The Whitlams - 8 Dec 2006 - The Metro

Such an amazing gig. I didn't want The Whitlams' set to end, I didn't want them to leave the stage, I wanted them to play another song and another and another...

When we walk into the Metro, everyone ahead of us in the line (and there were a good 40-50 odd people) is either at the bar or seated. Mend and I stare at the barely occupied barrier in a kind of disbelieving wonder, then decide, hell, why not? I really do love experiencing a concert from the floor, even if my feet and legs do kill the next day, and even when most of the time my sight is obscured by a large sweaty man. So we pick a spot just to the left of the centre of the stage on the barrier, which means the stage is about a metre away from me. We would NOT be regretting this decision by the end of the night. I spent every other moment just basking in the fact that I had an unobstructed view of everyone and everything and every single moment on stage for the whole entire night. Plus the crowd was this weird mix of everything from conservative to alternative, young to old, and overall very polite so I had space to dance along and breathe and didn't get jostled once.

We had no idea who the support acts were. The first support act, James Cooper, played average singer-songwriter pop rock that occasionally was quite fun but nothing stuck in my head at all. And for someone that had a four piece band with him, there wasn't much sound or energy coming through. Second support act were a five member band headed by a female singer, The Hampdens, who played a 45 minute set that seemed a lot lot longer, mostly because they weren't particularly catchy, didn't seem very enthused about being on stage, and had very little presence.

Thank goodness for The Whitlams, who utterly redeemed the night.

Tim Freedman is funny and sharp and really lovely and has a really sweet smile. He and Jak Housden in particular have really good chemistry and there was some good banter going on between them towards the end, but the band is really great together as a whole. The four of them (Tim Freedman on piano, Jak Housden on guitar, Warwick Hornby on bass and Terepai Richmond on drums; they all have a part in vocals which surprised me) seemed to be having so much fun, and they played so well individually as well as together; there’s such joy in their performance that it just spilled out over the crowd, who were quite placid at the start but really warmed up to a fannish devotion by the end. The lone drunk annoying woman, who would interrupt at inappropriate moments with a whooping call (like a bad coo-ee!) was thoroughly told off by Tim Freedman in the first ten minutes, and actually seemed to get the idea after the THIRD time he told her to shut up and go away. Not to make him sound crotchety, because everybody must have been feeling the same way - the room erupted in cheers after she was chastised.

The set list – oh goodness, what a set. 20+ songs over two hours, so I couldn’t really give an ordered list but I can remember most of what we heard. The first six songs were definitely:

Beauty in Me
White Horses
Fall For You
I Will Not Go Quietly
Make Me Hard
Tonight

Then I think just after Tim had announced they were playing 'Fondness Makes the Heart Grow Absent' next, Terepai Richmond’s snare drum broke, or something malfunctioned or it was planned, but anyway, the rest of the band moved offstage and left Tim Freedman in his own, and he performed absolutely heartbreakingly beautifully '12 Hours' and 'Charlie No.2' with just his voice and the piano, and I’m sure people behind us were crying through the second song and I was mesmerised because '12 Hours' is my favourite song off Little Cloud and I have listened to it over and over in these last few months especially in some of my worst days and to hear it so pure and unadorned and perfect was just amazing.

The band then came back on and continued, though they didn’t end up playing 'Fondess...' at all. The next lot of songs were definitely in there though possibly not this order:

Little Cloud
No Aphrodisiac
Blow Up the Pokies
You Sound Like Louie Burdett
I Was Alive
Royal in the Afternoon
Fancy Lover
Year of the Rat

There was a song that I didn’t know just before 'I Was Alive'; Tim said it was about considering marriage and deciding NO (“luckily for her” he quipped) and then they segued from that into 'I Was Alive' which is kind of the opposite, about a very stormy relationship that seemed to have been worth it anyway. The last two songs of the main set were definitely 'Thank You' - which was so very very good live, energetic and happy and so appropriate for the moment with its chorus that suggests a band looking back on their long successful career and thanking the fans who've stuck with them despite everything – and 'Gough'. There was moment in Gough where I just stopped and looked this sold out room of very disparate people, brought together by a band who had them all singing and dancing along to a song about Australian politics and betrayal in the 1970s, and I just laughed because it was so cool and unusual and what other band could do it?

There were two encores. Tim Freedman came out on his own to do 'Charlie No. 3' (my one tiny disappointment was that there was no 'Charlie No.1' to complete the set and my wishes) with just him and the piano, then they went into a rousing rendition of 'Stay With Me' and also 'The Hamburger Song', which the crowd went wild for. Second encore was'She's Moving In' and then one final song.

