I managed to fit in Kim Salmon And The Surrealists’ gig at the Step Inn whilst back in Brisbane for a few days, in between being in Far North Queensland and being down in Victoria. Although I have seen Kim Salmon with Darling Downs, his acoustic country/folk duo with Died Pretty’s Ron Peno, this was the first time that I’d seen him play electric. Stupidly I missed The Scientists show at The Columbian a couple of years ago and disappointingly they didn’t play in Brisbane earlier in 2008 as part of the Don’t Look Back series, when they played their Blood Red River album in its entirety.
I’ve photographed a few gigs at The Step Inn before but it’s not my favourite of venues. I don’t like the layout – it’s a pub with a small stage in the corner as opposed to being what I would consider a bona fide live music venue – and the lighting is really poor, easily rivalling that of the Troubadour. Apparently the capacity is 380, but I think only about a third of that number have any chance of getting into the room where the stage is. Somewhat surprisingly, The Bronx are playing there in December and whilst I’d love to photograph them, the thought of photographing them there just isn’t doing it for me. It would be great to see them up close in such an intimate venue so maybe I’ll just have to leave the camera at home…
A few more photos on flickr.
i don’t think you missed much in missing the Scientists play the Columbian – while they did their stuff well that day i think the forces of the universe were against them – ie, they played first up that day (at 3 in the arvo), the film “dirty harry” was projected behind them, their last Brisburg gig way back in the 80s was an utter shambles (and i guess they must have been trying really hard to avoid that happenning again), and they had just got off the plane to play the Columbian gig and were playing later that same night in Sydney. To me (as much as i love the Scientists) it all sounded a bit like a run thru in a practice room. But having said that, let me say that Kim Salmon is one of the greats and i can vividly remember one truly amazing gig by the Surrealists at Van Gogh’s Earlobe circa 96. But listen to the albums!! The man is a genius with an amazing capacity for invention and re-invention.
Cheers Shishkin. There was a venue called Van Gogh’s Earlobe???
I haven’t actually got any of The Scientists’ albums so where do you recommend I start?