they might be giants

I’m fortunate enough to have seen three of my all-time top-five musical artists live. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen Paul Kelly live – the most recent was in 2011 for one of his A to Z shows. I saw REM in Sydney in 2005 on their Around the Sun tour.

And I saw They Might Be Giants in Canberra in 1997. 

Yeah I've held on to this for 16 years

I’ve been a fan of They Might Be Giants since my friend Liz introduced me to their 1990 album Flood. The TMBG recordings, while not at fan-girl completist levels (largely because I’m missing a lot of their podcasts), make up one of the largest collections in my CD library.

Since 1997 I think they have been back to Australia only once, in 2001. When I heard earlier this year that not only were they going to tour Australia, but there was a possibility Tasmania might be getting a concert, I was pretty excited.

The initial tour dates were announced . . . and Hobart wasn’t included. I wasn’t altogether surprised, because we often miss out on acts coming here. But as time went on, more dates were added to the tour and (to screams of excitement from me and some Twitter friends) a show in Hobart.

Tickets were promptly purchased, and then the long period of anticipation before the show began. Perhaps what made this more fun than most loooong waits, was the ability to follow TMBG on Twitter, tell them how excited we were that they were coming, and hear about the tour preparations and, closer to the date, how the other shows on the tour had gone.  

That’s when it started to get really exciting: hearing about the set lists from other shows and wondering which songs we’d get to hear.

To get ready for the show, I devoted my entire radio program the week before to TMBG and played some of my favourite tracks dating back to their first releases in 1986. 

I asked John F on Twitter what is one thing TMBG would like me to say to my listeners, and he replied, “Melody is where we’re at!” And indeed it is – one of the band’s slogans is “Installing and Servicing Melody Since 1982”.

And finally, after weeks of anticipation, They Might Be Giants Day was here!

The show was at the Wrest Point Show Room, which is a venue I’d never been to before. By the time we got there, the centre of the room was pretty full, front to back, so we found ourselves a place off to the side of the stage, almost but not quite behind the speakers, but close to the front. The best thing about that spot was being able to see some of the behind the scenes activity and also the fact that no one else really wanted to stand there, so we had a fair bit of space to dance in. (Yes, I actually danced. In public.)

So what about the show?

Dodgy iPhone photo

Well, my first reaction was that it was amazing. I was so pumped. It was the most fun I’ve had in, like, forever. Really. The set list was a great mix of old and new songs, and I knew them all. 

There were a couple of songs that stood out for me as highlights because I especially wanted to hear them played live, and TMBG did not disappoint.

Best shot I managed to get from our vantage point

Firstly, Fingertips, the composite song made up of 21 individual tracks from the album Apollo 18. I noticed it had cropped up in some of the earlier shows, so I was really hoping we’d get to hear it too. (It’s the perfect song to use to introduce Juniordwarf to TMBG and he’s become quite attached to it.)

An unexpected, but very much appreciated treat, was the instrumental version of The Famous Polka (I deliberately didn’t examine the previous set lists too closely so that there would still be an element of surprise for me). Highly energetic and infectiously so. 

And a song that I’ve only recently got to know well, The Mesopotamians, which is just so cute. Can a song be cute? Surely. Well I think I have a little crush on Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal and Gilgamesh now.

Flans in action

The band really rocked the whole show. What a fantastic evening!

The full set list (100% accuracy not guaranteed due to a mild case of over-excitement):

When Will You Die

Don’t Let’s Start

Memo To Human Resources

Letterbox

Call You Mom

Circular Karate Chop

Birdhouse In Your Soul

Fingertips

Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Dr Worm (featuring John L on the accordian)

The Famous Polka

Cowtown

Cloisonné (the song that features the bass clarinet – John F told the story on a radio interview of how previously they had toured with a bass sax, which in hindsight had been a bit big to be transporting all over the place for only one song, so this time they were bringing the bass clarinet. It sat there all evening just begging to be played.)

The bass clarinet has its moment in the sun

Nanobots

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Eye Of The Tiger (instrumental)

He’s Loco (performed by the John and John Avatars of They on screen while the band had a short break)

Lost My Mind

Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head

New York City

Ana Ng

You’re On Fire

Damn Good Times

Encore 1:

Clap Your Hands

The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)

Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)

Encore 2:

The Mesopotamians

Dead

I liked the book-ending of the show with songs referencing death. I also thought it was neat that they played The Guitar, with its spaceship references, on the day that the crew from the International Space Station Mission 35 returned to Earth, though possibly that was just good timing rather than a deliberate inclusion, as the song cropped up on other shows during the tour.

