George and me in Elwood and the Double Bill (plus Phil Manning) in Footscray
8.12.22
GIG #1 It's not standard practice in Stop Press world to jam two gigs into the one sandwich, but it's nearly Christmas already and I'm feeling compressed.
Sixteen years ago, Bill, Enza and I were invited to Elwood to play a 100th birthday party for the Kennedys - that is Peter Kennedy's 51st and his wife Pauline's 49th birthdays amalgamated into one.
Last Saturday was their son Will's 30th birthday party and, perhaps a little nostalgically, George and I got the gig, but only after I promised not to die before or during the performance.
I was told that Will remembered the fabled 100th birthday party and had subsequently become rather fond of the Living on a Volcano CD, but I couldn't imagine Will's contemporaries knowing who these two old geezers were playing this unfamiliar fare in Pauline's back yard - so I just hoped we didn't antagonise all the young dudes and could escape into the gathering dusk with all our body-parts intact.
The weather was pleasant enough, (although I remember saying to George that I was over summer already) and we weren't loud enough to interrupt the birthday chat, so we were something approaching a hit on the likeability scale, despite the birthday boy being otherwise engaged when we played the one Volcano song of the afternoon.
I missed not having the Doc White's Eastman guitar to play with, but consoled myself that I will procure one in the New Year.
GIG #2 The venue for the last Spectrum/Madder Lake gig of the year seemed somewhat speculative. We have the perfectly wonderful Way Out West venue in Newport where we and our western suburbs' audience enjoy communing whenever we feel the urge and it seemed almost sacrilegious to experiment with the devil we don't even know.
So it wasn't too surprising that when we arrived at Hotel Westwood, in the already 30+ degrees heat, we found out the show had been relegated to the front bar, which wasn't a bad room, but it wasn't a special room either. The stage was quite small and I couldn't set-up my amp and pedals until after the Madders had vacated the stage - which was also when we were told we had only forty minutes left to play our set.
Curiously perhaps, this didn't disturb me too much and I probably enjoyed the energy of the abbreviated set as much as any Spectrum gig over the past twelve months. Peter Carolan, who'd come all the way to Footscray from Berwick to see the gig, opined that we were 'on fire'.
Sunday also happened to be my son Chris' 55th birthday and he and some of his mates (and carers) from Vermont St were in the room especially to see Spectrum play. Due to singer Michael O'Loughlan contracting COVID, Madder Lake took our spot following Phil Manning's opening set and Spectrum was 'promoted' to last act of the day, by which time the Vermont St contingent had already left. Fortunately Bren Mason had invited me up to play harp in the Madders' song Badlands, so at least Chris saw his old man do something musical. Anyway, it was great to see Chris on his birthday enjoying himself at the Westwood pub.
Incidentally, it was also great to have Phil Manning belatedly added the Sunbury 50th Anniversary bill. I so admire his guitar playing - he manages to extract the maximum variation from the blues, a format that can become boringly repetitive in a lesser player's hands. His own songs reference the blues but also suggest folk origins and it sounds like he's enjoying exploring his options.
I've jokingly suggested that the 50th Sunbury theme could have legs for another three years, there having been four consecutive Sunbury festivals. Be careful what you wish for..