Last night, we went to see The Idea of North at the Independent Theatre in North Sydney. Quite simply, if you haven’t seen them live, or even heard their stuff… do yourself a favour and check them out as soon as possible.

Quote - ‘Australian Jazz sensation James Morrison has said of the group, “The Idea of North is the best contemporary a cappella group in the country and is quickly becoming recognised as one of the top groups in this genre in the world.”’

That is pretty much spot on. 4 disgustingly talented singers, songwriters and arrangers, their repertoire covers genres as diverse as jazz, pop, gospel - and often includes refreshing takes on familiar tunes. I randomly read an article about them in smh.com.au one day while I was working in Brisbane, went out at lunchtime to buy a couple of their CDs… and loved them ever since.

Live, they are an absolute hoot - lively on-stage, pitch-perfect singing, and wicked senses of humour.

Again, do yourself a favour and check them out - http://www.idea.com.au - Their next gig is at The Basement in Circular Quay, on Thurs 8th Nov.

Did a bit of shopping today. Found the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD for $66 at K-Mart, which I simply had to have. The better buy though, was what I bought as well - Missy Higgins’ album The Sound of White.

Now, I’d heard the single (Scar) on the radio a number of times and thought it was fairly pleasant and that I’d get the album to check it out. Well, I’m glad I did. I’ve been a bit slack lately with my music-listening. For a while now, I’ve been getting CDs and not listening to them much (and hence much less likelihood of being added to my “known good albums” list. You sometimes have to work at a particular album before it grows on you, and with my recent tendency to buy a stack of CDs at a time, I’m not as likely to leave a single disc in rotation to really get to know it.

Sometimes you find something that’s so damn good that you absolutely need to play the hell out of it. This one’s been on about 4 times today already. Granted, I spent a good portion of the day painting, so that helped it stay on.

Have a listen, I guarantee there’s a chance you’ll like it (well, I liked it, so obviously it’s brilliant).

Sit Right Back and hear a tale, of a hustler round my way
Who used to clock around the block, from where my grandma stayed
A Black BMW with Cribs to match, windows bullet proof
One Night he jumped out the car, and caught a Bullet in his Bubblegoose

Just a quick note about last night - Swifts won by a monstrous margin (30+ points) at the Superdome, a venue that seems to suck all the atmosphere out of the air by means of magic (or possibly voodoo) if you haven’t got it packed with 10,000 people.

But anyway, this post is all about the sensational Sarah McLachlan. The show was at the State Theatre in Sydney City - the first time I had been there, despite walking past it many times! It is a lavish old theatre built in the 1920s - absolutely amazing inside, though apparently because of its heritage listing, you are not allowed to stand or dance during performances. How bizarre.

Sarah McLachlan’s latest album, Afterglow (I talked about it at some point on my blog…), was her first in about 5 years, and this tour is also the first in a similar period. Tonight’s show was the 2nd, the first being in Brisbane last night, but you wouldn’t have picked it. SM and her band (a monstrous 8 people on stage!! Her, 2 guitarists, bass guitar, 2 keyboards, drummer, backing singer) pulled off a near flawless show with plenty of energy.

She played Building a Mystery. Oh, I guess some other songs too, but I got the one I wanted.

Postscript #1 - It was nice not to feel like the only idiot in Sydney (see my flight exploits, a few posts down). The person ahead of me in the queue had tickets to the show on the 24th.

Postscript #2 - It was also nice to get back to the car that was complete free of being broken into (see my post on the Jewel concert)

Well, he came, he saw, and he conquered, AGAIN. The last time John Mayer came to town, I had to go to all sorts of lengths to get tickets as they were all sold out by the time I realised that he was touring. This time though, I made advance bookings through the internet and scored pretty good seats. JM has been slowly moving up through Australia’s venues, last year he played at the Hordern Pavilion, and this show was at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

We got seats in the 2nd row of the first level of seating above the floor, not a bad view at all. Certainly better than sitting up in the ridiculous nosebleed seats. The Jay has been off roo-shootin’ for the last few days, so sadly she had to miss out. I wasn’t going alone though, I had Gemma and Gavin along for the ride.