(Speaking of space missions, I also found out, while I was researching my radio program, that NASA had asked TMBG to be Musical Ambassadors for International Space Year in 1992. Cool.) 

So – this ranks right up there as one of the most fun nights of my life. Thank you John and John for including us in your tour and for putting on such a memorable show. Please come back soon!

the farmer and the musician

I wasn’t going to write a post today.

The 365 Project is over and I can relax and skip a few days, posting only when something that interests me happens, or when I want to talk about something.

But today had its moments so I wanted to share them.

Firstly, we have a huge yellow plum tree in our back yard, which has been sadly neglected and which we forget to prune every year, without fail.

It grows yellow plums – obviously – and Slabs turns them into plum jam and plum sauce. A few weeks ago they started dropping off the tree, and Junoirdwarf went around the yard picking them up and putting them in the back of his Tonka truck.

This was because, he said, he is now a farmer.

So this morning we found him standing on a chair picking the unripe plums from the tree and putting them into an empty pot.

All part of being a farmer.

Fast forward to this afternoon, when Juniordwarf and I had a little disagreement and he went outside. A bit later I went to look for him and found him in the vege garden pushing all the plums he’d picked this morning into the polystyrene box that his carrots are growing in.

He said he was planting the plums so they’d grow.

I really hope they don’t . . .

As well as being a farmer, Juniordwarf is also a musician. We make a lot of mix tapes (or whatever the CD equivalent is), and Slabs has made several for Junordwarf of his favourite songs of the moment.

The other day he announced that he would be making his own CD, with 16 songs on it, because that’s a good number. Not only does he name all the songs, but now he sets himself up a venue to perform, complete with drum and pedals, and sings the whole CD.

Here are some photos of today’s performance, in which the Tarja (former singer from Nightwish) song “Anteroom of Death” was followed by two of his own compositions: “Doodlebum” and “Race Your Feet so You’re the Bum”.

If you’re wondering about the outfit, so are we. 

Late this morning, Juniordwarf got changed. He said he wanted to dress up in green. Presumably no further explanation is necessary.

P365 - Day 336 - up in the sky

This afternoon, just after lunch, we were treated to an aerobatic display by the Air Force Roulettes,  which are in town for the celebrations of the 200th Anniversary of the Anglesea Barracks. 

It was spectacular to watch and we got a great view, especially when they were passing over the top of us.

It was, as you might expect, very hard to take any decent pictures of the display on my phone camera due to the distance and the fact that I can’t actually see what I’m taking a picture of when I point the phone at planes flying overhead. So I just clicked away and hoped that the planes were in the shot, then cropped and edited them afterwards.

And afterwards . . .

We went to the Farm Bar  at Two Metre Tall. This was Andrew Marshall’s  debut for the Farm Bar season. After his nifty dancing last time, Juniordwarf was looking forward to seeing Andrew perform.

Given his new fascination with guitars, Juniordwarf was very interested in watching Andrew set up his equipment, and he was fascinated by the didgeridoo and the sounds it made.

It was a lovely relaxing way to spend what turned out to be a very nice summer evening. I think we can look forward to spending more time there over the next few months.

P365 - Day 310 - this is what our child gets up to when we go away for the weekend

P365 - Day 284 - moonwatch

Juniordwarf has recently become rather obsessed with the album Tubular Bells III by Mike Oldfield. 

It all started when he was watching a movie I’d made of our holiday to the mainland to visit relatives and friends when he was seven months old. One of the tracks I used on the soundtrack was a track called The Top of the Morning from that album.

He loved it, and when he found out he could listen to it on my computer and my phone, he was delighted, and insisted on me playing it for him at every opportunity.

The scene from the movie where the track is played is one where I’m holding him, rocking on Aunty Purple Bee’s rocker. Lil Sis is filming, and she says ‘Mummy and Juniordwarf on Aunty Purple Bee’s Rocker, filmed by Aunty Lil Sis’.

So when we were visiting Aunty Purple Bee last month, Juniordwarf and I sat on the rocker and played the song on the phone, and to complete the re-enactment, had Slabs film us. Juniordwarf said, ‘Mummy and Juniordwarf on Aunty Purple Bee’s Rocker, filmed by Dad.’

