Late on a cold, cold Saturday night, what's a boy to do to pass the time in this dark, soulless city? The easy, and quite tempting option would have been to get stuck into the trashy dvds we got from the video store, in the warmth and comfort of home.
But I was born for rock'n roll, it is all I need. I was born with hammer down, I was built for speed.
(What?!)
So I headed on down, in the moderate comfort of private transport. It's a lot more pleasant and trouble-free compared to the old days of buses and trains.
Back to old habits, turning up early enough to support the supports. Yes, I am glad.
Laura Jean was pleasant. Nice. A girl with a guitar, plus friend on violin. A funny personality, silly banter between tunes, you know the deal. I'm sure I've made this complaint before. It's just a bit too easy for any girl with a guitar to play some quiet folk music and sound pretty. But sounding original and interesting enough, well, that's another problem altogether. She did an alright job. Almost brought her new album from the merch table, but I had budget problems.
Andrew Morris came up with a big band. Fairly ordinary and even a bit boring for the most bit, until towards the last third when they got around to picking up the pace and increasing the energy. Too little too late.
Jen Cloher and The Endless Sea. Been really looking forward to this one for a while. She's been playing at places like the Vanguard and such sitting down, dinner optional venues. But now with the album out, this is "the proper album launch." All the usual rock band paraphernalia, plus another violin. Having only put out one ep and one rather short album, I worried what she and band were gonna be doing for their own headlining shows. And yes, they did end up doing a few covers, but nothing major, their own songs were enough to fill out a good part of the set. Sounding really on form.
I really don't know. Is she in the charts and making sales? The audience turnout was pretty healthy for a cold winter night, even if it's not totally sold out. The turnout was better than I was expecting. The quiet tunes were nice, the heavier tunes even more impressive. Within weeks of the debut album being released, there's already a few new tunes sounding very interesting, especially when the band rocked hard enough to get heads nodding and feet tapping.
Before I rocked up, there's been nothing but absolutely glowing reviews of the record and even more positive reviews of the band's live performances. Seeing them live, well, it wasn't spectacular. But it is still very early days and if the newer songs are any indication, things are only gonna get bigger and brighter for them. Nice one.