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Apr. 4th, 2010 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccTwo gigs in two nights, both under the 'Blues' musical umbrella and both completely different.
Wednesday night we saw Taj Mahal and Buddy Guy at Hamer Hall. I was trying to remember the last time I went to a concert there, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it was one of the MSO ones with Uncle Ian. Which makes it far too long a time since I have been to a classical concert!
Hamer Hall is a bit of a strange venue for a blues gig - it's a concert hall and due to having bought last minute tickets we were in the second last row of the balcony. Not that that really matters, the music still makes it up there! The crowd for this gig was varied, although mostly aged 40 and over - Dean and I were definitely in the low end of that particular demographic. It was also a very different crowd from your average MSO gig - one of the things that we were talking about driving home was whether the MSO staff are trained to be able to get drunk people out safely, or break up fights. Not that that was necessary, but this crowd were drinking a lot more heavily than I think the venue is used to - and generally speaking I don't think the MSO crowd come from the pub to the gig. However they were all in the mood for music and the overall vibe was very laid back.
Taj Mahal I'd never heard of before - his set varied from traditional numbers to more rock to heavily West African influenced numbers. I liked it, Dean less so.
Buddy Guy's set was great. The limitations of the venue became apparent when he did an off-stage walk - we couldn't see a thing, but people kept rushing down the stairs to the edge of the balcony and standing in the aisles to try and see, which meant the venue staff had to keep going down and politely asking them to return to their seats, as blocking the aisles is a fire hazard. I love watching the musicians interact, how they all keep one eye on the lead in order to be able to follow his direction. Even when he's halfway into the crowd (or, as was the case when we were at Buddy Guy's Legends Club in Chicago, has actually left the building and is playing outside. Go Carl Weatherby! In that case the band were actually watching a flunky near the sound desk for cues. The flunky in turn was watching the doorman. Heh.) It was a great gig, and even better for a school night finished at 10.30pm. Yes, I am old, and yes, this is important to me. More so when I'm getting up at 5.45am to train!
Thursday night we went to see Joe Bonamassa at the Corner Hotel in Richmond. After managing to find a park in a nearby side-street (score!) we headed into the venue. I can't remember who I last saw here, only that I was with Dean. The crowd was... surprising. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it felt like we'd wandered into the Corner's over 35's night. We weren't the youngest there, but the average age would have been at least ten years older than us. Many of whom really needed to update their gig clothes - guys, the 80s are really, truly over now. Even the 80s fashion return is pretty much done and dusted. From the evidence of exactly three gigs, I'm thinking blues is now very much an older person's music. In Melbourne, anyway.
One group of guys in front of me were really getting into the music - there were five of them, all mid-late 40s or early 50s. They'd obviously gone to gigs a lot together in the 80s and they had their routine down pat, taking it in turns to go to the bar and come back with 5 stubbies. One in particular had me giggling as he headbanged his way though every number, including the slow ones. 80s pub dancing is not very good in general and watching a late 40-something in jeans with a bull neck doing it was amusing. But not as amusing as the guy up the front doing the metal sign, that had me laughing out loud.
Bonamassa is much more rock-edged music - but he's not metal, at least not my definition of it! - and the crowd loved it. Well those of us up near the front did. Behind us there was a lot of talking, to the point that Bonamassa asked them to shush during one of the quieter songs. OK, this is the point where I admit to not getting it - why pay to go to a live gig if you're then going to talk through it? Why not just go sit in the front bar which would be cheaper? And easier to hear and probably easier to pick up if that's what you were going for? Weird.
The keyboardist in the band turned out to come from Sydney, and had obviously (a) introduced Bonamassa to The Angels and (b) to the additional lyrics of "Am I ever going to see your face again?" This came up a couple of times, notably when the crowd failed to realise a call:response - "Rob, these are your people. Talk to them will ya? Such a catchy tune, and they tell you to what exactly?"
Coming home from the gig I was tired - the training and the running around getting 2 and a half days work done in 2 so that the patient results could go out before Easter left me a bit worn down - and Dean was hyper. I crashed and failed to hear Dean come to bed 2 hours and several levels of computer game later. Which was good.
I've obviously been with Dean too long though - on the way home we were discussing Bonamassa's guitar skills, which I put as less than Malmsteen but crapping all over Santana. Seriously there were a couple of songs there which had me wondering why they weren't on the radio instead of some of the more ordinary Santana ones. And Bonamassa can sing.
Also I've been watching too much V - in the middle of the encore, as the guy up the front was jumping and making the metal signs, and the crowd was bouncing along in sync and the lights and the beat and the music were condensing the world into one shared space and I suddenly thought "this is the closest we get to Bliss".
And then the music ended and we wandered off to find the car and annoy the residents of Richmond by talking way too loudly through deafened ears. Bliss.
Wednesday night we saw Taj Mahal and Buddy Guy at Hamer Hall. I was trying to remember the last time I went to a concert there, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it was one of the MSO ones with Uncle Ian. Which makes it far too long a time since I have been to a classical concert!
Hamer Hall is a bit of a strange venue for a blues gig - it's a concert hall and due to having bought last minute tickets we were in the second last row of the balcony. Not that that really matters, the music still makes it up there! The crowd for this gig was varied, although mostly aged 40 and over - Dean and I were definitely in the low end of that particular demographic. It was also a very different crowd from your average MSO gig - one of the things that we were talking about driving home was whether the MSO staff are trained to be able to get drunk people out safely, or break up fights. Not that that was necessary, but this crowd were drinking a lot more heavily than I think the venue is used to - and generally speaking I don't think the MSO crowd come from the pub to the gig. However they were all in the mood for music and the overall vibe was very laid back.