So I'm expecting that he’s going to want that scene – together with the track – on the movie of this year’s holiday. If I ever get around to doing it.

We also have a DVD of the concert of the premiere live performance of Tubular Bells III, which Juniordwarf also loves. I’d never considered Mike Oldfield’s music to be dance music, but as soon as The Top of the Morning comes on, he’s off the couch, jumping up and down and running around the room. (I think that’s his version on dancing.)

The next track on the album, which runs on from The Top of the Morning, is called Moonwatch. Juniordwarf likes that track too, though it doesn’t have the same appeal as his favourite track.

Tonight at bed time, he kissed me and instead of saying ‘goodnight’, he said, ‘Moonwatch Mum’.

When I went outside to get the washing in, there was a beautiful almost-full moon coming up over the hill. I tried to take a photo of it with my phone, but there are limitations on what the phone camera can do in low light and at long distances. A bit later I tried again with the moon coming out from behind the clouds, but that was no better.

Never mind. It was a beautiful moon.

Moonwatch everyone.

P365 - Day 279 - the wonky donkey

The Wonky Donkey was top of Juniordwarf’s wish list for his birthday.

Fortunately I knew what he was talking about when he asked for it, because we’d read the book and listened to the CD at one of his Playgroup sessions last year.

If you haven’t heard of this book, it’s by Craig Smith, a musician from New Zealand. 

The story is that he walks down the road and sees a donkey, which only has three legs – hence the ‘wonky’ donkey. On each page a new characteristic of the donkey is revealed, all adding a new adjective to the wonky donkey, until by the end of the book the poor old donkey is a jumble of ‘–nky’ words.

There is a CD that goes with the book, and it was on high rotation played non-stop in the car on Juniordwarf’s birthday.

You know you want to hear it, so here's the link to Craig Smith's website!

Since we’ve been back from holidays, Juniordwarf has only looked at it a couple of times, as he’s developed a slight obsession with the work of Mike Oldfield (but that’s another post for another day). Then today after school he got the CD out and listened to the song, and tonight he wanted me to read it to him at bed time. He then proceeded to sing it to me, which was very cute.

I have to admit that, even though we were getting very sick of the song by the end of Juniordwarf’s birthday, it is pretty funny and very catchy! I’m glad he listened to it today.

P365 -Day 212 - the sound of music

As well as being a talented artist, my grandmother played the piano. When Lil Sis and I were young, one of our family traditions was that we’d all get in the car and drive to our grandparents house on Sunday afternoons.

They lived in a huge house in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but was really only about a 15 minute drive out into the country. The house used to have a General Store attached to it that my grandparents operated, but as they got older, and (I assume) business declined, as it did in many country General Stores, they closed the store and converted it into extra rooms for the house.

My grandmother’s piano was in a room near the front of the house, and she used to give piano lessons there.  Lil Sis and I were two of her pupils.

The piano was a beautiful old upright piano and I spent many Sunday afternoons agonising over scales, trying to hold my hands correctly and playing basic pieces that bored me stupid. I don’t think I was very good. I remember hating doing piano practice at home (on our much less classy piano that doubled as a hall stand), and resenting every note of every scale that I played. I struggled along with it into high school and finally quit when I realised I wasn’t committed and wasn’t enjoying it at all.

My piano skills right now are fairly limited. I can read music and play it, as long as it’s not a very complicated piece and I don’t have to do too much with both hands at the same time. The terms ‘quaver’, ‘semi-quaver’ and ‘crotchet’ ring bells in my head, but don’t ask me which one is the shortest, as I have no idea.

I can also work out how to play tunes that I know on the keyboard, and I get the notes right about 90 per cent of the time, so I’ve been able to play songs for Juniordwarf on his keyboard without needing the music.

Juniordwarf has inherited my grandmother’s old keyboard (a very cool (for its time) Yamaha with an ‘Automatic Bass Chord System’), that approximately replicates 14 or so various instruments and has a range of rythyms that just make you want to get up and dance (or leave the room).

I wasn’t sure how old kids needed to be to learn music, but seeing how Juniordwarf likes to play the keyboard, I thought it couldn’t hurt to show him the basics – introduce him to the concept of naming the keys, and showing him how the notes in a sheet of music relate to the keys on the keyboard. Nothing formal, and definitely nothing forced. Whatever he’s comfortable with.

