Powderfinger
Clipsal 500 After party - Adelaide

22 February 2008

Well alleluia Adelaide is Alive and buzzing with festivals and car racing! It is so good to be a part of the crazy time at this time of the year.

OK I admit I am not a car racing fan and I hold no allegiance to either Ford or Holden, but I do love the fact that a V8 car race can bring 4 nights of constant concerts to my lovely state! While there were shows on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday - Friday night was the one that grabbed my attention. Powderfinger, Kiss Chasey and Expatriate were the headline acts. I unfortunately missed Powderfinger when they did the 'Across the Great Divide' concerts with Silverchair so thought that the Clipsal 500 concert was the perfect way to rectify that!

The show started just after 7pm with an Adelaide Band named 'Special Patrol' I have not heard of them before, but they have apparently been doing the band scene around Adelaide for a few years. What a great opportunity for them to be a support band and to perform and get noticed by the people of Adelaide.

Next Expatriate came on, I have seen these guys around usually as a back up but admittedly not taken too much interest. They seemed to have a genuine fan base in the crowd and performed impressively. I did not know too many of their songs but nether less was entertained by their performance.

Kiss Chasey were next up, and were great performers. They kept the growing crowds attention and sang their songs with passion and and enthusiasm that you would expect at a live out door show. Kiss Chasey I guess had the advantage of coming on just before Powderfinger - most of the audience had arrived from their spots on the track, the alcohol had kicked in and people were there for a party atmosphere and everyone really wanted to see Powderfinger.

When Powderfinger finally walked on stage you could feel the electricity in the air. These guys have a number of hit songs and they treated the audience to all of them. They encouraged the audience to participate in singing 'My Happiness' and the noise from the audience was amazing. I was near the front of the stage but wonder how far away the crowd could be heard.

The show was threatened by the rain that decided it could not hold out any longer, and seriously I did not see a single person move - a few umbrellas went up (which is a crazy thing to do with people jammed in so tight at a concert) but Bernard Fanning and his boys just kept on singing and performing as if they were playing on a summers day.

They sang all of their hits such as 'Lost and running', 'These Days', 'Love Your Way' and the climax was the encore with '(Baby Ive got you) On My Mind'. I was truly entertained by Powderfinger as was the thousands of others that got to witness a truly fantastic all Australian act. I walked away from the concert with a husky voice from too much singing and screaming but continued on till the wee hours with the fringe opening party which was also being held in the cities east end!

The Other Woman
Adelaide Town Hall
Sunday 3 February 2008 - 7:30pm


Well Jazz Jazz Jazz give me lots of lovely Jazz!

Set in the back drop of the beautiful pipe organ of Adelaide Town Hall, we were presented with Deni Hines, James Morrison and their wonderfully talented big brass band.

When I heard that Deni Hines was performing Jazz, I kind of thought ok, she might also pipe out some of her pop as well, you remember hits like '(That word) L.O.V.E', I really couldnt picture her being able to pull off some Jazz songs. Not that I am much of a Jazz critic, because this was probably my first official Jazz gig.

Combined Deni and James Morrison performed songs such as 'Only Have Eyes For You', 'The Very Thought Of You', 'Its Just Too Damn Hot' and 'Someone to Watch Over Me'. All performed lovely and with such enthusiastic facial expressions from Deni.

One song that Deni and James performed that touched me was called 'Strange Fruit' by Billie Holliday. James introduced the song by proclaiming that it was a poem originally written by a Jewish teacher, who was so emotinally affected by a photo of linching of black man, penned the words to this haunting but captuvating song. Billie Holliday independantly recorded the song because no record company would allow it on their label, mostly due to the controversial nature of the lyrics. I have never heard the original version of this song, but was definatly moved by the words and emotion that Deni put into it.

This was my first performance seeing James Morrison live - I have seen him plenty of times on television, but have never really witnessed his personality. On stage he seemed like a very fun and down to earth person, he did tell a few shocker jokes but in all was very entertaining. He is obviously well known for his brilliant trumpet playing, but he proved that he is so much more than a man behind a brass instrument! He wrote the song for the show "Tired of Being the Other Woman" which was an entertaining piece, but he also gave the audience an insight into some of the technoligical advances in music. He performed on a digital trumpet, which was played like a trumpet but could make the sound of any other instrument, and he showed a keyboard that was voice activated (sorry I dont remember the technical names for these gadgets!)

James told the audience that he was an ambassador for a foundation named 'Hear the World' which was an organisation set up to raise awareness of hearing. I guess too often our senses are ignored and it is great when a celebrity gets behind these initiatives. I did what James suggested to the audience and I 'Googled' to find out more information and found the following website: http://www.hear-the-world.com/ it outlines that artists like Bryan Adams, Joss Stone, Moby and many others are also Ambassadors.
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Taken from the website is this quote:
"Hear the World is an initiative by Phonak that aims to raise awareness of the topic of hearing and hearing loss and to promote good hearing all over the world. The goal of the Hear the World Initiative is to educate the general public about the importance of hearing, the social and emotional impacts and the benefits of available solutions for those with hearing loss."
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Anyway to summarise the performance of "The Other Woman" it was very entertaining, and was great to see the performers all relaxed and on stage just enjoying them selves in doing what they do best. It was a lovely entertaining way to spend a Sunday evening.