Tag Archive for "Dan Baebler"
Having seen Sixfthick and Rollerball the night before, the weekend of Brisbane-In-Melbourne continues back at The Ding Dong Lounge with Gentle Ben And His Sensitive Side. And in a role reversal from last weekend in Brisbane, Kim Salmon (albeit playing solo and without The Surrealists) is supporting.
Gentle Ben was showing no signs of the Sixfthick gig the night before; I often wonder how he does it, especially when Sixfthick do things like their upcoming European tour and play 16 gigs in 16 days. That’s gotta hurt after a few days without a break. One of these days I’m going to have to crash a Sixfthick tour and do some more tour photography, even of it’s just a few days down in Melbourne or Sydney. It’s been just over a year since I was away in Melbourne with Butcher Birds, so about time I did it again.
Tonight’s gig was for a 7 inch launch, which I didn’t realise they were releasing. Good to hear they’ve been recording again and can’t wait until the next album. In retrospect I probably should have bought a copy of the single, but not having a record player in Australia would mean a long wait until I could get to listen to it. I miss my record player. And my approximately 2,000 record collection…
From X at The Ding Dong Lounge, it was a bit of a magical mystery tour to Roxanne Parlour, despite the venue only being just down the road. Eventually, after a walk around the block, going into a somewhat random building with no sign outside saying that this was the place and getting the lift up to the second floor, we were there.
Sixfthick became my most seen live band a long time ago (beating the previous record held by Spiritualized), but this was the first time that I’d seen them away from Brisbane. The most noticeable difference between most Brisbane shows and tonight’s Melbourne show was the crowd, who were just wild. As well as mosh pit collapsing onto the front of the low stage throughout the gig, Gentle Ben returned from one of his forays into the crowd with his underwear pulled up above his jeans and looking ragged. At which point he decided he would deprive the audience of their fun and just rip them off through his jeans… As you do…
They played a similar set to the ones they’ve played recently in Brisbane, including their cover of X’s ‘The Feel’, but even having seen them play so many times, you just can’t get tired of seeing them. They have the songs and they have the show. It’s heartening to see them get a sizeable crowd in the Melbourne, something of a graveyard for Brisbane bands. In a fair world they should be being booked to play every major festival in Australia and hopefully that time isn’t too far around the corner.
A few more photos on flickr, with maybe a few more to come when I have a bit more time.
