Alpine

On Thursday night I was lucky enough to catch Alpine play at The Corner Hotel in Richmond, with my close friends Leisha & Scott. And...they were AWESOME! This is the second time I have seen them play, I predict big things in this bands future.

Tweet

A tweet from Patience :)

My close friend Leisha went along to the Ballarat and Geelong (The Grates) gigs and I made her some special hair clips that Leish was kind enough to pass on to her. I am so excited that she "loved them" xo

The Grates

 

I have been trying to blog about The Grates gig I went to on Halloween for days now, but I have been lost for words. There's no words to describe how fucking incredible the experiences was! Seriously it was the best gig I have ever been too!!! And that's saying a lot, I have been to some amazing gigs! 

It's the second time I have seen The Grates perform - the first time was in 2009 at the Forum, and I was blown away that time too. This time was even better, the energy in the bar was electric! Every person in the venue - was pumped! No-one was standing still, everyone was moving and jumping to the music. 

I attended the gig with three of my friends; Leish, Scott and Rob. Leish and Scott have been exchanging tweets with Patience - the lead singer from The Grates for months now. About cats, beer and all sorts of cool things. So Leish is awesome (insert the word stalker here) and we arrived at outside the Hi-Fi bar in Melbourne around 5.30pm. The doors didn't open until 7.30. Early is a total understatement. And you know what, The Grates walked pass us and Patience stop to talk to Leish and I got to shake her hand. Leish and Scott had made Patience a present - schoonerslayerz (twitter thing) tshirt! And she loved it and put that tshirt on, and had her picture take with Leish. 

So an hour in a long line later we enter the bar and sealed prime position in the front row of the stage. We watched and swayed to the first support band Loon Lake - they were good! While waiting for the next band Patience came into the crowd and up to the front row and handed Leish and Scott some beers we chatted to her for about 5 mins before anyone else around us noticed who it was! The next band came on Last Dinosaurs, the lead singer was wearing coolest poncho!

The Grates arrive on stage dressed perfectly for Halloween in white with red blood splatter - and played the best gig ever! Patience is awesome in every way! She high fived our little group during one of her songs, I wish I could remember which one but it was days and two bottle of wine ago now. I got some of her some of the fake blood on my arm when she was crowd surfing. I was never going to wash off  - but I decide to be a grown up and showered for cup day other wise I would have smelled at BBQ!

Next time The Grates are playing somewhere near you - make sure you go! Meanwhile see The Grates Tour Blog!


Pic above - taken by Scott Triffle all mine were blurry :)

The Jezabels

On Friday night I saw The Jezabels perform live at The Forum in Melbourne with my friends; Leisha, Scott, Meredith and her sister Tania.

The Jezabels were awesome!!! Hayley Mary has such a powerful stage presence and a unique voice.  The fact that they are an Aussie band makes them even better.

The support bands are great too; Alpine and Hey Rosetta.  I especially liked Alpine - I can wait for them to release an album.

Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe 

Friday 30th September 2011

Pier Live

Birds of Tokyo

 

On Friday night my husband, myself and our four friends; Meredith & Ash, Leisha & Scott saw the Birds of Tokyo perform live at The Forum in Melbourne. It's the second time I have seen them play. And they rocked!!!

Kimbra Surpise

Support Band?

Lee and I

Reuben & Garry

Kimbra

Two weeks ago my hubby and I were drinking red wine on a school night - so naughty I know! When we came up with an exciting plan to surprise my best friend Lee and her husband Garry with Kimbra tickets.

On Friday night we headed into Port Melbourne to pick up them up, we made a pit stop at Dumplings Plus for dinner. It was delicious! We walked the five blocks to The Forum and almost got inside without them seeing who was playing. But Lee was way too observant and saw the poster on the way in.

We got some beers at the bar and headed into the crowd,  found a good spot to stand and caught the last couple of songs of the support band (oops I can't remember who they were, but they sounded good).

Kimbra came on stage and oh my god, she sounded amazing. Such a strong powerful voice. She looks so girly in a pretty pink frilly dress. After a few songs she had a costume change and came out wearing a sweet red dress looking like a flamingo dancer. She was so cute and funny. So adorable really! I loved seeing her quirky personality come though on stage.

It was such a wonderful night. My best friends, good food and awesome music. Nothing beats the feeling live music give you. Food for the soul! I have a more gigs coming up in the next two months, Birds of Tokyo, Eskimo Joe, The Jezebels, and The Grates.

Cold War Kids

Last Tuesday night, my friend Mer and I headed to the Forum in Melbourne to see Cold War Kids live. I have liked the Cold War Kids even since Twilight the movie came out.  I was quite obsessed with all things Twilight and read a blog post about Catharine Hardwick’s favourite music.  On the list, was the Cold War Kids and I check out them out and fell in love with the music. It’s rather funny whenever I told anyone I was going to see the Cold War Kids most of my friends didn’t know how they are.  That happens a lot, must mean I have unique music tastes. 

We started the night with a beer and a pub meal and ended to the venue. We got the so early, it was almost empty.  The support band was great, an Australian band from Sydney. Unfortunately I can’t remember their name.  By the time the support act left the stage, the whole place was full. Mer and I were lucky and found our spot in six rows from the front. Then the Cold War Kids came one and rocked the house! They were truly amazing and played a fantastic range from their old albums. They also play a lot from their new album that doesn’t come out until 25th January.

{the good and the bad - all pictures taken by me}

A gig I will never forget...

The red curtain opened to reveal the stage, the crowd moved forward with anticipation. Orange, violet and magenta velvet or silk fabric draped around the walls, and a little table adorned with white candles blazing and incense burning. Finally Jeff Martin and his new friend Terepai Richmond appeared on stage.

My heart started to beat fast when Jeff began to play his guitar and sing; I was so close I could almost touch him. It was unlike any gig I have ever been to before I was enchanted by him. That dark sexy voice of his, and the beating of Terepai’s drums. Every song played was deconstructed with a few covers thrown in. I would hear a few lines of a Tea Party song I loved and then it would morph into something different that I have never heard of before. I almost died on the spot when he started to sing five to one by The Doors.

It felt so intimate, Jeff up on stage singing and talking to us about life and music like were we all just his friends. I was excited to hear he is now living in Australia and he is working on a new album coming next year. He talked about missing his wife and how happy he was to be going home to her. How sweet is that? This rock god is so in love with his wife. My favourite songs were Black Snake Blues, and the voodoo one (can’t remember what he called it)

For as long as I love I will never forget this gig, it was truly amazing! My only regret was forgetting my camera.

image found here

Looking forward to...

photograph found here

I am looking forward to seeing Jeff Martin on Saturday night at the Corner Hotel. If you don’t know who Jeff Martin is, he was the lead singer of The Tea Party. I am pretty excited, I loved The Tea Party and I have seen them live once before in my 20’s. He takes his lyrics into dark places, and I love that. & the Spanish guitar sounds so hypnotic!   He reminds me of Jim Morrison, he kind of look like him don’t you think?