Tag Archive for "The Troubadour"
Last time Tim Finn played in Brisbane it was with the reformed Split Enz at the 13,500-capcaity Entertainment Centre, so it was a real thrill to get the opportunity to see him play at 200-capcaity The Troubadour this week. His 75 minute set included songs from his new album, ‘The Conversation‘, plus crowd-pleasing Split Enz favourites (’I See Red‘, ‘Shark Attack‘, ‘My Mistake‘) and Crowded House Woodface-era classics (’Chocolate Cake‘, ‘It’s Only Natural‘, ‘Weather With You‘). If there was one disappointment it was that he didn’t play anything from either of the Finn Brothers’ albums (the first one, ‘Finn‘, is patchy but the second one, ‘Everyone Is Here‘ is fantastic).
It amused me that when SBS started doing their Classic Australian Albums series, they included ‘Woodface‘. Looking at the bands that they covered in the first season of the program it seemed that they had chosen the records based on a New South Wales/Victoria/Queensland/Western Australia split. So while Queensland and Western Australia were represented by The Saints‘ ‘(I’m) Stranded‘ and The Triffids‘ ‘Born Sand Devotional‘ respectively, the program makers couldn’t find a classic Sydney album and had to go to Newcastle to get the very dubious classic album choice of Silverchair’s ‘Diorama‘ and they had get a New Zealand band to get classic Victorian album.
As we all know, Australians are a bit on the precious side when it comes to its bands and music, so when it comes to justifying Crowded House as an Australian band the argument seems to go that they formed in Australia, had some Australian members and recorded albums in Australia. Which is all well and good but becomes amusing when you point out that using similar logic makes Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds a British band! And don’t get me started on AC/DC. No one thinks of Fleetwood Mac as an English band, so the campaign to stop having AC/DC called an Australian band starts here…
Another last minute request to cover a show, this time the second night of the 4ZZZ Tater Stomp at The Troubadour.
Like most photographers I am a very wary Troubadour photographer and it comes bottom of the list for requesting shows to cover unless it’s someone that I really, really want to see. Whilst it’s a fantastic venue and post-gig drinking hole, the lighting, even at its very best, is usually really terrible. Sometimes you hit lucky, like I did the last time I photographed here and Bill Callahan was stood in exactly the right place to have some good quality light shining on him, sometimes you don’t, with photographing the Nation Blue last year springing to mind, where ISO 1600, f1.7, and 1/25 was still giving me chronic underexposure and a set of unusable photos.
I photographed the last two acts on Saturday night; Dick Desert And The Shotgun Country Club and Texas Kate. The lighting was average/typical Troubadour fare; my settings were around ISO800, f2.8, 1/50.
The only previous time that I’d seen Dick Desert was a solo show at a Trash Video fundraiser at The Rev all the way back in December 2005. It’s strange that it’s been so long as he’s previously personally requested that Rave send me to photograph when they’ve been covering him; from memory I think once I was away and another time the gig was cancelled last minute.
Was great to see him play again, and Saturday’s show with the Shotgun Country Club was a really fun show of the punk country that Brisbane does so well.
It was also great to see Texas Kate and catch up with her about the recent Texas Tea European tour. Really looking forward to their new album which is out in November; I did some photos for Mess & Noise when they were recording it last November and it’s just been far too long for something so good to remain under wraps.
Some more photos on Flickr.
Bill Callahan / smog / (smog) or whatever he’s calling himself this week played at The Troubadour a couple weeks ago. Normally I avoid photographing at The Troubadour due to its darkness but sometimes you just have to make the most of a bad situation to see/photographt the bands you really want to. Plus, there seems to have been a down turn in the lighting around the venues in Brisbane so suddenly The Troubadour doesn’t seem as bad as normal.
Was loitering near the front of the stage before he came on but as soon as he did was heckled to sit down on the floor with the rest of the audience. So all the photos were done sat down, not being able to move. And after 70 minutes or so sat down on a hard floor it was really painful.
Some photos here and more on flickr.
What I learnt from last Saturday night:
(a) I don’t take very good photos at The Troubadour; and
(b) I don’t take very good photos of Jean Nicotine.
Actually, I already knew both of those things…
A few more here.
SixFtHick
Mean Streaks
The Troubadour - the best sound in Brisbane, the nicest owners/bar staff/door bitches, a really great venue all round….BUT the worst lighting. Kinda like one of those black holes that sucks all the light out of the known universe…
Is my new ambition in life to take a decent set of photos there. An improvement from last time when ISO 3200, f1.7 and 1/20th second produced a load of rubbish that couldn’t even be rescued by Noise Ninja and Photoshop (sorry Texas Tea! - I’ll also add to my new life ambition to also get some decent shots of you one of these days…)
A few here and more here.
Flamingo Crash
Diamond Nights
