6 posts tagged “music”

Music-wise, what was the first 45, single or download you bought? 
Submitted by Paddy Melt Wagon.

Lily the Pink by The Scaffold.  45RPM, bought from a record shop in Sydney for $1 (Australian) = 1.5 weeks' pocket money.  How embarassing.

Reader advisory:  Cranky Old Man rant following.

I know that the title of this post might be contradictory (certainly Bob Dylan does not believe in audience participation, presumably and correctly letting his songs speak for him), but I gotta ask this question...

What is it with this "mosh pit" thingy at concerts?

I am not used to this, beyond cowering in terror at the sight of such phenomena on tabloid current-affairs shows when they go on about the Youthful Forces of Darkness at events like the Big Day Out and most silverchair concerts.

At the Bob Dylan concert last week, from our side-on-to-stage seats I noticed a throng of people hanging about at the front barrier.  Well, tough luck if we had shelled out big bucks foer front-row seats, I thought.

Whilst travelling home tonight,  I listened to an ABC Radio reporter in Perth talking about some biffo that erupted at the Dylan concert in that city.

The cause of the problem was the mosh pit that developed in the front row at the concert venue.

Apparently the people who had paid large sums of money to get front-row seats were being blocked out by these people who insist on standing about the front rows.

This (apparently - but G-d knows why) is a standard feature of modern concerts.

It is also something that people of (ahem) my years (and older) are, understandably (I believe), not used to - especially at Bob Dylan concerts, which probably, it is fair to say, attracts a concertgoer of a certain vintage and infrequency.  (Ah yes, in with the false teeth, out with the Zimmer frame, up with the hearing aid, and let's boogaloo 'til we puke.)

Why is this?  Why does this happen?  Is the front-of-stage fair game at most concerts?  If so, then maybe they need to tell us when we buy the tickets.

And whilst I'm on my soapbox, what about these people who pay out the money and don't even listen to what's going on?

Two drunken young blokes (in dinner suits no less) at one point sat down behind us in some spare seats and proceeded to talk loudly about everything except what was going on in the concert - the weather, the lousy state of Sydney trains, you name it.

When Pauline exasperatedly asked them to pipe down, they politely and directly declined ("No sorry, we cannot be quiet").

I was at the point of summoning an usher when they abruptly wandered off.  Presumably, the combined effects of the beer (which we could smell) and their short attention spans drove them to do something else, eg walk about.

Oh well, another mug of cocoa and its off to bed I go.

Earlier tonight we had the good fortune of seeing Bob Dylan and his band perform at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

The verdict - fantastic!

This is the 2nd time I've seen Dylan live.  The first time, in 1992 at the State Theatre in Sydney was bewildering to say the least.   We didn't really recognise anything, due largely to the awful acoustics at that venue.   (The State Theatre is a lovely building but it didn't seem to handle this event well.)

This concert was hugely different.  The music was well  thought through, and performed with gusto and (whew) clarity.  His band has gusto and professionalism.

The music was a mix of some new versions of older material - such as A Hard rain's a-gonna fall and Tangled up in blue - and new material from his recent album Modern Times.

There would be something rather unimaginative of Mr Dylan if he was singing The times they are a-changin' the same way as he was 40 years ago.  But no - tonight's rendition was very different and still very enjoyable.

Mr Dylan played keyboards for most of the event, after initially using the guitar for his opening items.  His band very much made up for this with their arrangements of his music.

All in all, this has restored my faith in this artist.  I was prepared to remember the 1992 event on the grounds that I had at least seen an historic figure - and there is no doubt that Bob Dylan is an historic figure - in person.  Unfortunately then, that was about all I could say in favour of that event. 

This event was so much more satisfying.  The historic aura continued, but we could actualy sit back (or sit forward in our seats - Dylan's lyrics really grab the listener) and enjoy what's going on.  I can now say that I have personally heard Bob Dylan sing Masters of war and A hard rain's a-gonna fall.  But not just heard this - but enjoyed it immensely.  His band is very good (but the 2 guitarists look like the Blues Brothers), and the  performance was very focussed and energetic.

The newer material, especially from the album Modern Times, really had me in.  We had previewed this at home in the previous few days, but to hear Mr Dylan's interpretation was spell-binding.

People grumble that Mr Dylan never talks to the audience.  (In his 1992 State Theatre concert he barely sang to the audience.) Pauline has a very common-sense response - no need to say any more with the sort of songs he sings!  I mean, just listen to Masters of war.

As a bonus, his side-on stance to the audience as he played the keyboard for most of the concert meant that he was directly facing us in the el-cheapo side-of-stage seats.  Whacko!

All in all, now i can really see why people get so excited by this artist.  Pauline's faith in Bob Dylan has been restored, as wasthat of the other 18,000 people who witnessed this concert.

• Newspaper reviews of this concert will be linked here as they appear.
• Melbourne concert review, Herald-Sun, 19 August 2007

• Set list for tonight's concert, from the website Bob Links.
• Reviews of the concert, from the website Bob Links.

• The picture of Bob Dylan at the top of this post is from the weblog  All Along The Watchtower.

 

Readers of the California Chronicle will sleepily recall my musings on the European Song Contest 2006 - a triumph of originality of sorts over stereotyped 100-megawatt smiles, wiggles, mimes, and choreographs.

Please don't get me wrong.  Pauline & I enjoyed Eurovision when we first discovered it 3 or so years ago, but we found the sameness of the 2006 competition a bit oppressive.