Everything sounded excellent live – from classics with new arrangements (such as with 'No Aphrodisiac') to the newer songs that sounded louder and bigger out of the studio and came alive, to the delicately beautiful solo songs. For just four guys on the stage, they have such energy and sound that they fill the room. It was an awesome night, and best of all – the tickets had only cost $30. I’ve never had better value for money at a live gig.

John Mayer - 3 Nov 2006 - Enmore Theatre

I am now a humbled fan.

I wasn't particularly excited about tonight's concert - John Mayer seemed to have moved form 'cool' to 'adult contemporary' in the 4 years since I first heard his songs, the new album hadn't captured me as completely as the previous ones, and well, our seats were in the 2nd last row, upstairs, at the Enmore. Hmm. Oh, but how wrong I was to think all that would matter, how wrong. Because I did enjoy this concert very much, and John Mayer is really awesome live. I think, at this stage of his career, having worked on more jazz-based performances with his Trio, he's learnt to meld the pop sensibility of his earlier songs with this amazing blues sound and so created a show that's full of awesome guitar work, cathcy songs, and meaningful lyrics.

He is also infectiously charming, and enthusiastic about performing, and so very comfortable on stage. He bounds around, does a quick two step, riffs with the other guys on stage, teases members of the audience, all while playing his dizzying array of guitars with consumate skill. His voice sounds good live - strong with just a bit of grit in the rockier moments, perfectly husky in the ballads, soaring over the wall of music from his very capable band.

There's a real camraderie between him and his 7 member band (keyboard, drums, 2 guitars, bass, tenor sax and trumpet) and each song is embellished and extended with jazzy, blues-influenced improvisations and interludes, as the musicians and instruments play off each other. It's fun to watch, and really awesome to listen to, as they work together so well, and it rarely strays overlong.

He played at least one of my favourites from each of the previous albums, and all my favourites from the current one, Continuum - the defiant 'Belief', the smoky regret of 'Gravity', the loveliest bitter breakup in 'Slow Dance in a Burning Room', and the indictment in 'Vultures'. Very good live. But I saved my most piercing embarrassing scream for when he decided to play 'Neon' on an impulse. Neon is otherwise known as 'my favourite John Mayer song EVER', and I hadn't seen it on any recent set lists online so I didn't even hope to think that I would get to hear it live. He even mentioned that he doesn't play if often - I think they have to tune everything to a different key?

Bigger Than My Body
Vultures
Good Love Is On the Way
I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)
Clarity
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
Why Georgia
Neon
Gravity
Waiting for the World to Change
In Repair

Belief
No Such Thing

Overall, this was such an enjoyable concert, a great musical experience. John Mayer is an artist who can straddle that tricky line of commercial success with musical talent, and it was a pleasure to watch him do just that tonight.

Brick (2005; d. Rian Johnson)

After hearing good reviews from others, I was worried that I would go in with too high expectations and be disappointed. No fear! It was an excellent movie.

Let's start with the story as it first seems. Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a loner at high school, an outcast by choice. His only friend is another loner nicknamed The Brain who knows everything about everyone. When Brendan's ex-girlfriend Emily, whom Brendan still loves despite being dumped so she could climb higher on the social ladder at school, rings up sounding scared and confused and asking for help, Brendan throws himself back into the thick of high school and its cliques and secrets in an effort to help her out of a mess that she won't elaborate on. When he finds her dead two days after her phone call (not a spoiler - this is the first scene of the movie), the detective work, the menace and the double-crossing really begins.

If this sound less like a teen movie, and more like old-school Hollywood noir, that's because it's a really clever and intense attempt to blend the two. There's no swearing in the movie at all, but the kids get across their messages in dialogue that's informed by the language of hard-boiled detective and pulp novels, at time confusing, but always understandable from the context. Like when Brendan asks if The Brain knows who a certain person named The Pin is, The Brain replies in sharp quick patter, "Ask any dope rat where their junk sprang and they'll say they scraped it from that who scored it from this who bought it off so and after four or five connections the list always ends with the Pin. But I bet you got every rat in town together and said 'show your hands' if any of them've actually seen the Pin, you'd get a crowd of full pockets."