Taj Mahal I'd never heard of before - his set varied from traditional numbers to more rock to heavily West African influenced numbers. I liked it, Dean less so.
Buddy Guy's set was great. The limitations of the venue became apparent when he did an off-stage walk - we couldn't see a thing, but people kept rushing down the stairs to the edge of the balcony and standing in the aisles to try and see, which meant the venue staff had to keep going down and politely asking them to return to their seats, as blocking the aisles is a fire hazard. I love watching the musicians interact, how they all keep one eye on the lead in order to be able to follow his direction. Even when he's halfway into the crowd (or, as was the case when we were at Buddy Guy's Legends Club in Chicago, has actually left the building and is playing outside. Go Carl Weatherby! In that case the band were actually watching a flunky near the sound desk for cues. The flunky in turn was watching the doorman. Heh.) It was a great gig, and even better for a school night finished at 10.30pm. Yes, I am old, and yes, this is important to me. More so when I'm getting up at 5.45am to train!
Thursday night we went to see Joe Bonamassa at the Corner Hotel in Richmond. After managing to find a park in a nearby side-street (score!) we headed into the venue. I can't remember who I last saw here, only that I was with Dean. The crowd was... surprising. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it felt like we'd wandered into the Corner's over 35's night. We weren't the youngest there, but the average age would have been at least ten years older than us. Many of whom really needed to update their gig clothes - guys, the 80s are really, truly over now. Even the 80s fashion return is pretty much done and dusted. From the evidence of exactly three gigs, I'm thinking blues is now very much an older person's music. In Melbourne, anyway.
One group of guys in front of me were really getting into the music - there were five of them, all mid-late 40s or early 50s. They'd obviously gone to gigs a lot together in the 80s and they had their routine down pat, taking it in turns to go to the bar and come back with 5 stubbies. One in particular had me giggling as he headbanged his way though every number, including the slow ones. 80s pub dancing is not very good in general and watching a late 40-something in jeans with a bull neck doing it was amusing. But not as amusing as the guy up the front doing the metal sign, that had me laughing out loud.
Bonamassa is much more rock-edged music - but he's not metal, at least not my definition of it! - and the crowd loved it. Well those of us up near the front did. Behind us there was a lot of talking, to the point that Bonamassa asked them to shush during one of the quieter songs. OK, this is the point where I admit to not getting it - why pay to go to a live gig if you're then going to talk through it? Why not just go sit in the front bar which would be cheaper? And easier to hear and probably easier to pick up if that's what you were going for? Weird.
The keyboardist in the band turned out to come from Sydney, and had obviously (a) introduced Bonamassa to The Angels and (b) to the additional lyrics of "Am I ever going to see your face again?" This came up a couple of times, notably when the crowd failed to realise a call:response - "Rob, these are your people. Talk to them will ya? Such a catchy tune, and they tell you to what exactly?"
Coming home from the gig I was tired - the training and the running around getting 2 and a half days work done in 2 so that the patient results could go out before Easter left me a bit worn down - and Dean was hyper. I crashed and failed to hear Dean come to bed 2 hours and several levels of computer game later. Which was good.
I've obviously been with Dean too long though - on the way home we were discussing Bonamassa's guitar skills, which I put as less than Malmsteen but crapping all over Santana. Seriously there were a couple of songs there which had me wondering why they weren't on the radio instead of some of the more ordinary Santana ones. And Bonamassa can sing.
Also I've been watching too much V - in the middle of the encore, as the guy up the front was jumping and making the metal signs, and the crowd was bouncing along in sync and the lights and the beat and the music were condensing the world into one shared space and I suddenly thought "this is the closest we get to Bliss".
And then the music ended and we wandered off to find the car and annoy the residents of Richmond by talking way too loudly through deafened ears. Bliss.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 09:10 am (UTC)V is giant spaceships full of really beautiful people (who are actually reptiles with a Nefarious Plan) hovering over 29 major cities. (Sydney, for some reason, is one of them. Undoubtedly Melbourne is demanding its' own spaceship. Canberra, as always, is "uh, guys? Hello? Capital City?!?!?" Undoubtedly in sync with Wellington and Ottawa.)
Survivors is post-very-odd-influenza ("buboes"?!) pandemic, which killed 99% of the world's population. Even the 1348 Black Death and the New World Smallpox pandemics only managed 33% and 80-90% respectively! Marbug ebola virus only manages 80% at its most virulent. Anyway, this "bubonic flu", with an apparent morbidity and mortality rate of close to 100%, has left England (and the world, as represented by a map of the lower 48 US states) significantly depopulated and it's all about how the Survivors cope. For some reason the "bubonic flu" also causes all infrastructure to break down almost immediately, some of it (the mobile network) before people have even finished dying. I've got to catch up on episodes for it, it's on too late for me to be able to stay up for. Obviously I caught a bit of the first episode!
Survivors is a remake of a 1975-77 TV series written by Terry Nation. V is a remake of a 1980s TV series, not written by Terry Nation. No idea how faithful Survivors is but V appears to have kept a lot of the originally cheesy elements. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-08 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-08 07:19 am (UTC)Starts tuesday on sci fi channel.