Candy Man – Her Majesty’s Theatre

18 September 2007 – 6:30pm

Well tonight I had the pleasure of seeing Candy Man at her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide.

Candy Man is a story based on the life of Sammy Davis Jnr, it is told by Wayne Scott Kermond in the form of song and dance.

At the beginning of the show Wayne clearly points out that he is not impersonating Sammy Davis Jnr (for obvious reasons) he is simply celebrating his life, and telling the story.

As Wayne performed Sammy Davis Jnr’s songs, I was glad that he did not try to mimic Sammy;s unique voice. He performed each piece with his own interpretation and with feeling and much emotion. You could clearly see that Wayne idolised Sammy Davis Jnr and to be honest I think that Sammy would be moved and honoured at the performance given.

The first song performed was of course ‘Candy Man’ which is probably Sammy Davis Jnr’s biggest international hit. It was then followed by ‘Make-em Laugh’ where Wayne provided his own stand up humour by doing impersonations of celebrities such as ‘Humphrey Bogart’, ‘Sylvester Stallone’, ‘Jerry Lewis’ and ‘Michael Jackson’ – all were very well done and humorous.

The first half continued with songs such as ‘Rock a Bye’, ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ and ended with a ‘Sing Sing Sing’ where probably my highlight of the night was that the audience was treated to a wonderful tap dance routine performed by Wayne and his back up dancers who were ‘Veronica Beattie’, ‘Simon Lind’, ‘Tracie Morley’, ‘Troy Phillips’ and ‘Kelly Power’. This routine was wonderfully done and would give ‘Tap Dogs’ a good run for their money.

The second half was a little more serious, reflecting on some of the racial issues that Sammy Davis Jnr faced as well as the break down of his marriage. However the song and dance by the performers was brilliant and kept the audience wanting more.

Wayne Scott Kermond and his team of performers portrayed a wonderful compliment to Sammy Davis Jnr and his life achievements, and Candy Man was a wonderful performance to be enjoyed by all – young and old and for those who have no prior knowledge of Sammy Davis Jnr or his music.

A well deserved standing ovation was given by the audience to the cast and crew at the end of the performance.

Steely Dan - Adelaide Entertainment Centre
11 September 2007

Well for fathers day I bought dad some tickets to see Steely Dan at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, which put me in the good books at least for a little while! Mum didn’t want to go, so I had the pleasure of a father/daughter evening with the old boy!

Firstly I just have to have one little dig at the general population of Adelaide. The show started at 8pm, which was clearly marked on the tickets, but yet the poor staff at the Entertainment Centre was still having to show people to their seats with torches until interval at 9pm. Not only was it disruptive to the people watching the show, but also it must have been annoying to the performers.
Honestly! – If you have tickets to a show, for goodness sake rock up on time, it is only polite!

Ok, now that I have the off my chest, on to the show. Steve Cummings appeared first on stage, this was a surprise because we were expecting World Party as the only back up band. Steve kept it fairly simple performing classics such as “Who Listens to the Radio” he generally did a good job at warming up the approximately 3000 plus crowd.

At change over ‘World Party’ came on this was at about 8:40pm, the stage lights were kept dim with just a quick 5-minute instrument change. The band came on stage and declared that it was their first trip to Australia, and they received a warm welcome. I have not really heard of ‘World Party’ before, and therefore did not know their music. They did however do a cover of ‘Robbie Williams’ song ‘She’s The One’ – I am the greatest Robbie fan so this won me over instantly.

After an interval of about a half hour, Steely Dan came out for their first tour of Australia since they formed over 40 years ago. I guess the first notable major thing was the band. There were about 10 members, which consisted of brass instruments such as two saxophones, a trombone and a trumpet, these added instruments definitely gave a great jazzy rock feel to the atmosphere.

Steely Dan performed most of their hits including ‘Hey Nineteen’, ‘Green Earrings’ and ‘Asia’ which they did well, however I found that on occasions the backing vocalists sometimes drowned out the main vocals by Walter Becker and Donald Fagan. One song that did not do was 'Rikki Dont lose that number' which was kind of suprising since it was one of their bigger hits. I think the crowd was waiting for that song at the end and expected it in a oncor bit it did not happen.

In all the show was pleasant, the crowd (which seemed to be aged maybe 40 plus as a majority), remained seated, but was treated to a chance to step back to their youth and reminisce over music from albums of their past.