ones that I grabbed photos of, there would have been scores more round the place.
Richard Fiedler, Peter Cundall, Madonna King, Andrew Lofthouse, Jenny Woodward, Steve Austin, Rosie Beaton, Peter Thompson.
Peter Cundall Maddona King Richard Fiedler Rosie and Peter Thompson Jenny Woodward Tony Eastly and Madonna King Steve Austin Andrew Lofthouse

Blue King Brown closed the show and they very much deserve their own post which will come in the next day or two.

You may prefer to view a slideshow of the photos which is available below or here.

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remember that time

Regina Spektor kicked off her tour down under tonight with an all ages show at The Tivoli in Brisbane. Whilst there were some things that were not right (it took 1.5hrs after the doors opened for the support act Only Son to come on – the crowd was getting hot, angry and tired), overall Regina delighted the crowd with rip-roaring vocals and funny tales involving koalas, kangaroos and concerns about her electric blue underwear.

Met some really nice people who I expect to see at some more gigs round the place and also metsmelt some smelly people. There was no kooky dancing from Regina though 🙁 as she done some sort of damage to her leg/hip. She does however have a very cool cane. Only Son was pretty cool and his story telling at the end of his set was a really nice set and something I would like to see more of.

Regina at The Tivoli

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Do you know the way to San Jose Brisbane

On Friday night I went to see Burt Bacharach and The Queensland Orchestra. From the first notes played to the last song of the encore I had a grin on my face like you just wouldn’t believe. I was chatting to some people waiting at the traffic lights outside the
Convention Centre waiting to cross who remarked that wasn’t I bit young to be at a Burt Bacharach concert. I replied that “who wouldn’t love Burt?”. As a pianist and composer he has a remarkable career and many of the songs that he wrote are entrenched in pop culture. I personally own two of his LPs which I quite enjoy.

The format of the 100min show was mainly the playing of medleys as well as a few full length songs. Whilst I knew most of the “old songs” and soundtrack tunes they played, it was quite interesting to hear three of the songs off his newest album At This Time (2005) which was the first time he had written lyrics as well as the music. This of course meant that he was singing as well as playing piano/keys which was very impressive.

Burt and the QO
Burt 2

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Babylon Burning

My Mountain Goats love is well known and they are probably the band that I promote the most to my friends and randoms in the street. The Mountain Goats are my 24hr a day band, a song for every mood.

I was reading Aquarium Drunkard the other day and saw this post – Under the Covers – Babylon Burning, my heart started to thump faster as I read the post and then when I clicked on the links and listened to the music, I had chills running down my back like I have never had before from a song and it was not just from the title track but the other 3 songs from the session as well. Talk about raw JD!

These four songs were recorded in a Daytrotter session at SWSX and the description of the session just makes me smile.

He performed most of the set sitting cross-legged on the cement floor of the Big Orange studio. Daytrotter

It is very well worth heading over to Daytrotter to read JD’s track notes as well as get/listen to the other three songs and to look at the super cute artwork of JD

Here is Babylon Burning, originally by Peter Tosh(he died on my 2nd birthday). I have had this song running through my head non-stop for the last 24hrs.
[audio:The Mountain Goats – Babylon Burning.mp3]

Note – this is an automated posting. Helen is out bush until July 2ish.

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damm my brother

Now, my brother currently lives in Iceland (actually four of my five brothers live in Iceland but I am referring to the first born son of my mother), the brother who has probably shaped my musical tastes more than anyone else. My brother gets to go and see all those cool Icelandic bands that I only get to listen to on myspace or on the CDs I get sent for Christmas.

What trigged this post you ask?
Karl, the aforementioned brother has just posted his photos and write up from the music festival that he went to over the Easter weekend. We both spent the Easter long weekend at music festivals which were on opposite ends of the festival spectrum. I went to the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival, Karl went to Aldrei fór ég suðuror I never went South. A music festival in Ísafjörður, which is the town where Karl was born and the largest town in the Westfjords with a population of about 2750. The festival is 110% free, the bands play for free, the events are free with the town pitching in to make it happen, all ages and true all ages in that the crowd ranged from babies to oldies. Best of all, it seems most of it happened in a fish shed, embracing the true roots of the Westfjords.

I was happily clicking the next button looking at all Karl’s photos and I came across this photo of Lay Low at which I jumped in my chair and made some noise along the lines of argrh as to the fact that I want to see Lay Low live dammit! I have been thinking about throwing it all in and going to Iceland Airwaves this year though I don’t think that will be on the cards till I have actually got a real job. Or figuring out a way to get Lay Low and some other cool Iceland bands to come to Aus and do a tour. That would perhaps be even cooler.

What is the point of this post?
Just me been envious of what my dear brother is getting up to in Iceland of course and making those envious feelings public, nothing more than that. Also admiring just how cool his photos from Aldrei are.