But don't fret. Even if you're not a fan of Hollywood noir, or if you don't know much about it, you can just sit back and enjoy a twisty mystery that's very stylishly filmed - the clever touches in the way it looks and sounds and moves. If you are a fan though, it's even more fun on a meta level, as you identify the usual tropes and see how they play out in a high school setting. Brendan, of course, is the world-weary detective in the mould of Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade; Lukas Haas' plays his shady character, The Pin, with the slick style of the old gangsters, with his cane a nice touch as well as being more than an affectation; Laura, the popular girl at school with the status and money and connections, has the brains and the beauty to be the ambigous femme fatale role. And all the minor characters have their place in moving the story along at a zipping pace, while setting up some really funny scenes that break up the inherent sadness in the mystery of Emily's death, while adding to the clues at the same time.

It's very well done, and even when characters are familiar and their arcs are familiar, the path between A and B is enjoyable that it doesn't matter if you know whodunnit, really. Because the journey, and being towed along like Brendan is through that journey into the seedy underworld of this non-descript high school, is the fun and interesting part, and that comes across so well in the film.

related reading >> Hard-boiled high, an article on two teen-noir features on at the moment, Brick and Veronica Mars

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006; d. Michael Winterbottom)

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is possibly the best movie I've seen this year (which is only half over, but I doubt I'll engage with and enjoy another quite as much). Even now, as I think over the movie, I find myself laughing out loud remembering a visual joke here, a bit of slapstick there, the clever dialogue all throughout, the ridiculous yet pointedly observant scenes.

It's got a set-up that could be as pretentious and boring and badly done as anything you could imagine - it's a film adaptation of a rambling 18th century English novel that has been dubbed "unfilmable", packed with top British actors (and one well-known American actress), and also a film about the film of an adaptation of a rambling 19th century novel...but it's very very funny and clever and hits just the right note of arch without being wanky. While trying to sound profound, the lead actor gives an interview about the greatness of the novel he's in without having ever read the novel and says, "This is a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about."

You don't have to have read the novel either, and that's one of the running jokes of the film, that no one on set has actually read the 600+ pages of novel. Very few people have, really, because while it is supposed to be about Tristram Shandy's life but because of the author's passion for digressions and moving between past and present on tangents it also ends right after the main character is born! Thus in reflection of this, the movie that is shown to the producers at the end (ie. the movie we've just watched) is also so digressive that very few of the originally scripted and pitched scenes (ie. the ones from the novel) actually make it into the film. Confused? Now, the movie itself is set on the film set of a movie adaptation of this novel with some of the actors playing characters on this film-within-film as well as playing the actors themselves (eg. Steve Coogan, the actor and comedian, plays an actor and comedian named "Steve Coogan") while other actors are playing crew members (eg. Jeremy Northam plays a director named Mark, who is really a stand in for the real director, Michael Winterbottom). Now completely confused? However, don't worry - it's a lot more understandable when you see it unfold wonderfully on-screen, as they break fourth-wall and talk to the camera, and move between scenes and sets and "real life", all with a funny, hyper-realistic script that flows naturally between all the different modes.

One of the ideas of the film is not just to give a sense of the shambles of the novel (which is does wonderfully, thus being a great adaptation in that it gives the atmosphere if not the plot) but also to revel in the process of film-making and a feel for the little bubble world a film set is. While outside events unfurl - a radio news report gravely reports on the Iraq insurgency - the actors and crew members are tangled up in their petty worries, fretting over the latest crisis on set; whether it be the battle of egos between two actors ("we're co-leads", Rob Brydon insists, while Steve Coogan sharply replies, "well, we'll see in the edit!") or Steve coming to terms with his new family unit of girlfriend and child while trying to hold onto his old life by flirting with a pretty film runner who has the same name as his girlfriend or the producers insisting they not use money they don't have to refilm a diastrous battle scene in which extras - in anachronistic costumes - stroll across the screen desultorily! The inside jokes are great for anyone who loves film, and I'm told there are even inside jokes in the inside jokes for those who really love their movies.

The cast is amazing. A veritable list of great British actors, doing good work no matter how big or small their part. In particular, Steve Coogan is great - he's such an vain, insecure man as an actor, but he also shows a softer side playing a new father, and it makes him endearingly human and thus likeable - plus he has a difficult job playing three parts as Tristram the narrator, Walter Shandy his father, and Steve Coogan the actor. Rob Brydon plays very well opposite him, and their bickering from who looks taller or has the bigger part or does the better impression of Al Pacino (a great end-of-credits sequence) is a cack. Kelly McDonald is beautiful and lovely and warm as always, and Gillian Anderson in a brief cameo is breathily sexy in an 18th century way (and funny as herself, wondering where all the scenes she shot over two weeks went).

