Gigs and Gags

Last Sunday was Australian Mother's Day, which meant that whilst Gill hung out with the mothers (her mum, nan and sister) I had a few beers with the 'boys' (Wayne, Pete and Patrick - though Patrick, being two and a half, was on the wagon). In the autumn afternoon sunshine we spent a few hours relaxing outside whilst Patrick ate, drank and practised his baseball moves.

Last night we went out west to Windsor to see Jeff Martin, a Canadian guitarist, singer, songwriter and monumental narcissist, who was lead singer of the band The Tea Party. His music is best described as rock with a middle eastern influence. It's mostly pretty standard North American/Aussie fare which belongs back in the 1990s, and he's looking a bit past his best to be honest (I'm not sure he's realised this though). That said, I have to admit to being a fan of The Tea Party's biggest hits,The Bazaar:

We went with Sarah, one of Gill's best friends, her partner Michael, and her brother and his partner. Sarah is a massive fan (for whom Jeff was "free pass" material, apparently - or he was a few years ago, anyway). He has a reputation for being an amazing life performer - and I 'get' that - though this was not one of his finest, I understand.

Sarah and her brother queued for photos and autographs at the end of the gig. Thankfully, Gill was certainly not going to faun over an aged, never-quite-made-it rock star and was typically and very amusingly unfazed by the experience (much to Jeff's bemusement, I suspect). In the photo below 'Jeff' is on the right in the bandana with Sarah's brother, his partner and Sarah and Gill's head in the foreground. You might make out in the background the totally underwhelmed and slightly embarrassed writer of this blog....



The highlight of the evening, aside from an excellent rendition of "The Bazaar", was Jeff's massive ego. He told his usual story about 'dark times' in Istanbul/Ireland/Morocco/an opium den (delete as appropriate) where he had to "get away from himself" but which gave him the inspiration to write [whichever] song. I can't quite bring myself to describe the nature of the 'passinonate' song he played as an encore - but suffice to say that it left us all feeling slightly defiled. All quite extraordinary, but his ego was well worth the entry fee alone.

Tonight is gig number two of the weekend: The Cat Empire at the Enmore Theatre in the inner-west....