I went into a music shop to ask what they thought would be possible for a nearly five year old. The guy at the shop suggested buying some removable stickers that you can put on the keys to show their names and a music book with kids’ songs that show the music, but also have the letter of each note printed, so the kids can learn the names of the notes and their place on the stave, and relate that to the actual keyboard.

So I did that a couple of weeks ago, and every now and then Juniordwarf will come to me and ask if I can please show him how to play the keyboard. We only spend about five minutes on it at a time, and I’ve just been showing him how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb – because it’s the first song in the book. He’s been interested, but hasn’t quite got the concept that he needs to play the notes in the same octave, rather than middle-C, and then a higher D and a lower G, so we’re getting some rather interesting results. But I don't care. I just want to give him a bit of guidance, and let him work out for himself how it all works - when (and if) he's ready.

Today I was in the kitchen, and Juniordwarf went into his room, got his music book out and started playing all by himself.

It was very cool to hear  Mary Had A Little Lamb being played in his bedroom.

P365 - Day 166 Saltimbanco (16/06/2011)

Disclaimer 1: I’m writing this post before I read any reviews of or stories about Saltimbanco. I don’t want to be influenced by what anyone else has said or to think that that if I have a different perspective or understanding of it, that my view is 'wrong'.

Disclaimer 2: This is the first time I’ve seen a Cirque du Soleil performance, so I had very little idea of what to expect.

When the tour of Cirque du Soleil’s show Saltimbanco was announced last year, my mother said she wanted to go and offered to buy me a ticket too. Well how could I refuse that? I didn’t know a lot about Cirque du Soleil other than it was a world-famous performance spectacular, filled with amazing physical acrobatic acts.

What I hadn’t known is that the performances are much much more than a circus without animals, which is kind of what I vaguely had in mind. Although, having said that, I was fairly sure that it would be somewhat more spectacular than the circuses that used to (do they still?) travel around the country and set up their Big Top in a long list of small towns.

Now that we’ve established that I am, in fact, quite uncultured and know next to nothing about the performing arts*, we can move on.

The premise of Saltimbanco (from the Italian ‘saltare in banco’ – to jump on a bench) is a show ‘set inside an imaginary metropolis of colourful inhabitants’. The website describes it like this:

Saltimbanco explores the urban experience in all its myriad forms: the people who live there, their idiosyncrasies and likenesses, families and groups, the hustle and bustle of the street and the towering heights of skyscrapers. Between whirlwind and lull, prowess and poetry, Saltimbanco takes spectators on an allegorical and acrobatic journey into the heart of the city.

Saltimbanco is a Cirque du Soleil signature show inspired by the urban fabric of the metropolis and its colourful inhabitants. Decidedly baroque in its visual vocabulary, the show's eclectic cast of characters draws spectators into a fanciful, dreamlike world, an imaginary city where diversity is a cause for hope.

One of the banners for the show at the venue

The show was amazing!

I don’t know if it was because of the description of it as being set inside this metropolis that triggered some associations for me, or if I would have come to that view on my own, but the overall feel of the show for me was distinctly city-like. But not the city that we see every day – it conjured up visions of the movie Delicatessen (which I haven’t seen for years, so I could be completely off track), where the characters were from the underworld, rather than the mainstream, very quirky and quite dark (but also very humorous).

Despite the glorious brightness of the colours, the enthusiasm and fast pace of the show, I still had the feeling of there being a dark underside to life within this city that wasn’t very far beneath the surface.

It was a visual delight. The costumes and colours were simply stunning. Totally eye-catching to the point that sometimes I didn’t know where to look.

The music was absolutely wonderful. I’d describe much of it as tribal, with what I imagine would be African influences. Some of it reminded me of parts of Mike Oldfield’s The Millenium Bell.

And the performances were magical. 

From the twisty triple-bodied Adagio to the slipping and sliding Chinese Poles artists, the Juggler, the artistic cyclist, and the act that completely blew me away, the Duo Trapeze – everything you’d expect to see in a circus and more. Even the most amazing drums and instruments called boleadoras.

I don’t have the words to describe it. The performances were sensational, sensual, powerful, strong, delicate, breathtaking, precise . . .

Just watching these bodies do things I didn’t know bodies could do – there were times I was so enthralled by the show that I didn’t even realise the audience was applauding.

I will admit that I did find some of the theatrical and dance performances didn’t capture my attention as much as the acrobatic ones did, and I was craving more daring and spectacle. But it was all part of the show, and there were some very funny moments, including some hilarious audience participation.

It was a sensational night that will live for a long time in my memory.

