Jezza’s Blog

Tom & I went to see Kaiser Chiefs at the Palace last night. I was very impressed with the venue, I’d rate it as one of the best in Melbourne alongside the Forum. The three levels (two balconies) provide many great possies for watching the show, and it was great to be able to sit in a booth while watching the supports.

Razorlight was the main support. I think the lead singer was high on something cos he decided to go out into the crowd and climb over the balcony railing, about 20 feet above the ground. The security guards totally freaked out and managed to convince him to climb back to safety before he fell.

The Chiefs put on a good show, they don’t sound fantastic live but they put on a very entertaining performance. Lead singer Ricky Wilson was full of energy as usual. At one point he jumped off the stage into the crowd, walked around a bit, then crowd surfing back to the stage.

During the last song of the encore, Wilson grabbed a microphone and motioned that he would throw it into the crowd, so I jumped up onto the shoulders of the guy in front of me. As I was the only person at the time above the crowd, he tried to throw me the mic, but unfortunately threw it like a girl (and I think the cord got caught) and it fell well short into the crowd where everyone fought over it for the remainder of the song.

More photos here.

Also, found this cool site which has setlists for most shows including this one.

Went to Muse with Dave last night at Rod Laver Arena. Was the third time I’ve seen them, and I probably should have stopped at two as this show was pretty similar to their show earlier in the year at Festival Hall. Check out the photos from my crappy old Pentax here.

Was in Byron Bay last August for the 2007 Splendour in the Grass music festival. Have been too slack to write anything, but am procrastinating today so thought I’d update my blog. Was heaps of fun, besides the lots of waiting in lies (to get into carpark, into the festival, for drink tickets, for toilets, for getting out of the car park…).

The weekend started with a flight up to the Gold Coast, where we were picked up by my cus Trev. Thanks to Jetstar, we needed to go tent shopping as they lost our tent on the flight. On a positive note, the weather was absolutely fantastic, it was even good enough to go for a bit of a dip at Surfers Paradise.

We made our way down to our camping ground in Brunswick Heads just north of Byron Bay. Really pretty place on the shores of the Brunswick River, and much more relaxing than it would have been staying on site at the festival.

Later that day, Jetstar informed us that they had found our tent, so we didn’t bother to open the new one we bought, thinking we’ll return it at the end of the weekend. Well, Jetstar didn’t deliver the tent to us until about 9.30pm so we had to put the tent up in the dark (which was reminiscent of the last time we were up for the festival, but that time we had just finished a 24 hour non-stop drive).

Next day we were off to the show. First up were the Editors.

Hadn’t heard any of their stuff before, but they were pretty good all the same.

Next up were Ash.

They were OK live but not fantastic, with there best performance being “Oh Yeah”.

We saw a few songs by Paul Kelly in the GW McLennan Theatre while we were waiting Sarah Blasko

Not really the biggest fan, but other people seemed to enjoy it.

Grabbed some seats to watch the first half of Sarah Blasko

She was really good, funky dance moves and all. Was hanging out to see “Don’t Dream it’s Over” but she didn’t play it in the handful of songs we saw (not sure if she plays this, since its not really her song).

Had to dash back to the Big Top to catch the Kaiser Chiefs.

Started off with lots of energy from frontman Ricky Wilson and peaked when he climbed up one of the tent poles. After about 2/3 of the way through they seemed to lose their way a bit but it was still an awesome performance.

Last show for the day was Lily Allen who I was really looking forward to, and she delivered a solid show.

More photos here.

Been a long time since posting, but just downloaded some photos off my memory card and thought I’d upload them. We went to the the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra play at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl a couple of weeks ago and had a great time. Click on the photo to see more.

I went to see Ben Folds & the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Arts Centre a few weeks ago. It was a strange performance, didn’t think too much of the orchestras arrangements, especially considering how well I thought some of his songs would go with orchestral accompaniment. I think the main problem was that classical musicians just don�t like rock music and don�t enjoy playing along, and if they don�t enjoy it, it doesn�t come out well. Most disappointing was the fact that Army (that song that has sax and trombones in the middle) wasn�t played with the orchestra. It would�ve sounded fantastic. Anyways, think the best song probably would have been Stevens Last Night In Town since it was originally written to be played with a big band.

Check out some more photos.

Went to the Corner Hotel two Fridays ago to see the Sleepy Jackson who were promoting their new album “Personality (One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird)”. Dave and I rocked up at about 9, went to the bar and got a drink to find out that their set didn’t start till 11:30pm! I must be getting old, but I was a bit pissed off ‘cos I wanted to catch the train home.

Anyways, when they finally got onto stage they were awesome. Luke Steel looked and acted as strange as ever, with a new hairstyle that looked like his old one just with the sides chainsawed off. They played a great mix of old and new songs, unlike so many other bands who are obsessed with their new stuff. It was defiantly one of the best concerts I�ve been to lately, so I defiantly recommend seeing them live if you get the chance. Check out some more photos.

Went to see Eskimo Joe at The Forum on Saturday night with Tom and Dave. Was a pretty good gig, but a little dissapointing that they didn’t play some of their older songs. I’ve seen them at The Forum twice previously, the first when they were supporting The Living End in ‘99 and again in ‘03 when they were supporting Alex Lloyd (tool). In the first concert, they played “Sweater”, and in the second they played “Who Sold Her Out” and during both of these songs the crowed went off, even though they were only support acts. Unfortunatly in this concert I dont think they played any songs apart from their last 2 albums, so these classics were left out. Anyways, apart from that it was a good night.

Found this thing which is too cool for me not to blog, it’s called “Exercise your Music Muscle” by Virgin Music.

Find 75 artists in the picture below:

Theres a related thread on whirlpool

Tom has a made a good flickr page where he has most of the answers.