But apart from the clever ideas, the great acting and the tamed chaos, there's also a lovely sense of the visual joke. One of the craziest, most memorable, lasting images of this movie for me is a scene where Steve Coogan is asked to test out a giant fake womb for a scene later in the movie (that doesn't actually make it into the "movie"). As he is lowered head first, complete with his 18th century costume, into a big pink uterus model, he has an argument with the production assistant about how he is positioned.

"[Mark, the director] wants it to be as realistic as possible," they say in defense of having him upside down.

"He wants realism. Yeah. I'm a grown man, talking to the camera, in a womb." Coogan yells back, through the plastic window, still stuck in the grossly overlarge and pink fleshy cavity.

Visually and in words, it's a great summary of the sublime ridiculousness of this movie.

Snow Patrol - 24 Jul 2006 - Enmore Theatre

So, let's recap: cute rock boys with dry senses of humour and Scottish accents playing guitars and singing awesome songs = a good night.

The lead singer, Gary Lightbody, made me giggle like a charmed schoolgirl - it's partly the accent, and partly because he sounded so natural at drawing the audience in. He chatted to the them throughout the night, with extended riffs about being in Australia and how things weren't what they expected; from the rain ("we didn't think you got that here") to the fact they still hadn't seen any kangaroos ("[Nathan, the guitar player] got punched in the face the other day for saying kangaroos don't exist. Discuss. [longer pause as audience yells various answers] Well, we haven't see any ...ergo."), to attempts at surfing ("Well when I say surfing, I mean swallowing a lot of sea water, but hey, at least I didn't get eaten by a shark.") Also, he plays his guitar and bounds all over the stage like he's possessed.

Onto the music. Gary's voice has been plagued by nodules/polyps, and it was kind of noticeable. He started off by saying "I shouldn't really say this 'cause it's kind of admitting defeat, but I've not been feeling...well, nevermind. My voice hasn't been the the best the last couple of months, so sing along if you know the words." And usually, it meant at the beginning of each song he would sound a little off key and hoarse, but usually by the end it would warm up and become a lot better, apart from the odd high note. The concert itself followed a similar pattern - the energy wasn't quite there at the start, but it really hit its stride after the first few songs and it was so awesome in the songs people knew best when everyone stood up and clapped and danced and sang.

I was estatic when they played my two favourites back to back, especially because Somewhere A Clock is Ticking isn't that well known (as evidenced by the suddenly quieter crowd) but I just love this song and it's weird fluttering and clockwork rhythms behind the falsetto in the verses and the choir-like chorus building and building. What I love about the songs are that they are so melodically dramatic, rises and falls with the emotions while retaining a lush beautiful and catchy sound, and paired with Make this Go On Forever, I think I made a fair few happy squeaks as the beginning chords of each song rang out.

A real crowd favourite was Run, which sounded great and had this crackling energy, and at the end it was just really sweet - they kept playing and the audience just launched as a whole into one last repeat of the chorus and the band just looked so chuffed at the response.


Spitting Games
Wow
Chocolate
It’s Beginning to Get to Me
Headlights on Dark Roads
?
Chasing Cars
Shut Your Eyes
How to be Dead
Somewhere A Clock is Ticking
Make This Go On Forever
Ways and Means
Run
You’re All I Have

Open Your Eyes
?

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 20 Jul 2006 - Enmore Theatre

The band is known for being crazy and having really energetic shows, so I was a little apprehensive of the crowd and just really unsure of what to expect. The band came on a little late (about 10:15pm) and played a relatively short set for an hour, almost half-half from their two albums. And though Karen O sounded...spacey...the show was pretty tight and had a real energy to the sound.

Her voice was not always in tune, but it worked with her vocal style and the music, and it was still really lovely during Maps. They played it with the full backing at first, then Karen O said they were going to try something they'd never done before because she felt like it (I may have taken a few obscenities out for that paraphrase) and that was a great acoustic version of Maps, just her voice and an electric guitar, and it really is a great love song, with an indie rock feel. And the band seemed like they were having fun, with Karen O throwing herself all over the stage (without any mishap) and wearing crazy sparkly pompoms on her head and at one point spinning half a disco ball on her head in time with the music. All in all, a fun experience.