Thanks so much to Mum for taking me with you.

* Compared to absolutely nothing about the visual arts.

P365 - Day 129 happiness, what? (9/5/2011)

Today was a day of rest for me. After thinking on Saturday I’d recovered from what I thought was a pretty run of the mill cold, I spent yesterday feeling rather unwell. I got up this morning to go to work, had a shower, realised I was never going to make it and headed straight back to bed.

In between resting, sleeping and making myself hot lemon drinks, I watched a DVD that I’d got ages ago and had never watched. It was a live concert of Kate Miller-Heidke in San Francisco, which included a documentary made by MTV EXIT featuring Kate. The documentary, Rise: A Tough Ascent is about the lead up to a concert in Nepal for the MTV EXIT campaign to raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking in Nepal. It included stories of women who been basically tricked into leaving Nepal to become prostitutes in India and had managed to escape.

It’s quite a disturbing subject, and while I was watching it, I started to put my own problems, if you can call them that, into perspective. I wondered if I was plucked out of my relatively comfortable life here and dumped in a village in somewhere like Nepal how I would cope. Or even if I’d cope.

I wrote down a lot of rambling stuff trying to sift through the actual point I was trying to make. There was stuff about ethical production, exploitation, the true cost of things we consume, rising costs of living here, people in Australia trapped in cycles of poverty and no education, what are we going to do when the oil runs out, my life could change at any time . . . what’s the point?

I concluded that I feel like I have a responsibility to make the most of my life right now. That means not waiting around for things to be ‘right’ before I can start to ‘live’ my life.

Life is now.

What I am doing right now is living. I remember reading somewhere someone had said that there is no dress rehearsal.

This reminded me of something I’d read in The Happiness Project, and since I’ve been thinking about that a bit lately, I decided to grab it from the bookshelf and re-read it. And there is was, in the very first section, the same realisation:

‘Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature I too often failed to comprehend the splendour of what I had.’ (page 2)

There are lots of things in my life I wish could be different. Some are within my control, some are not. However, the mistaken belief I seem to have a lot of the time is that I can’t be satisfied or totally happy with my life until I’ve changed all the things I want to change. That is, I can’t really live my life until everything is perfect.

But while I’m waiting for my life to be perfect, my life goes on. I’m wishing some things were different but I’m not doing anything about them, and at the same time I’m not really appreciating the things I do have.

And that’s the point of the Happiness Project – it’s about appreciating the good things that make up your life right now, but also finding out what will make your life happier and then actually doing those things.

For me, the first part is just as important as the second. I don’t want to waste my life living for the day that everything falls into and my life is magically a life worth living. Because I don’t think that day will ever come.

I’m fortunate to live where I do and to have what I have, and I owe it to myself to make the most of this and to live the best life that I can. But at the same time, what I’m doing right now is living my life, and I need to take the time to appreciate that as well. Life is now.

There.

I don’t think I’ve worded that particularly well, but I’m not feeling the best. I’ve had a lot of stuff going round in my head today and I needed to get it out.

So tonight – or what’s left of it – I’m going to settle down with my copy of The Happiness Project and work out what my first step is going to be. I’m not going to aim for a grand life plan because I’ll never get that done, and if I wait for that to be finished before I do anything I’ll achieve nothing.

But I can set myself a goal for tomorrow.

P365 - Day 79 wiggling

Juniordwarf and I went to the Wiggles concert today.

Excellent quality phone photo!

I'm not sure what else there is to say. We were a long way back from the stage, but directly in front, so we had a good view. None of the pictures turned out very well but here are a few.

Juniordwarf watching from our excellent vantage point

Ukulele Baby

Rocking out!

P365 - Day 41 Paul Kelly (10/2/2011)

Take a look at my profile on the right hand side.

See where it says ‘I like my Macbook Pro, Paul Kelly and Dr Who’. Well in case you were wondering, the Paul Kelly I refer to is not the former Sydney Swans player nor is it the political journalist.

I am, of course, referring to The Paul Kelly, or PK as he is affectionately known to many of his fans.

Several years ago, he created a new type of show, which ran over four nights, in which he played 100 of his songs, old and new, in alphabetical order, A-Z. Twenty five songs a night, all reworked to suit an acoustic format. You could attend one night, two, three, or all of them.

The concept took off and he found himself doing more of these shows.

