Little Red- All Mine Tour

Last night I met up with Mary and her friend for dinner at HuTong Dumpling Bar (I still can't believe we managed to get a table) before heading to the Palace Theatre to see Little Red. The first act of the night was Passport for Amy, a young band that I found quite bland and boring.  They were almost a paint by numbers style of emo guitar rock- not good.  Next up was the new wave dance sounds of World's End Press.  While a lot of their beats sounded like they were slight variations of an assortment of famous 80s/90s songs, the band members were energetic with their continuous dancing and sounded good overall.

Little Red began their set with album opener "Get a Life." Most of the songs played were off the Midnight Remember album, including "Slow Motion," "Lazy Boy," and current single "All Mine." During the rarely played "Chelsworth," Taka managed to fall off his bass drum into the left side of his drum kit (the first time I've ever seen that happen).  We were privileged with two brand new songs and I was also happy to hear old favorite "Witchdoctor."  As expected, their break out single "Rock It" got the biggest audience reaction of the night.  I do wonder how the band view this song as it has been such an unlikely hit for them and has changed the type of audience they now attract.  The boys finished their set with "It's Alright," and then came out and played "Coca Cola" for an encore, which was the final song for the night.

Here's the video for "All Mine" which was shot around Melbourne (including near my work):

Commencement Addresses

It is graduation time in the United States, and universities compete with each other to get good commencement speakers.  For my graduation from UC San Diego, they created an all-campus ceremony so that then President Bill Clinton could give a policy speech on diversity in the United States.  Probably the most sought after speakers though are comedians.  There were a couple good ones this year with Conan O'Brien giving the commencement address at Dartmouth, and Stephen Colbert at Northwestern University.





I would also like to offer my congratulations to the very first class of third graders that I taught, who graduated from high school this week.  All the best for your futures.

Pajama Club

I will admit I was a bit skeptical when I heard that Neil Finn was turning late night jam sessions with his wife Sharon into an album and side project called Pajama Club.  However, when I heard a clip of their music, I got excited and feel that this could be one of the best things he's done in years.  Pajama Club played just their fourth show ever tonight at the Corner Hotel.  The opening act was young Byron Bay band Glass Towers who played a good set of catchy, indie guitar driven songs and reminded me a bit of Yves Klein Blue.

Pajama Club came out to big cheers from the nearly sold out crowd.  The majority of the set consisted of songs off their upcoming album, which have a real groove to them. They sounded great and were sort of like Neil's grittier solo material in style.  The only songs played in the set that had been previously released were the Finn Brothers track "Suffer Never", "Little by Little" off the last 7 Worlds Collide album, and "From a Friend to a Friend," which is their first single.  I really enjoyed the show and if you get a chance to see Pajama Club live, go for it.  After the gig I caught up briefly with Peter and Mark, and also saw Noel Crombie (Split Enz) and Alexander Gow (Oh Mercy) in the crowd.


The Pajama Club - 'From A Friend To A Friend' Teaser from Two Fish Out Of Water on Vimeo.

Yo Gabba Gabba! Live

When I was offered a free ticket to see children's tv show Yo Gabba Gabba! live on stage at the Palais Theatre this afternoon, how could I say no?  It was the second of three shows they were doing today, and the audience was filled with parents and their young kids.  The staging for the show was simple but effective with a large movable screen at the back and an open stage for characters to move and dance around on. DJ Lance Rock was exactly as he appears on tv (and is even like that in real life according to my friend). They did many of their well known songs, including "Name Game," "I Like to Dance," "Party in my Tummy," "Get the Sillies Out," "The Freeze Game" and "Bubbles" (complete with actual bubbles which had the kids going crazy in the aisles trying to pop them).  Another reason I went was that Little Red was the Super Music Friends guest for the Melbourne shows.  They sang their hit single "Rock It," which DJ Lance Rock liked.  They also had Biz Markie there to do Biz's Beat of the Day, and he got some kids in the audience to do some beatboxing with him.  Overall it was a very entertaining show, and Yo Gabba Gabba! is definitely one of the few tolerable children's shows on tv.