We got there nice and early, as is my tendency. After dinner and a spot of Cold Rock - the yummiest ice cream in the country - we rocked on into the Ent Cent. The support act was a Kiwi singer-songwriter by the name of Brooke Fraser, who delivered a pleasantly surprisingly good set! She does a sort of pop-rock thing - her with acoustic guitar and her backup band with electric guitar, bass and drums. Kind of like Michelle Branch but a bit more rock.

She’s another player who does That Leg Thing that I do while playing guitar (the other one I noticed doing it was Jewel Kilcher at the Sydney Opera House).

Disarmingly amiable, Brooke chatted happily to the audience between songs and didn’t seem at all fazed by the big venue and crowd. “Just for you in the front row, I’m trying my hardest to keep my thighs firmly pressed together”, delivered with a straight face as she sat at a keyboard for her final song.

Highly recommended - I will have to track down her album when it is released. Or has it already been released? Hmmm.

Anyway. On to John Boy, who made the PYTs in the crowd waiting for an agonising three quarters of an hour before strutting out on stage. Mayer and co banged out a brilliant set, as expected. On his last tour I noticed that he had added a keys player to his band, but this time there were a couple more people, playing sax and trumpet in certain songs. I’m not sure it’s necessarily an improvement - his sound already being quite full enough, in my opinion - but bugger me if it didn’t sound pretty damn good anyway!

This time, I got the songs I missed from the Hordern Show (Something’s Missing, and Back To You), so I was going to be fairly happy no matter what. As usual, many songs had extended intros, lead breaks, longer rock endings and so on - this was great as it meant that the songs weren’t just carbon copy versions off the CD - or indeed, previous live performances!

One thing that I DIDN’T like though, was all the bloody screaming. When he walked on stage, when he started playing, when he started singing, when he stopped singing between lines, while he was singing, when he took off his jacket, when he drank some water, when he said something profound, when he walked across the stage, when he sat on the stage, and most of all, just when I thought my poor ears would get a break.

Fair enough, he’s popular with the ladies, but come on girls - some of us are trying to listen to the music!! A bit distracting when you’re trying to enjoy a groovy extended lead break and the hyperventilating hussies behind you are assaulting your ears with hysterical squealing.

Still, it was a highly enjoyable night - two great acts making it worth my $80.

I picked up this DVD yesterday (along with Three Amigos! for $12.95… Bargain!!). It appears to be taken from performances for “This Way”. Ah. In fact, the back cover says “Shot over two performances on a summer night just before the launch of her ‘This Way’ tour”. As I mentioned before, her solo acoustic performance at the Sydney Opera House was stunning, so I was quite eager to get this DVD.

Thankfully, many of the live performances here ARE a similarly intimate affair, just JK and her guitar - the first 9 songs in fact, with the first one sung without backing at all (”Per La Gloria D’Adorarvi”, which is, according to google, ‘by Giovanni Battista Bononcini (1670-1747), from the opera Griselda’. So there you go.)

It’s not till the last 4 tracks that the remainder of her band joins Jewel on stage, and she doesn’t give up her guitars until the last track, an extended “jam session” version of Who Will Save Your Soul.

Very cool, and worth a look if you like her work. The only disappointing aspect is the complete lack of any form of yodelling at all.

The last two weekends have been full of the joys of ripping - ripping of course in this case refering to the act of converting music from an audio CD to an electronic format… mp3 being the most popular, though I am using AAC, which is an offshoot of MPEG-4 I believe. Anyway. It takes about 10 minutes to do each CD, and I had 89 to do - my dad’s Classical Collection CDs. Adding in time to fix up the track names etc, it all amounted to lots of work.

Work of course that needed to be attended to every few minutes - you can’t just leave a stack of CDs on your desk and expect your computer to go through them all… Sadly.

I’m almost done now though. Right now, I’m inserting CD # 84.. Then I’ll have a stack of classical music to listen to! Very good for just playing in the background. And I’ve been meaning to get me some more culture anyway.

At least one good thing happened tonight. We went to see Jewel at the Sydney Opera House. Exciting on a few counts. Firstly, I’d never been inside the Opera House before (only been outside). Secondly, I’d never seen Jewel before. Thirdly, I’d heard good things about her current solo acoustic tour from my workmate Shane, who saw her last week in the Hunter Valley.

The Concert Hall is a nice little room, around 2500 capacity. The opening act was Shane Nicholson, formerly of Brisbane band Pretty Violet Stain. Shane did a short (30 mins or so) solo acoustic set, to set (hah!) the mood. Not a bad effort at all, I liked his songs, and he certainly sang and played well.

