Last week was a great week with going to see musicians who’ve been around for a long time. Firstly it was AC/DC on Tuesday evening. I had trouble remembering the last stadium type concert I went to, not including things like The Big Day Out and Womadelaide. Maybe it was Madonna in 1993?
Anyway, AC/DC it was. I was extremely lucky to be taken along by a gorgeous man and I enjoyed it thoroughly. My son was worried about the beating my ear drums might take but it wasn’t too loud. Probably something to do with the nearby North Adelaide residents complaining? I don’t know. A colleague who lives in North Adelaide said she could hear a bit of bass and the crowd singing along more than anything.
We had trouble finding what gate to go in as the one that was on our tickets wasn’t signposted at all. Just about everyone else seemed to be lining up for the main gate and that would have taken quite some time to get through. When we did eventually find our entrance we spent the next 15 minutes waiting to buy merchandise because the woman in front of us couldn’t decide what type of tank top to get in what size.
Then we went to go onto oval and found out that you needed a wristband for that but we hadn’t had the option of getting one at the gate we entered by so had to trot over to the main gate to get it.
We were pretty much in the middle of Adelaide oval so I couldn’t see that much on stage and there’s always someone at least a head taller standing in front of me at these things. Thank goodness for the big screens. Angus was just superb. I’ve never seen such guitar playing. Considering their ages they all do a really good job. My only beef was that they didn’t sing Long Way to the Top.
Despite 42,000 people plus leaving the venue afterwards it wasn’t too hard to get home. We’d caught the tram in and after helping a bloke off the side of the road who’d crashed out with half his body on the road, we caught a tram that was full of other concert goers. It was a really good vibe and I’m so glad I went.
A few days after that Tom Jones was on the menu. A friend who was working at the gig organised a bunch of free tickets which I happened to hear about. Another friend organised the bus so about 30 of us hopped on the Tom Jones express for a two hour drive to the Barossa Valley to see Tom Jones.
It poured with rain on the drive down and kudos to our bus driver for getting us there and back on the creaky bus in one piece. Fortunately the rain didn’t persist and it only rained for a short while after we arrived.
There was seating out in a fan shape in front of the stage which meant us general admission people had a small space at the side to view Tom but it wasn’t too crowded and we still got a good view and we were able to boogie, unlike the seated people who were told off by security if they stood up. Why pay extra for a seat I wonder?
All too soon it was over and we had a two hour bus trip going home. After drinking beers on the way there and red wine at the concert, I had a bit of a headache so closed my eyes and rested most of the way home. I wasn’t alone there.
So early the next afternoon we went to pick up my son from his friend’s house. He’d been absolutely wonderful there which is great for me when I want to ask them again to have him. But on the way to the beach to walk us and the dog he was mister grumpy pants and continued to sulk for the whole walk on the beach. I guess coming home to mum after having a fabulous time at his friends was an anti-climax, but still it brought me down off my Tom Jones high that’s for sure.
The photo above is of him walking ahead of us on the beach and you can see the storm clouds in the distance. Those clouds kind of suited his mood.
Tonight he has another sleepover booked – March is a busy time for socialising here – and he was the best behaved JJ I’ve ever seen. He was helpful, thoughtful and just plain lovely. I told him that I much prefer that JJ to the grumpy one I witnessed on Sunday. Not sure that he’ll remember that – I’m sure I’m in for more grumpiness but a girl can live in hope.
Back in the late 1970s I heard Abba’s song SOS for the first time and fell in love with it and then heartily embraced nearly all songs Abba. Mum used to like them as well so we’d see all the Abba specials on tv, hear them on the radio etc. I loved them and because they were so popular there was lots to embrace.
When I was 21 I was given the record (vinyl) of Abba Arrival as a joke. I had a bit of a laugh but was kind of glad I had been given it because I secretly still like Abba even if it was a bit uncool. I still have the record.
Fast forward nearly 30 years and there’s an Abba Singstar game for the Playstation. It has been out a couple of years I think but we only just bought it from eBay last week and consequently we’ve been having our very own Abba revival here.
For those unfamiliar with Singstar you hook up a couple of microphones to your Playstation, select a song and the system judges you, flashing up words throughout the song like bad, awful, cool and good. It also gives you points at the end and lets you know if you’re a Wannabe, a Hit Artist or a Singstar. As I know most of the Abba songs I usually sit in the cool and good categories and get good scores – usually. You can battle with a friend and there’s some songs where one person does the lead and the other does backing vocals.