He generously made recordings of these tracks available for free from his website, one letter per month, over a two year period. Then the songs became the soundtrack for his memoir, prompted by the stories he told between the songs.  The book, How To Make Gravy, is a 576 page epic, accompanied by an eight CD box set of the A-Z songs re-recorded especially to accompany the book. I was lucky enough to get a copy of this wonderful package for my birthday last year.

Then last year PK announced he was going to do another series of the A-Z shows and this time he was coming to Tassie. Yippee!

Well true to form, I was extremely unorganised and didn’t book any tickets. I was trying to decide whether or not to go to. Budgetary constraints would have restricted me to one show anyway, and I was thinking about it, decided not to go, wished I was going, wasn't sure if I should, then Slabs got sick and with a small child at home, thought it would be a bit unfair on him in the end. Add to this logistics of living out of town and it all seemed like too much.

Then last night (night 3 of the series), I thought I'd just look and see if there were any tickets for Night 4 (tonight). I asked Slabs if he was feeling better enough to give me a night off, rang a thoughtful relative to beg for a bed for the night and booked what could possibly be the worst seat in the house. The very back row, on the very edge of the row, with ‘restricted viewing’. That didn’t inspire confidence, but hey I had a ticket and I was going to see my favourite performer.

I was very excited! The very first time I saw Paul Kelly live was back in my student days, when he regularly toured with his band (then known as ‘The Messengers’), at the Tas University Bar. I used to baulk at the cost of the tickets back then, because $16 on a student budget was a fair bit of money in those days.

How things have changed! PK doesn’t play uni bars any more – at least not that I know of. Now he plays in theatres and at A Day on the Green. Tickets are more than $16. He’s older, wiser and has developed into one of Australia’s most iconic singer-songwriters.

And I am still a huge fan.

So to the show . . . it was fantastic! The Theatre Royal is a wonderful venue, a perfect size for a show like this. Even with my ‘restricted viewing’ seat I got a pretty good view of the stage and the action.

My view from HHH 16

Onstage was a grand piano and an easel displaying a large letter ‘S’. So that’s where we were going to start.

Here’s a very brief rundown of the set list, intermingled with some comments that I jotted down tonight.

PK came out to massive applause and I have to admit I got a little teary seeing the man in person after so long. Luckily it was dark, so I didn’t have to feel awkward about that . . .

He started with Stories of me, followed by Stupid song. Then his nephew, the wonderful Dan Kelly, emerged to accompany his uncle on the journey we’d just embarked on.

I must add I’m a big fan of Dan too, and must be sure to catch his show next time he’s touring, having missed him last time.

They played Standing on the street of early sorrows, which is a great song and Dan’s guitar was amazing. Then Stolen apples, a newer song, and Stumbling block, which is one of the tracks from PK’s Stormwater Boys bluegrass album. Dan played the ukulele, which PK informed us, he had only just purchased in Hobart, so it was his ‘Hobart ukelele’.

Of course an S set needed Sydney from a 747, which is one of my favourite tracks, and then Dan left the stage.

The next song was Sweet guy, which PK wrote from a woman’s perspective, and he shared a story about writing from different perspectives. He mentioned Hunters and Collectors and their song Say goodbye, and how great it had been at one of their gigs to hear 1200 men singing the line ‘You don’t make me feel like I’m a woman any more’.

Sweet guy is such a moving song.

Taught by experts. Another favourite, this time from the Uncle Bill bluegrass recording.

They thought I was asleep.

Thoughts in the middle of the night. I’m not familiar with this song, but was thinking Dan’s guitar in this had a real Twin Peaks feel about it.

To be good takes a long time. A really catchy little number. One of my favourites of recent years. (OK it’s actually from 2004, so if you consider that recent . . .)

He stops for a moment to tell us about his taxi ride in from the airport. The taxi driver says to PK that he looks familiar and asks if he was on TV. PK replies that yes, he has been on TV. Finally the taxi driver recognises him and says ‘oh you sang that song . . . they got married early . . . that was a good song’. PK acknowledges that yes, that was his song. A few minutes pass by and the taxi driver says, ‘oh you sang that other song, the one about the door. That was a good song too.’

To her door. Perennial crowd favourite.

Intermission.

Coming back into the theatre I decided not to return to my seat and I stood right up the very back. I wasn’t any further back than I had been, but I was in a more central position. It had felt kind of weird to be sitting down watching an artist I’d always stood up to hear in various bar environments. (To recreate this environment as best as I could, I also had a beer in my hand – in a stubby though, not a plastic cup, so it wasn’t quite the same!) I had a clear view down the aisle to the stage and I didn’t miss having to shuffle around in my seat every time the guy in front of me moved.