Phenomena
Date With the Night
Art Star
Way Out
Cold Light
Modern Romance
?
Gold Lion
Cheated Hearts
Dudley
Maps
Maps (acoustic)

Warrior
Y-Control

Death Cab for Cutie - 16 Jul 2006 - Home

A strange choice of venue, sparse with minimal security, but that said, it was such a small space that the concert felt really intimate.

The support band was Belles Will Ring, who I've never heard of before. All through their set, I had this niggling feeling that they sounded like some other band, and that was the problem with them - while they were a perfectly competent and decent rock band, they sounded so generic as to be unmemorable while inoffensive.

Death Cab came on with minimum fuss, just four unassuming guys on a small stage. But they played awesomely, the rhythm section loud and strong and great, the band sounded tight and together, and Ben Gibbard's voice sounded excellent over it all. Even with the softer songs, they have the ability to build this wall of sound, warm and enveloping and strong.

Marching Bands of Manhattan
The New Year
We Laugh Indoors
Title and Registration
President of What
Soul Meets Body
Summer Skin
Crooked Teeth
Company Calls
Company Calls Epilogue
Photobooth
A Movie Script Ending
Styrofoam Plates
Blacking Out the Friction
All Is Full of Love
Expo 86
The Sound of Settling

I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism

The Living End - 12 May 2006 - Hordern Pavillion

I've been wanting to see the Living End for years, and they didn't disappoint on Friday night. High energy atmosphere, awesome playing and mostly catchy tunes - what more could a girl ask for? Apart from the insane crush at the start of the concert and the fact I caught about 7 glimpses of the band in total, it was a great night.

I did jump around a lot, not just because the music dictated a pretty good mosh, but in trying to see better; this big guy in front of me (who seemed like one of maybe ten people who were our age and up, GAH) noticed and indicated he'd pick me up for a bit if I wanted. So I hopped on, wobbled perilously and I think actually made some kind of noise that was interpreted as a "whooo!" (I'm not sure if that was what I was thinking though, heh) and took a blurry photo from the vantage point and had a quick scour of the massed crowd below. Very cool. This guy also held my camera up a bit so I could take some video. I'm not sure if he was just very very nice, or rather annoyed at having this little Asian girl bouncing up and down behind him with her camera in the air, so. But anyway.

The music was mostly songs off the new album (State of Emergency - pretty much everything *except* my favourite track, Order of the Day) with a few old favourites chucked in. The absolute best thing was the jamming, extending familiar songs with awesome, really tight playing. The highlight was the rockabilly track because it was just excellent listening to them and wondering how the hell they can play that fast, that well, and so in sync with each other. Of course, with the really popular older singles, the crowd just went nuts all over again and ramped up the energy levels. I was dripping sweat after the first song and by the end I was dripping with everyone else's sweat.

All in all they were lots of fun, and completely worth seeing live. I got to hear old favourites, act like I was 16 again, and even got sold on a few of the newer tracks.


Who's Gonna Save Us
Save the Day
I Can't Give You What I Haven't Got
We Want More
No Way Out
Monday
One Step Behind
Black Cat
All Torn Down
Medley of older songs (incl. From Here On In and English Army)
Prisoner of Society
'Til the End
Wake Up
(rockabilly country thing)
Long Live the Weekend
?
Roll On

The Room
West End Riot

Kanye West - 26 Mar 2006 - Hordern Pavilion

Kanye came on around 9, and it ended just before 10:45pm. He sprained his ankle pretty early on in the set and there were lengthy breaks where he would go offstage; I didn't see it happen (frankly, I didn't see much at all given the average height of the audience) but he came on after one of the breaks, which I thought were really stretched out "costume" changes - he went from a light blue coat to a gold shiny coat to the red Sgt Pepper type coat - to explain his accident and to call for a "Hennessey and coke" to help with the pain.

The concert overall was good, fun. There were plenty of opportunities to dance, and Kanye West, despite the arrogance in his publicity, is a well-spoken nice guy, and an almost subdued performer (though that might just be the pain and the alcohol). When he was on, particularly in the really well-known, more energetic songs, it was awesome; even in the unfamiliar or quiet songs, there was usually a beat to dance along to. The set was oddly punctuated - apart from the long rest breaks for Kanye, a lot of the songs were cut short as there were no special guests, so all his collaborations would be cut just to leave the choruses and Kanye's raps. He likes his mini-orchestra of strings a lot, and apart from being a nice accompaniment, he had them perform almost classical sounding versions - of Diamonds are from Sierra Leone, and the famous Bittersweet Symphony riff that he did an impromptu rap over.