A friend came round last Friday night before we went out and we did a duet together where she was backing and I was lead. I stuffed up because I was too busy laughing at her attempt at backing vocals. We laughed even more when we played it back and had a listen to ourselves.
I’ve done singing lessons and think I’m a fairly accomplished singer but singing along to Abba is a lot harder than you might think. Those two women can really sing so there’s been a couple of nights this week that have seen me fire up the Singstar and belt out Gimme Gimme Gimme or Voulez Vouz to see if I can beat my score.
JJ has also embraced Abba and his favourite song is Mamma Mia. I now cannot stand to hear the song again. Bless him for trying though. Actually I think this is the start – finally – of him having more of a musical appreciation. Last Saturday before he went to bed he asked if he could listen to some relaxing music to help him get to sleep. I put a Deep Forest CD on for him. He’s now got a second Deep Forest CD in his room and a CD of Abba’s music done on a Hammond organ. He can keep that one. Goodness knows where I got it from.
In his unknown endeavour to embrace retro he’s also started using this lamp at night when he goes to bed.
Now I just hope to pass on my love of the op-shop to him and my work is done.
After much organisation to offload the spawn I went away to Melbourne with two good friends (who’ve just found out that I blog – hi girls).
It started off with hi-jinks (tots of bourbon whiskey) and continued on in fine form. In the taxi on the way to the airport we observed that we three had never been away without children and what a fantastic feeling it was. The two of us who have children are both full-time sole parents and rarely get a break.
The main reason we went to Melbourne was to see the Painters and Dockers at the Prince of Wales. They were being inducted into the EG Awards Hall of Fame and hadn’t played for 20 years. Part of the awards night was the EG Allstars band allowing us to see some great artists like Tex Perkins, Henry Wagons, Dan Sultan and The Wolfgramm Sisters. Of course I’ve seen Tex before and we’re obviously on first-name terms. But I hadn’t seen the other artists and they were fabulous. Now that I’ve seen the Wolfgramm Sisters I’ve seen them everywhere including the Melbourne Comedy awards the other night on tv.
But the Painters and Dockers. What can I say. It was like stepping into a time warp going back 2o years. Sure, we all look a bit older now but the energy was still there both from the band and from us. I loved it.
Afterwards we hung around chatting to the band and didn’t get back to our accommodation (bless friends of friends who live in a very convenient St Kilda) until around 3am. Having had very little sleep the night before I slept until 11am the next morning. I wasn’t alone in sleeping in mind you. We had promised our hosts that we’d take them out for breakfast but it turned into more of a lunch. A very delicious lunch in the city.
It was across the laneway from this fantastic looking soup bar.
I would love to have spent more time wandering around the laneways taking photos. These shoes left hanging caught my eye.
But there was shopping to be done and more food and coffee to be drunk.
More photo opportunities to be had.
A tram back to St Kilda to be caught and of course it rained. I think it always rains when I go to Melbourne.
Come Saturday evening we could have gone to see Dan Sultan at the Espy but we were too knackered from the previous 24 hours so we hung out at our hosts watching Rockwiz, eating yummy pizza and chatting.
Sunday just flew past and before we knew it we were at the airport waiting for a delayed plane and then on our way home. Back to reality.
This is labelled as the worst music video ever on YouTube but it’s the most funny. It had me rolling around in my chair.
A friend came around last night with fish and chips. We were supposed to go to his place for dinner but he and his partner had been to a medical appointment. She’s got breast cancer and they were told her chances of living if she does have chemo and if she doesn’t. It was a reality check for them and they were both upset. My friend still came around to give his partner some time to herself and I think he needed time to himself and bless his heart, he brought us food.
While we were sitting at the table he asked if I had the internet at home because he wanted to show me a music video.
This is/was apparently a Finnish entrant in this year’s Eurovision song contest. If you’ve ever watched this show it’s very entertaining and very cheesy.
If you do watch the video, please stick with it as the dancing only improves!
After lamenting not having a weekend pass to Womadelaide a couple of weekends ago, I ended up going on the Sunday and it was a pretty good day. The dust levels weren’t too bad and the weather was pretty good. I thought I’d share some of the music that I heard over the weekend. These videos aren’t actually from Womad but they’ll give you a taste of the type of music that Womad has. And if you listen to any of the below, close your eyes and imagine you’re in a beautiful park and the music loud and completely surrounds and goes through you. Well try anyway.