Onto the main event. I’ve always thought that the best way to determine whether a muso has what it takes to be classed as “talent” is to bung them up on stage with a single piano or guitar and let them at it. No backing singers, no session musos, no drum machine. Well, Jewel Kilcher did just that. Up on stage for almost 2 hours, with no accompaniment apart from her two guitars (only one of which was ever being played at any one given time, of course). Some of the songs really shine when reduced to a bare arrangement - especially the songs from 0304, which has decent songs partially defiled by overzealous production.

She sang beautifully, connected well with the crowd, kept up a busy (and sometimes very funny) rapport with the audience between songs and hardly hit a false note all night. Oh yeah, she also treated us to some yodelling. Quite well done too, as far as I’m able to tell. The setlist was haphazard and I suspect a little improvised, and mainly focused on older material, with the odd b-side thrown in for fun.

The conclusion is that yes, there is talent available in bucketfuls from Jewel, and she can prove it on-stage too. I’d love to see J-Lo, or Britney Spears, or Christina Aguilera, or whoever, try that.

And how could you not love a girl who has the honestly to admit to 2500 people that yes, she sounded like Kermit the Frog on some tracks on Pieces of You.

Hoorah! No more work! For a couple of weeks anyway. I think a nice quiet one in tonight watching the fireworks on TV. I am SO over this year.

Got the new Beautiful South album, Gaze. Definitely slipped under my radar, I wasn’t even aware that they had a new one out! Their last album was Painting It Red, released in 2001, I think. Looks like they have a new female vocalist, Alison Wheel, replacing Jacqui Abbott, for reasons that are quite unclear to me. Ah well. It’s only had a play or two so far, but I quite like it. It’s very Beautiful South, and that’s all that matters.

I have more linked goodies for you all, and surprise surprise, they are mostly Lord of The Rings related. For those of you who have not bothered to watch the movies, then I suggest you check out Molly J. Ringwraith’s most excellent Condensed Parody versions. For now, it’s only The Two Towers and The Return of The King, but apparently she is working on a Fellowship version. In fact, it’s even funnier if you HAVE seen the movies, and also know the books fairly well.

Next up on the linking board… Cassandra Claire’s LOTR Very Secret Diaries. More recent ones on her Live Journal. Hilarious, especially if you also think that there was a LITTLE bit too much “love” being shared around in LOTR.

Last night, went out to dinner with Shannon and others - she is back in the country for Christmas.. Photos below. Notice the very festive way in which the fabulous Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ restaurant has decorated (last pic)
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Obviously the “random” selection of music a jukebox plays if left on its own won’t be too good. The whole point of the default playlist is to piss you off so much that you pump money into it to make the shit music go away. While obviously not possible to cater for EVERYONE, surely the songs could be less lame?

Most of the time this afternoon (work long “lunch”.. nevermind) the jukebox was churning out some shockers. If it wasn’t rap-crap (and not good, decent hip-hop either, just contemporary charting “hits”) or the compulsory singalong gay anthems, it was just shit that you hear on the radio all the time. And even when it’s decent songs, they’re overplayed. In the 3 1/2 hours that I was at the pub, I heard Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the middle with you” FOUR times. And Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ mine” three times.

Honestly, it’s enough to make you whine and bitch about it for hours on end. Which we did. What happened to the good old days (for us 25-29 year olds) of the early to mid 90s with its good music. The Nirvanas, Pearl Jams and Chili Peppers of this world?

Video apparently not only killed the radio star, it ripped his guts out and played them like a harp. The music becomes secondary when record execs realise they can cover a weak single with a “hot” video. Shaking one’s booty is now obviously a viable alternative to having musical talent (or at least having members of your entourage who are able to look good shaking their booty on the video clip while you chill with your homies)

And when you DO go and want to play your own songs, half the time the numbers are all wrong and you end up getting Vanessa Amorossi when you actually wanted to hear Live’s “I Alone”.

It’s a sad, sad world.

ANYWAY. A couple of links for the people.

mrgadget.com.au - If anyone is wondering, I wouldn’t mind a USB memory card reader for Christmas…. And the USB massager looks good too.

The official rules of Backyard Cricket - Summer is upon us. Get ready for it by brushing up on your backyard cricket.