Wednesday 27 August 2008

Gig Guide

I went to the Basement in Sydney on Monday night to see some friends of mine perform. What a great venue this is – down stairs with exposed fire extinguisher pipes, dim lights and a earthy feel. The all wooden bar is up on a slightly raised area which is a great place to stand to watch the band over the sea of seated heads below and in front of the stage. I left work and went straight to Deb and Pete’s place, they were driving, and we headed off almost as soon as I got there. It is usually about 2.5 hours to the centre of the City from home and we didn’t hit too much traffic and got there in a little over that time. To our surprise we found a car park opposite the Basement and it only cost $4.50 for the night!! WooT

Inside we paid our cover fee and then arranged some nice seat to the side of the stage – both as we didn’t want to be right in front and so that we could be close enough to take photos and yell out at Bennie and Annelise. The Basement does food as well and we ordered some nachos and wedges along with our beers and a Strongbow for Deb! Oh and sometime around our arrival we said hi to Bennie and Annie and met the rest of the band for the night. Jacob, on bass, plays with Bennie James and the Hesitant Few and they also had a flute player along for the ride as well (I missed his name but Annie is trying to get as many players to back her music up as possible and this was his first time playing in the band – he did well!).

The first act for the night was a three piece girl, country style group – Raze n Waters. Guitars, and some percussion and great powerful vocals and nice cleavage… *what else do they need? I bought their EP for Anji (She couldn’t come working with Children does not lend itself to Very late nights!). Second act was a solo girl on guitar and vocals – she also had a guest trombone player, highlight of set was when the Trombone player joined her otherwise most of the songs sounded the same… too many of these acts around. Third up was a jazz style band, drums, bass, guitar and a guest didgeridoo player. This was elevator music and would be fantastic as a background to dinner or at an event. Not so good to keep the crowd interested!

Last up was Bennie and Annie, brother and sister. Bennie plays Guitar and Annie Piano (she is self taught and is fantastic). They played a mixture of each others original music (5 each and one they co-wrote) the music was so alive and changed between each track and moved with the audience. Both Bennie and Annie had such great repour with the crowd – the whole room wanted to listen to the music and got really into the songs. I may be a little one sided but they kick the arse of the middle two acts and – in everything from musicality and talent to crowd pleasing fun.

I took a heap of photo’s of Bennie and Annie and band using Deb camera so if I find them on Facebook or whatever I will add a link as I think I did good shots! Very chuffed with that!

So after the show we hung around for a few mins then left taking Bennie back to the Gong (it was on our way home). I was on high for the ride home and Bennie and I sat in the back and made jokes and really enjoyed ourselves a lot! No we really did – probably peed Pete and Deb off with our silly jokes and what not but who cares!!

So we got back to Pete n Debs around 2.45 I jumped in my car and was home in bed by 3.15 – up at 8 to go to work! What a life…

But much funness was had I'll insert Links when I finds them for you! Cheers

Sunday 3 August 2008

Anjel's New Blog

My Anjel has redesigned her blog and I think it looks great! So go check it out and support her run in the City to Surf for next weekend (10th August).

Cheers

Friday 1 August 2008

Melbourne 3

Getting our Game On… just wanted to say that… Anywho

We finally got to see what we came to Melbourne to see and that is the Game On exhibition – basically an exhibition of Consoles through the ages… From Pong to the On-Line game Pirates… (WTF?? – well I got to blow up a few Pirate ships that was fun and educational).

The exhibition was great – there was a large MAME mock-sole setup where you could wait in line and play almost anything… and every almost every other console that ever existed was there most of them in working order with all kinds of games that you could actually play. Daz was in his element telling us more then the small info plaque could tell us about both the consoles themselves and the games they were running.

A few highlights for the fan boys… I say STELLA – the man made prototype of the ATARI 2600 (I think) this was made large scale to see if all the bits and bobs worked before they miniaturised the whole thing for the home console. I think this was the place where the term “Computer Bug” came into existence (I will have to check Wikipedia for the facts - ) apparently the console suffered from a fatal error which turned out to be a real life bug stuck in one of the processor bits! UPDATE yes I was wrong it was from 1946 but it was a bug (a moth) and that's where the modern term comes from

I got to play machines that I had only previously heard about let alone seen – some good some bad some VERY bad… It makes me sad that I missed out on some of these consoles but then again maybe I would not be interested in them if I had had access back in the old days… who knows. All I know is that I am glad that I got to touch feel and play with these machines that enable me to play the games that I love. Without a market that these consoles forged (and many got lost in) we would not have modern gaming and the great times had by many people.

Now that I have gotten to the preaching stage I think I should publish and let the web world know about the great things going on at Game On…