Trip to Melbourne was comfortable, due mainly to the fact that fate had intervened by way of a blown head gasket in the '84 Tarago and forced us to hire a New car - Hmmmm. reliable, comfortable, a great drive, but then again not very Rock and Roll.... Arrived after midnight, found our apartment. Try fitting 6 in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment and then an extra couple on the way. Somewhat of a tight squeeze...
Wed 8th June - Manchester Lane, Melbourne.
Right in the middle of town this one - looked pretty classy on the internet and did not disappoint on arrival . More of a Jazz venue, which is not necessarily the best home for us, but a show is a show, and this one had its own type of excitement anyway as it was out first in Melbourne.. Supported by Bridget A'Beckett, who is releasing an album later in the year. www.bridgetabeckett.com - great singer. Pretty quiet night around 30 or 40 people, but seemed to go down well enough. Safely negotiated - the Melbourne tour was officially in full swing.
Thurs 9th - Cornish Arms, Brunswick
Cornish arms is around 10mins North of the city centre. More our style of venue than Manchester Lane I think. Were supported by a couple of great bands - Kanvas Grey (www.kanvasgrey.com) and Sixteen Millimetre. "16mm" are some friends who I met about a year ago whilst google-searching the internet for places to play in Melbourne. Ended up finding some Melbourne band website and shooting an email to about 5000 bands to try and get a gig down there - I think two responded to this random unsolicited spam email - one of which was 16mm -good on you guys! But aside from them being "Crazy emailing Sydney artist - Friendly" , I also really dig their stuff. They'll be touring some more -check 'em out. www.sixteenmillimetre.com .
Cornish arms certainly somwehat of a name venue in Melbourne - gets some great touring acts so a good oppotunity for us to have a headlining show there from out of town. Quite crowd, but an enjoyable show - will be back down there again pretty soon I imagine...
BTW - Cornish arms has some GREAT TUCKER!
Friday 10th - The Espy, St Kilda
Probably the best show of the trip - Heard the reports about the Espy being a music lovers Venue and it did not disappoint... Pretty full room to watch us despite being on first. This night we played before the Hampdens (WA), "The Winks" (Canadian folk act) and "The Red Paintings".
Sat 11th - HMV Burke Street
Time for some more in-store antics. Big posters around the Store heralding the arrival of the Renny Field Band- a bit bizarre somehow... Band staggered in at Various intervals - a few late nights starting to catch up with us here, but still managed to pull it off... Sigh of relief after this one as we had Saturday night off. Went and watched some AFL Saturday avo at the MCG, hit the town with friends Saturday night. How good is Melbourne! People talk to you!!
Sun 12th - HMV Chadstone & Eisternwick Hotel
Final day of the tour - kicked this one off at one of those massive shopping malls about 30mins from the city... Bit of a Bizarre in-store - couldn't set up near the entrance, and had to be content with the very rear of the store, which basically meant that no-one knew we were there.... But managed to win over a few folks who stumbled in by accident, so not all bad... One gig to go...
Eisternwick was a double-set gig - 2 hours of Power. Good to get through some material from the old CD which we haven't had the chance to play for a while. Pretty good crew in for a Sunday night as it was a public Holiday Monday the next day. Eisternwick reminds you of the typical Sydney sports-bar setting with the stage set up in front of the TAB screens overhead - only difference is in Melbourne they have grapsed the concept of "listening" to the band - and thankfully black curtains were draped across the front of the screens so we didn't have to deal with Bluey and his mate yelling at the TV because their greyhound got checked around turn 2... Gig seemed to go OK - the pub has asked us back to play another show at the end of August - so no complaints there...
Thanks to all of you who came along to a show on our first Melbourne trip. First of many this year I imagine... Looking forward to getting back down there late July with Serena Ryder, and then again at the end of August with the full band ....and September......).
All made it back to Sydney in one piece - thanks for asking...
That's all for now - be back soon...