Rokia Traore appeared last on Stage 1 and I’m so glad I hung around for this. JJ was playing a friend’s DS so he was happy and this woman was so worth it. Her voice is amazing and her dancing just made me feel so unfit. This song is quite slow, but she did a real mix.
I love ska and Ska Cubano were great and they just make you want to get up and dance.
Chemical Brothers fans will recognise this one from Speed Caravan. When I heard it I was on my way back from the loos and I started walking just that bit faster while swaying my hips. Cool version of Galvanize. Unfortunately this one has no visuals, but it was the best sounding one I could find.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu performed also. I missed him but apparently he was awesome. A friend has since lent me his CD to listen to which I haven’t yet had the chance but I can’t wait.
Sa Dingding had one of the the most amazing voices I’ve ever heard. She even sang a song in a made up language. Her dancers were great too and they incorporated fans into their dance routine.
The below clip will give you an idea of what else goes on at Womad in addition to what’s on stage.
Regular, long time readers of this website probably know that I love Womadelaide and usually get there in one form or another every year. Here’s the proof from 2008 and if you’re really keen you can get to other years’ wrap-ups from that post.
The last couple of times I’ve been to Womadelaide, it’s been really dusty which plays havoc with my sinuses and has made the experience a lot less enjoyable.
Get a load of the amount of dust from this photo from last year. People were walking around with kerchiefs over their face to try and keep the dust out.
For this reason I’d decided some time ago to only go on the Friday night, but of course it’s rained this week and it’s a bit cooler so the dust probably won’t be a problem this weekend. Aaarrrggghh!
I went along last night and had a total blast. Sorry Jeanie, you’ll have to live vicariously through me. We walked into Botanic Park to be greeted by Strange Fruit. I have to include a photo as it will give you some idea of what they do. Unfortunately you can’t see them in motion, see their facial expressions or hear the music. It’s really clever and I absolutely loved it and this was only the beginning of the evening.
While watching Strange Fruit I bumped into a friend who was covering the event and she recommended seeing ‘The Black Jesus Experience‘. So we did. They ‘…fuse an exciting blend of traditional Ethiopian song with Jazz, Funk and Hip Hop.
Other standouts from the evening were Tony Allen – afrobeats, Speed Caravan – Cairo meets Chemical Brothers (my description this time), Natacha Atlas, and Sa Dingding who has an absolutely amazing voice and some great dancers.
Womad is normally very friendly and the atmosphere is warm and embracing. With the odd waft of sweet pot smoke, huge lineups for organic donuts from Byron Bay (why you’d bother is beyond me) and recyclable food containers etc it’s the type of festival it’s great to take kids to and you’re pretty sure they’ll be absolutely safe there. When JJ was two or three I did lose him for 15 minutes or so which made me panic because I didn’t know where to start looking for him but I didn’t fear for his safety.
But then there’s odd little incidents that just make you shudder. Sa Dingding – mentioned above – was very popular and she’s more of a sit down show so we were sitting down near the edge of where people were standing up. Nearby was a group of young men being a bit rowdy and the punters near us weren’t happy with it at all. One woman asked them politely to move away if they wanted to talk. They carried on however. Then another woman said ‘why don’t you French people just fuck off.’ I just felt really embarrassed she’d said this. For a start we’re at a World Music and Dance festival, and secondly it’s very racist. I actually don’t think they were French, but Algerian, and they were probably performing at Womad. I just hope they didn’t understand her. It didn’t stop them talking, and after a little while they moved away and all was back to normal.
This was the only occurrence of something a bit seedy that happened all evening.
I wish now that I’d bought a weekend pass. I’d go and see Paprika Balkanicus, Kaki King, Bedouimn Jerry Can Band, Ska Cubano, Neil Finn perhaps, and stumble across other great acts.
On the weekend I spent some time at a local Folk Festival joining my fellow ukulele players in belting out some tunes. It was quite hot and there was a north wind so it was dusty and there were flies. These were the conditions we played under when playing this song (see below).
We played two sets, one around lunch time and one in the early evening by which time the wind had dropped and it was a beautiful balmy evening.
It’s great fun to have a sing and a play on the uke and the beauty of playing in a big group is that if you don’t know the chords or the words there’s bound to be enough who do.
This song, however, was a bit different as there were six of us so we all needed to know what we were doing and I think we pulled it off quite well.
