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
Monday, May 15, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
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)
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)
Thursday, March 23, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, February 3, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
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)
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)
Saturday, January 28, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005; d. Nick Park, Steve Box)
This is hands down the most enjoyable movie I’ve seen this year, laughing from one end to the other; loving the visual style, the terrible puns and the complete lack of self conciousness about it, the sly homages, the visual jokes, the nudge-nudge-wink-wink humour that is a touch old-fashioned while being too racy for the kidlets (it’s ok – they’ve cleverly buried it all in a cloud of innuendo and sight gags). The animation is great and as always, so very impressive considering the work that must go on to produce a mere 3 seconds of film, the artwork is beautiful and nostalgic, and the bunnies! Oh the bunnies! I may have made so many girly squeaks at the sheer cuteness of some scenes.
As the movie begins, Wallace and Gromit are found to be operating a successful pest control business (Anti-Pesto, heh), protecting the village’s prized vegetables from the voracious rabbits in the neighbourhood in the most humane and ingenious ways. However, Wallace’s inventing gets the best of him, and an experiment with a mind-control device, a vegetable-crazy rabbit, and moonlight soon leads to a humungous dangerous beast on the loose. Wallace and Gromit are called to unwittingly track down the monster of their own making in order to allow the biggest social event of the year – the giant vegetable contest – to go ahead at the Tottington estate. Lady Tottington herself is a great believer of Anti-Pesto’s humane rabbit solution, as well as a growing fan of Wallace himself, much to the disgust of her gung-ho fiancé, Victor, a throwback to the mustache twirling villains of old who would rather shoot all the fluffy things instead. All these elements collide in a frantic, clever, funny chase against time and Victor and his desire to hunt, and the were-rabbit’s need to feed.
As the movie begins, Wallace and Gromit are found to be operating a successful pest control business (Anti-Pesto, heh), protecting the village’s prized vegetables from the voracious rabbits in the neighbourhood in the most humane and ingenious ways. However, Wallace’s inventing gets the best of him, and an experiment with a mind-control device, a vegetable-crazy rabbit, and moonlight soon leads to a humungous dangerous beast on the loose. Wallace and Gromit are called to unwittingly track down the monster of their own making in order to allow the biggest social event of the year – the giant vegetable contest – to go ahead at the Tottington estate. Lady Tottington herself is a great believer of Anti-Pesto’s humane rabbit solution, as well as a growing fan of Wallace himself, much to the disgust of her gung-ho fiancé, Victor, a throwback to the mustache twirling villains of old who would rather shoot all the fluffy things instead. All these elements collide in a frantic, clever, funny chase against time and Victor and his desire to hunt, and the were-rabbit’s need to feed.
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