Bang On Live

Bang On is the weekly podcast hosted by Myf Warhurst and Zan Rowe that covers all things music, art, life and "farshun." As part of the Darebin Music Feast they did a live taping of the podcast at The Thornbury Theatre this afternoon, which was a sold out gathering of the Melbourne #BangFam.

Warming up the crowd was ABC journalist Virginia Trioli, who did a DJ set that had some members of the audience up and dancing. Then Myf and Zan came out and taped this week's podcast (episode 82), which covered topics such as the new movie A Star Is Born, Rihanna turning down the Super Bowl halftime show in support of Colin Kaepernick, and the pink fur Fendi scarf. Zan banged on about Holly Throsby's new novel Cedar Valley, and Myf reminded us about the real people behind true crime podcasts. They also had Virginia Trioli come up for a chat, and she encouraged us all to do something new every day.

We were also treated to a couple of extra things, including Myf and Zan's Year in Review, where they picked their celebrity of the year, think piece of the year, and farshun of the year. Then we got to watch an entertaining denim themed farshun parade of audience members, with the winner receiving a pair of flap chaps made by Myf (inspired by Janelle Monae's "Pynk" video). All in all it was a very fun afternoon and exciting to get to be a part of a live taping of Bang On.

Olympia- Star City Tour

Last night Belinda and I attended the second sold out Melbourne date at Northcote Social Club in support of Olympia's new single "Star City." It was nice to have an entire bill of female musicians for a change. We caught the second half of the set by opening act Merpire, who played as a duo. I really enjoyed their atmospheric and dreamy pop music. Next up was Eilish Gilligan, who started solo on piano for a few songs and then had her band join her for a more 80s electronic sound for the rest of her set.

Olympia kicked off the evening with "Somewhere To Disappear" off her last album Self Talk. The first half of the set featured other songs from the album, including "Tourists," "Honey" and my favorites "Different Cities" and "Smoke Signals." Once Olivia removed her kimono to reveal a sequin dress she started to preview songs from her upcoming album, which all sounded fantastic. Her band was made up of a bunch of veterans from the Australian music scene with Richard Bradbeer on bass, Ryan Strathie on drums and Sarah Belkner on keyboard, percussion and backing vocals. They finished the main set with the new single "Star City," and then for the encore Olivia played a new track solo and then had the band come back on for one of her older songs "Atlantis" to end the night. It was great to see her live again and I look forward to the new album coming out next year.

Here's the video for "Star City"

Fire Gardens

The Melbourne International Arts Festival is currently happening from 3 - 21 October 2018 at different sites around the city. One of the special events at this year's festival is the transformation of the Royal Botanical Gardens into the Fire Gardens over the next four evenings by French artists Compagnie Carabosse. As you entered the gardens there were burning clay pots to light the pathways as you walked around.

At the beginning were moving metal sculptures and rings of fire to walk through as you made your way down to the lake where there were many floating platforms with different lit sculptures. As it was a windy night they were moving around a bit on the water. There was also a solo guitarist, Steph LaRose, playing music which added to the atmosphere as people stood around and watched the sculptures.

Further along the path were sculptures that shot out flames, and a bunch of lit piles of charcoal both in tubes spaced out in the ponds and in giant snaking sculptures on the hill, which due to the wind resulted in sparks flying out of them whenever a gust came along (and at one point people were having to stamp out a little fire on the ground).

Within the Fern Gully were little white tank tops hanging among the trees that looked like floating lanterns. There were also these rocket looking sculptures on the grass that you could see different designs on when the flames would shoot through them.

Overall it was a great experience to be able to walk around the Fire Gardens. Thankfully the festival had three set entry times and limited the number of tickets to 7,000 total for the whole night so it wasn't too crowded. If you are lucky enough to have a ticket for this sold out event I'm sure you will enjoy it.