Not a set list, but songs played:

Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Wake Up Mr West
Heard 'Em Say
Gold Digger
Drive Slow
Roses
Addiction
Hey Mama
Gone
Jesus Walks
Through the Wire
We Don't Care
All Falls Down
Spaceship
Slow Jamz
Bring Me Down
Touch the Sky
Rock With You (Michael Jackson)
Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
Take On Me (A-Ha)
Stand Up (Ludacris)
H to the Izzo (Jay-Z)
This Way (Dilated Peoples)

STC: John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt

It's a very simple play - four actors in total, and a spartan stage that has a very clever backdrop doing triple duty as church, the garden between the convent and the rectory, and Sister Aloysius' office. The twistiness comes in the form of the complex and varied themes in the situation, and the solid dialogue between the characters.

Sister Aloysius is the principal of a Catholic school (up to our equivalent of year 8) in the 1960s in a largely Italian-Irish Catholic district. She's tough and principled, observant and sharp. A young nun, Sister James, is newly in charge of 8b who are six months away from graduation and high school. At the beginning of the play, she has a meeting with Sister Aloysius, where she gets a dressing down of her rather enthusiastic and empathetic teaching from the much more formal older nun, and also a veiled warning to be on the lookout for anything unusual in regards to her class. Sister Aloysius won't elaborate, for fear of putting ideas into Sister James' head, but she is very insistent on asking about the welfare of their newest student, the only black kid in their midst.

Later, Sister James almost unwillingly tells Sister Aloysius that Father Flynn, the charismatic and popular parish priest, has become a mentor to the boy, calling him in for a private meeting that results in the student coming back to class seemingly upset and with alcohol on his breath. Sister Aloysius is sure this indicates that Father Flynn is having an inappropriate relationship, confirming her suspicions. Sister James is then wracked with the doubt of having told Sister Aloysius this news as she is not at all certain that Father Flynn is guilty of anything.

In a great scene, Sister Aloysius sets up a meeting between herself and Father Flynn, with Sister James as an unwilling chaperone, and confronts Father Flynn, who angrily denies the allegations, and comes up with a plausible explanation that does not implicate him except in his cover-up of a misdeed of the student's. He later manages to turn Sister James to his side completely, even as Sister Aloysius tries harder and harder to find proof that he is guilty of pedophilia. She even talks to the student's mother, only to be confronted with a very different kind of parenting - the mother knows her son is "that way" inclined, and Father Flynn is a blessing because he spends time with her bullied child, and she refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing by the priest.

Up to this point, we are definitely asked to sympathise with everyone but Sister Aloysius, who seems to be putting on an almost hysterical witchhunt against a man who appears to be very noble and good and hard done by. Even with the shadow of pedophilia over the whole play - the uncomfortable hindsight that there *were* many cases of hidden abuse within the Catholic school system of priests against students and altar boys in that era of 'don't ask, don't tell' - it's hard to believe that Sister Aloysius with her black-and-white sense of justice and cold exterior is in the right.

In the pivotal scene, Sister Aloysius butts heads with Father Flynn for the last time. She tells him that she talked to a nun from his last parish, that she knows this is his third parish in the last five years, that she knows he has a past of misdeeds. Father Flynn doesn't admit guilt, but she tells him she expects him to resign, and we leave the scene with him telephoning the bishop.

At the end, we find out that Father Flynn has left their parish. Sister Aloysius admits that she lied about finding out about his past parishes, but the fact that Father Flynn leaves on hearing this news is proof that he *was* guilty. However - the kick is that instead of leaving with his reputation in tatters, Father Flynn has been 'promoted' to a new parish and a new school. We leave with Sister Aloysius finally showing her compassion and human-ness, breaking down in tears as she admits that she now has doubts that she did the right thing. It's an entirely depressing ending, and yet, entirely fitting for the scope of the story and themes.

Who is the monster? For most of the play it seems to be Sister Aloysius - holding on to out of date rules, the old Roman-Catholic ways of heirarchy and starched appearances - but in the end, it's harder to say who is right and who is wrong, who is the more human and kind and compassinate and caring.

