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.

Work has taken me down to Victoria for a few weeks, but there’s always time to fit in a gig or two, especially when I had a couple of nights in Melbourne. First up was X supported by Rollerball at The Ding Dong Lounge. After a few years of only knowing Richard Sharman of Black Shadow Photography via various music and music photography forums and through emails we finally got to meet up and go for a few drinks and he got me into the gig as his +1.

I had checked with Richard about the camera friendliness of the venues in the city and he had let me know that the Ding Dong Lounge and Roxanne’s Parlour, our next port of call were fine with cameras but the lighting was pretty crappy. The lighting at the Ding Dong Lounge was similar to an average to good night at The Zoo. So that’s better than pretty much all the smaller venues in Brisbane…  A lot of red light, but you can’t have everything…

Rollerball were a blast from the past, having not heard anything from them in a long while. I photographed them at The Rev in Brisbane back in October 2005, when they were supporting The Original Angels Band. It was the last gig I photographed solely on film, a week before buying a digital camera, the same digital camera I still use and really should think about upgrading… I would post a link to the photos but I did them for a low quality music website that has stuffed up all their old galleries somehow, so they don’t actually contain the photos they should, having both different sets of photos and photos from completely different photographers.

After hearing so much about X over the last few years, especially on much-missed high quality Australian music forums, it was good to finally get to check them out. Really enjoyed their set, although we ducked out just before the end, just after their intense cover of John Lennon’s ‘Mother’. Although they’re a very old school Oz Rock sounding band, they reminded me, in parts, of a more punk version of Slade, mostly due to Steve Lucas’s vocals.

A few more photos on flickr, with maybe a few more to come when I have a bit more time.

X

Rollerball

Managed to finish going through some of the backlog of photos over Xmas, starting with the Saturday of the Butcher Birds in Melbourne back in September. Not much happened on the Saturday - a day of relaxing after having gotten up at 4:30am the day before to get the plane down, running around Melbourne all day, playing as PBS live show and the 2am slot at The Pony. So everyone went off, did their own thing before regrouping back at the hotel before heading off to The Tote for soundcheck at about tea time.

Went to some dodgy Greek restaurant for tea where they freaked us out by just bringing piles of food out to us without anyone having actually ordered anything and without them telling us how much it was costing, but it was all ok in the end.

Then it was back to The Tote and having to endure a freezing cold Melbourne beer garden at the start of September with the ten-legged cigarette smoking machine that is Butcher Birds…

Ouch My Face were the main support.

Some photos here and more on flickr.

Ouch My Face

Butcher Birds

At the end of August ended up flying down to Melbourne and hanging out with the Butcher Birds for a couple days. Was much fun, even if there was nowhere near enough sleep, largely due to getting the 0615 flight down and having an action packed Friday which ended with the 2am show at The Pony.

Plenty of more photos from the Friday on flickr.

Will have to get around to finish going through Saturday’s photos at some point…

0615 flight (tour “traditional” champagne not pictured)

Room 323

Teebs modelling the new Gypsy-Bandito look

Melbz is like totez fun

Dancing Stacey

Teebs modelling the James Dean look

Yet another break for cigarettes…

O HAI

Band Love

J-Tard

PBS

The Pony 2am Show