So good on the Finland entry, Lordi, for taking out the title and ending their country's 45-year losing streak - even if they had to dress a bit differently to do so.

Now it seems that they have gone from figures of fear and derision in their homeland, to everyone wanting to be their best mate.  Ah, the Fickle Finger of Fame!

Apparently they were formerly heavily criticised for being satanists and promoting devil worship.  Personally, I find that its a little difficult to be frightened of a satanist who is wearing a little top hat decorated with a Finland flag.

Now they are having town squares named after them, and posing for pictures with the Prime Minister of Finland.

This has led to something of a cultural revival in Finland.  This has apparently in the doldrums after this nation's most recent fillip - a 2-minute Monty Python song extolling the virtues of this nation.

But the lead singer of Lordi, who co-incidentally is also named Lordi, perhaps has this all in perspective:

Being a hero is easy: You just have to win the Eurovision Song Contest, apparently ... Until a few weeks ago the whole nation was against us totally - they did not want us to represent Finland. Now all the magazines in Finland are printing Lordi masks for children. There's not much logic going on inside. But let's face it, people are stupid.

• Article in The Sydney Morning Herald (linked in NewsVine).
• If you cannot download the above musical ode to Finland, you might like to tinstead try to do so  through the original link on the website of MWS Computer Services (requires QuickTime on your computer; higher-speed internet connection recommended).

 

Recently there has been some discussion in the news on the effects of sexually degraded lyrics in music on teenagers - specifically, that it can incite them to earlier experimentation

This led to the following splendid letter in today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Little Pattie was blamed for encouraging teenage sex in 1964. At my high school dance, the headmaster banned the stomp because it would shake up our genitals and turn all the 13-year-old boys into uncontrollable sex monsters.

John Goldbaum
Potts Point

Today, Pauline & I had the good fortune to see the arena production of The Boy From Oz at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

This event literally took our breath away.  All the hype surrounding  Sydney lad & Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts graduate Hugh Jackman (local lad made good) bringing Peter Allen (rural New South Wales lad made good) back to life in this event is entirely justified.

Whilst it might be dificult to define a person's "star quality" - an ability to hold an audience, be it 6 or be it 18,000 (as it was yesterday) - you need look no further than Hugh jackman to witness this.

Certainly the production lifted this, but I would daresay that every performer and every crew member in this show lifted his / her individual game through the association with Mr Jackman.

And part of the feat achieved is his interpretation of the life of another famous Australian, Peter Allen.

When I wasn't being sucked in by his living breathing rendition of Mr Allen (and the fact that Mr Jackman looks nothing like him is entirely irrelevant - in fact, this is further testimony to Mr Jackman's powers), I was marvelling at being in the presence of Mr Jackman.

Normally, one might expect one view to conflict with another;  however, yesterday, this did not matter.

Another bonus of this show is to have Mr Allen's output of songs contextualised as being autobiographical.  Whilst Not The Boy Next Door seems obvious, the autobiographical point others like I'd Rather Leave While I'm In Love was missed by your humble reviewer until yesterday.

Its a dreadful shame that Broadway audiences were deprived of hearing Tenterfield Saddler;  the amount of autobiographical background, together with the poignancy of this song, is quite moving.

Mr Jackman also has a great wit.  At least some of the repartee with the audience could not possibly have been scripted in advance (either that or he is an even better actor than I even now realise);  yet it was hugely funny and he never dropped his character for a moment.

Yet another big show-stopping momen t was provided by Colleen Hewitt (people of my vintage will remember her as the TV Week Queen of Pop in the 1970s).  She played the part of Peter's strong mum, standing up to a brutal husband and accepting he rson's homosexuality. 

Her rendition of Don't Cry Out Loud (another Peter Allen song, much to my surprise) also had us on our feet.  (Usually I am suspicious of standing ovations, but I did not begrudge any here.) Ms Hewitt's version of this was far superior to the Broadway cast recording version (which we had blasting at home all today); the American singer is plainly uncomfortable with replicating an Australian accent, and it shows - with her performance vacillating between Eliza Doolittle and the Mother Superior from The Sound Of Music.  Her preoccupation with the accent stymied her from putting her heart into this song - something with which Ms Hewitt had no problems.

(In fairness to the Broadway album, the Australian accent is very hard to replicate.  We usually end up sounding either like Cockneys or New Zealanders. Even Meryl Streep, usually an expert with accents, couldn't get this in Evil Angels [ re-titled A Cry In The Dark in the USA].)

Peter Allen's mum sounded rather ballsy (if i ma y say that on Vox).  When he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, he phoned the news through to his mum who, he reported, had tears in her eyes - but that may have bee nfrom the onions in the dog' dinner she was preparing at the time of the call.  (This anecdote is recounted from Stephen Maclean's book Peter Allen: The boy from Oz, from which much of the show was drawn.)

Peter Allen originally played the Sydney Entertainment Centre for its official opening in 1983.  This venue was also the scene of his final concert on Australia Day (January 26), 1992.  These facts are exceptionally appropriate for an exceptional show featuring a highly exceptional talent

The review in The Sydney Morning Herald stated that this is the best musical you could ever hope to see.  Usually I am suspicious of such hyperbole, but for this I can but helplessly and happily concur.

• News item in The Australian newspaper (link in NewsVine)
  
• Review in The Sydney Morning Herald (link in NewsVine) (access might be conditional upon registration)