The actress playing Sister Aloysius, Jennifer Flowers, is very good. She makes her a zealot for most part, outwardly hard, but in a way that makes her revealed humanity by the end completely believable. She is the same person throughout, it just takes a deeper look and understanding to see what she does has motive in the right place. Alison Bell plays the young nun well as sweet and confused. Christopher Garbardi, as Father Flynn, slipped up a few times - accent changes, flubbing a line here and there - though he has a difficult job pulling off the likeable swagger that looks a lot more like arrogance in the safety of the patriachal church system by the end.

Brokeback Mountain (2005; d. Ang Lee)

I think the collection of stories the original comes from is one of best-written, most beautifully and sparsely put pieces I've ever read, and I mostly love all of Annie Proulx's works. So high expectations? You bet. Especially as all the reviews I'd read were very positive - Ang Lee's direction, the cinematography, Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar, fine cast of actors, and so on.

So was I disappointed? A bit, as could be expected. It is a rather beautifully shot film - in parts, and mostly the right parts. Brokeback Mountain itself, and the experiences the two boys share on it that we see in the first third of the film, is as peaceful and oddly idyllic as it needs to be, that haven for everything these two guys can't find in their day-to-day lives. They've captured this contrast well, as their lives are seen through glum boxy houses, peeling paint, faded marriages; but as we follow these little failures in both men's lives, it's so faithful and detailed and mundane that it really drags the pace of the movie to plodding, and the beauty of Proulx's quick-fire, to the point descriptions just slips away. With that, some of the emotional heart went too, for me. I was told of many people who left the theatre sobbing after the film, and I saw a few women wiping away tears as they left, but I wasn't touched, not like I was after reading the story.

It starts like this: Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are two young guys who meet one summer up on Brokeback Mountain, where it's just the two of them, some amazing scenery, and lots and lots of sheep. Ennis is reticent and withdrawn, raised by his siblings and having lost his family ranch in childhood. Jack is the more genial of the two; and he wants to be a rodeo star, wants his father to acknowledge him in some way. One night, while sharing a bedroll to get out of the cold, they start a physical intimacy that grows into something more, and makes something less of their lives away from each other for the next twenty years. They leave each other at the end of the summer with no promises and less words, but after four years - Ennis has married his childhood sweetheart Alma, Jack a rodeo queen with a rich succesful daddy - they meet up again and rush head along into the affair again, leaving everything else in their lives to crumble like ashes. They snatch weeks three to four times a year, ostenibly on fishing trips, but instead travelling and staying on lonely landscapes across America to be with each other without anyone else finding out about their business.

Jack strays, frequently - Jack comes to accept his nature, closested as he keeps his affairs - but Ennis fights it all the time, never wants any other man than Jack and even then, hating himself for it. Even while pushing his wife away with his bottled-up anger at himself and the world, distancing himself from his daughters, poisoning his relationships after his divorce because he can't be himself and he can't be what Jack wants to be. Heath Ledger is wonderful in this role - he swallows his lines with the reluctance to the outside world that is in everything Ennis does, then lets the frustration out in measured scarily intense release - anger, sorrow, the oddest moments of happiness.

A measure of a good experience is the way it stays in the mind, or in the heart. While the movie as a whole doesn't have the staying power of the story that it comes from, there are moments in it - a flashback of why Jack continues to want Ennis over the years and years of being rebuffed, that perfect embrace before a fire; Alma's sad eyes flashing with the things she's always wanted to accuse her ex-husband of but never could (Michelle Williams, also wonderful); all these moments with the spark of the story in them - that kept coming up in my mind later, something to chew on and think about and be affected by. And so I think the film understands the story, even with its faults in how they retell it for film, and when the telling is not so pedestrian the movie really is very good; just the whole is not as great as it could've been.

Backstreet Boys - 30 Jan 2006 - Sydney Entertainment Centre

April and I slid into our seats about 10 minutes before BSB were on and the ent cent was already quite full and excited. The audience was older than expected at your average teeny-pop concert; my theory is, Backstreet Boys aren’t hot enough now for a great deal of teens, but they still hold a lot of memory for teens in the last ten years (ie. people around my age, in their 20s).

There wasn’t a huge build up before the actual start – it went dark, music started playing, some video montages flashed across the giant screens. Then, pretty much straight into The Call with its dramatic lightning, opening chords, and some pyrotechnics (it’s not a pop concert without fireworks), which suited the big stadium atmosphere. The concert itself wasn’t too flashy, it was mostly just the five guys wandering all over the stage, the band behind them, and the occasional effect – strobe lighting, lasers over the crowd, videos on the screen. Not overwhelming, added to the overall feel of the concert, didn’t detract from the guys and the music.

