The National

We're back from our South Coast sojourn, which was very lovely and everything, but fark, any chance someone could look into the whole South Coast telecommunications thing? Eight days is a looong time to impotently press buttons on your phone with nothing but a 'No Service' message staring blankly back at you.

By day six I was actually enjoying watching the wrens in the beach-side garden; imagine, wrens.

Anyway, we're back and I can now happily post some photos from The National gig I was very lucky to go to before we left last week.

Thanks to my dear friend Dave (who gallantly offered his ticket), I found myself on Saturday night gorging on a pre-gig dinner of nachos and excitedly spilling my beer at a pub a block away from the Enmore Theatre where The National (preceded by The Middle East) were taking the stage.


Mystifyingly (from this 11-day distance in time) I took photos of the band playing several of their songs, as though the photos could transmit images and sound. Nonsensical, yes, but surely I'm not alone in doing this?

Anyway, here they are during their opening number, 'Runaway':


And again during 'Bloodbuzz Ohio':


And once again, magnificently, during 'Afraid of Everyone':


Sure you can't really see anything in these photos and they could, for all we can tell, be shots of Roxette playing live at the Sydney Entertainment Centre circa 1988 (a concert I did, for shame, attend); but if you can take my word for it (given the absence of any submittable evidence), it was a very, very good show, and the music was very, very good indeed.

The only regrettable part of the evening was the presence of this woman, sitting several rows in front of me, who I came to think of rather spitefully as 'That Bloody Annoying Woman with the Radically Out-Dated Bowl-Shaped Perm Who Appears to be Suffering From Some Kind of Finger-Based Tourette Syndrome That May Or May Not In Fact Be Her Attempt at Gettin' Jiggy With The Music':


Seriously, she would have waggled that finger about at least 900 times during the concert.

Here she is again, many, many hours later, still at it:


The only thing worse than the perm-headed finger waggling woman was this guy:


But at least he wasn't waggling his big head about.

Can you marry a band?*

I think I'm in love with The National, is all. They're playing Sydney tonight and tomorrow. How's this re: Matt Berninger, the lead singer:

The National's lead singer, Matt Berninger, is a baritone of the tallest order, a lurching, lanky charmer who awkwardly bumbles through live sets, yet somehow simultaneously exudes a cool, nonchalant attitude about the whole thing. Shambolic, metaphorically wart-ridden, and uncomfortably vulnerable, he's more interested in exposing weakness than projecting strength—more apt to stagger among us than tower above us.

[From here]

I would buy a ticket off a scalper just to see what "metaphorically wart-ridden" looks like. Wouldn't you?



Fark.

* Ramon, non-flibberty-gibberty hard-hitting political analysis about something to follow shortly.

Hello there, you're a very attractive blog reader and I'd like to buy you a drink

Bad blog pick-up line? Sorry about that. You see I'm all flushed with my short-lived summer fling over at Rita and Margriet and I'm so awfully glad to be back and you look so marvellously erudite sitting there at your computer and I just couldn't help myself.

Anyway, a very happy new year to you and yours. What have you been up to? We've been all over; well, if you consider Canberra and Sydney all over. We've eaten way too much, put some considerable work into reducing our collective familial sleep deficit, and most excitingly ordered a mini-tramp (which was delivered this morning - my God what have I done).

I even, even, cleaned up some of my paperwork which has been lying all around the house for the last ten million years.

AND I've listed 53 books for sale on eBay. As soon as I figure what to do with the other 400 surplus books currently occupying the buffet, dining table, lounge chair and living room floor Mr Kettle may stop frowning and start smiling again (but that could be some time off; sorry Mr Kettle).

Anyway, enough about me. What have you been doing? Reading? Penning ballads? Dusting your 2010 trophies? Trying out your new scientific calculators? Sitting on chairs? Buying puzzle mats? Tell me, do.