Wednesday, January 19, 2011

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.

8 comments:

Mad Cat Lady said...

and did you like The Middle East?

They're from my town :)

Kettle said...

Very much, MCL. I actually discovered The Middle East before The National and was mightily stoked when I realised they were the support band for the night (it's the only gig I've been sitting attentively in my seat bang on 8pm when proceedings started).

Do you like them? Have you seen them play around town?

Mad Cat Lady said...

I've only seen them a couple of time - short free outdoor gigs and thought they were lovely - I've got their first cd but am ashamed to say I have never played it. It think I was in the middle of my slightly-scary-obsessive Augie March phase when their's were the only songs I was listening to. I shall have to dig it out.

Kettle said...

Slightly scary Augie March stage? Nah, too much love for a band is never enough, I say.

My fave Middle East songs are 'Blood' and 'The Darkest Side'. Let me know what you like when you find your album.

squib said...

Roxette? jesus

I included their song Hitting like a Hammer in a short story about a school ball. I wanted it to scream tacky (so I also included The Funky Cold Medina) but instead I got a long editing debate about whether is should be 'Roxette is singing...' or 'Roxette are singing' because while Roxette is a singular name, it designates a pop duo. In the end, after all that agonizing, the published version had a typo 'Roxettes is singing...'

Kettle said...

Ha, Squib! Clearly the typesetter must have been uber cool if he/she didn't know who Roxette is (although, can typesetters actually be uber cool?).

My favourite tacky Roxette line is: "Don't bore us; get to the chorus!"

Roight.

Michelle Walker said...

Ha you should NEVER be ashamed of a Roxette concert. Thats the shit stories are made from!!! Bragging rights i tells ya!!

Kettle said...

Dear Michelle, I hear you. Although, I also went to a Rick Astley concert... with my Mum... I think we can safely draw a line between Roxette and Rick Astley, eh!