It was a better view. It was also a more moving experience for me.

It was a joy to watch the old master at his craft (yes, I probably need to be careful with using the term old), and to continue the analogy, his younger apprentice (although that’s a discredit to Dan, since he’s an accomplished artist in his own right) alongside him, enhancing his uncle’s performance and taking the performance to a more polished level than it would have been if it was just the master on his own. (Not that it would have been a bad show if Dan hadn’t been there, not at all.) He enriched the sound, made it feel somehow fuller, if that makes sense. And it struck me that some of the material would have been written, if not before Dan was born, then not that much after, and what a treat was to see these two performers of different generations and with different influences take that material and give it new life in such a cohesive way.

At the same time watching them together was a little bit sad, a reminder of how we all get older (a theme of one of the songs we heard a bit later in the night).  While our songs might live forever, we won’t.

But on with the show . . .

Until death do them part

One U song. Until death do them part. Apparently PK has been asked to play this at weddings.

We were up to V. PK has no songs starting with V, so he said that the Very Good Dan Kelly is Very Versatile, so he would be doing the next song. What followed would have delighted Juniordwarf completely. Dan told the story of his song Bindi Irwin apocalypse jam – one of Juniordwarf's favourites. Then he taught the crowd the chorus so that we could sing along, and launched into it. I’m not sure how many of the older fans had heard it before – judging by the laughter it seemed to be new to many people there (but maybe I didn’t laugh just because I’ve heard it soooo often!) Nevertheless it was an unexpected treat to hear Dan play it live (and I loved how he changed the lyrics ever so slightly).

When I first met your ma, love like a bird flies away. Another oldie.

Wintercoat. Before he played this song PK recounted how he and Dan had paddled to Bruny Island in kayaks with a mate who had picked them up after last night’s show. They’d seen seals in the river and eaten steak at 3 am on the beach. The perfect way to follow up a show, he said. This has never been one of my favourite songs. In fact it’s one of my lesser liked songs, but tonight it was just fine.

PK has no X songs either. He said he had a few options, but was going to play an x-rated song, the first line of which was ‘I’m gonna fuck her right outta my head’. Everyone laughed. The song’s called Right outta my head.

Finally, after 17 songs, the piano was put into use with You can put your shoes under my bed. Then he was back to one of his guitars (he had many guitar changes over the course of the show) for You can’t take it with you.

Dan returned to the stage for You broke a beautiful thing, which PK had written for Renee Geyer. She originally didn’t want to sing it because she said it sounded like a country song, and she doesn’t sing country. I’m glad PK talked her into it. She does a wonderful version. As does its composer.

Your little sister, in which Dan rocked out.

A song which PK originally wrote for Tex, Don and Charlie. I couldn’t work out which song it was as he was telling the story about how it came about. I was trying to think of more Y songs, but they all escaped me.  PK told how Tex, Don and Charlie had wanted a song from him, but not a cast-off, they wanted ‘top shelf’ material, and how he hadn’t heard from them so assumed it wasn’t going to be on their album, then months later found it had made the cut. Then he described the trouble he’d had in getting his version just right. You’re 39, you’re beautiful and you’re mine. Of course it was. A very touching song.

(I didn’t know he’d written it for Tex, Don & Charlie and haven’t heard their version, but will be looking out for it.)

Your loving is on my mind.

Zoe, a track from his Stardust 5 project.

And that was it. S to Z.

I wondered if there would be an encore, because what else is there after Z?

But he didn’t disappoint. We were treated to Young lovers (the audience loved the line about the old man having to sit down to take a piss), You’re so fine and Summer rain (which a lady in the audience had been calling out for).

A second, and final, encore of Would you be my friend solo and then Dan returned, and to my absolute delight, they sang Under the sun.

I love this song! It’s the title track of the first PK album I ever heard (a couple of years after its release, mind you, I was a bit behind the times musically), and that song and the song I see as its companion, Forty miles to Saturday night, take me right back to the end of Year 12, leaving school, leavers parties, summer, fun . . . It was an almost perfect conclusion to the show (40 miles would have been perfect), that took me right back to my earliest memories of this wonderful artist, who has been part of my life for over 20 years.

What more could I ask for?

What a great night. I loved it and I feel on top of the world right now!