Each of the guys got at least one moment in the spotlight on their own. Howie pretty much only piped up for a welcome to Sydney (as with all big concert performers, they felt the need to make “Syyyyyyyyyydney Austraaaaaaaaalia” calls every now and then), and then he didn’t much make his presence felt for the rest of the night. I think he only got one solo of note. After More Than That, Brian did his bit, and I think he had the best audience banter going on – he was lovely, absolutely sweet and gorgeous and relaxed in his attitude and looks and voice, the whole night. I can definitely see why he’s a lot of people’s favourite BSB member now. He went back in time, calling out each album from Never Gone all the way to the eponymous album, and asked the audience each time to yell if they owned it (and after each yell, he’d go, “Oh, I’ve got that one too!”) Then when he got to the first album, he pointed to some girls and said, “You guys weren’t even born then!" He then got the audience to sing along to We Got It Going On from that first album, which was a partial success – everyone knew the chorus but faltered after that.

After that, he segued into asking everyone if they wanted to hear Nick play the guitar tonight. Obviously they did, and over the screams Nick walked out with an acoustic guitar, and after a very cute intro where Brian mentions that Nick just turned 26 and starts singing a little birthday ditty they start Climbing the Walls. But Shape of My Heart was when the audience really started to get into it as a whole. It was a great concert for the audience sing-a-long. In the video for I Want It That Way, I can clearly hear April asking, “Why is this song so popular?” because the audience participation went nuts. Siberia was terribly corny (“My heart spent time in Siberia…”) and they added to the unironic earnestness with fake snow, to my immense amusement. They then followed this up with All I Have to Give, complete with white suits and fedoras, and of course, the hat dance.

Actually, the dancing was all of the good. There wasn’t as much of it as could be expected – quite often you had the lead doing the solo and the other four doing some simple dance movies behind him - but for some songs there were full routines of co-ordinated dancing (such as for Larger Than Life). Also, there was some really cute moments from the guys. Nick wasn’t looking his best last night, and he was very incoherent in his audience speech/banter, but he was so cute rocking all over the stage - there’s many a video where he’s either twirling around, or air-guitaring, or collapsing onto his knees for no good reason but emoting.

They finished with two ballads with Kevin on a grand piano (Weird World, Incomplete) and the other guys circled around it on stools. After the shortest wait, they came back on for a planned encore of Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) which was the perfect song to finish on – energetic, defiant, fun.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this concert. I had this big grin on my face from start to finish; they were charming and cute and sang really nicely; in return, I sang tunelessly to everything I could; they played hit after hit and all my favourite ballads which was greatly nostalgic, then they made me like all the new songs too; and when it finished I wanted to listen to all the songs all over again (and I did, when I got home). You can’t ask for a much better concert experience than that.

Set List

The Call
Beautiful Woman
More Than That
Climbing the Walls
Shape of My Heart
(video - Don't Want You Back)
The One
I Still
I Want it That Way
Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely
Larger than Life
Siberia
(video - We Got It Going On)
All I Have to Give
As Long As You Love Me
I'll Never Break Your Heart
I Just Want You to Know
Crawling Back to You
Drowning
Quit Playing Games
(video - Never Gone)
Weird World
Incomplete

Everybody (Backstreet's Back)

Nigel Kennedy - 27 Jan 2006 - Opera House concert hall

I enjoyed the music - it was supposed to be a program of six Vivaldi concertos, but there was some Bach thrown in, and I really don't think there is much that can be topped by a good performance of Bach (played by a chamber orchestra complete with a harpsichord and a rather cool Baroque guitar).

However, Nigel Kennedy and his overwhelming ego got in the way for a large part of the night - or am I being a bit cruel? After all, his flamboyant performance seems a rather large part of why people go to see him, and there were many many of his fans last night, as demonstrated by the giggling women in the front row who had their hands kissed many a time by Mr Kennedy himself.

Other hijinks that got on my nerves: the weird fist touching thing he's obviously picked up from watching one too many gangst music videos and thinks is cool and completely overuses; the encouragement for the audience to clap overenthusiastically after every damn movement (ARGH!); the very very drawn out end that extended the concert for another torturous fifteen minutes with his "tribute" to Jimi Hendrix; MORE prolonged clapping, and then more and then...you get the picture.

The music just got lost in that experience, but I did appreciate Vivaldi a little more after the performance, and I seem to be particularly fond of his first movements as a whole, which are very energetic and fast and awesome.