Hey there, Powdy

Saw The Break on Thursday night at the Hi-Fi Bar (in Bris-bun, not Mel-bun).  They were supporting The Hoodoo Gurus.  The place reminds me of a lecture theatre – bit of a barn, with a foot-wide silvery air-conditioning duct running down each side towards the stage.  Unlike most lecture theatres, a bar upstairs and downstairs, on the back wall.  It's kept its pub front outside, facing Boundary Street, but.  Go in a side entrance, through a wide sweeping `S' bend (the only exit in a fire?), and you're there.

The crowd was late 20s and up suburbanites.  Hardly any black pants, and this is in West End, which is rapidly becoming the new `alternative' venue in Brisbane, unless you want to go to one man's Empire of pubs `n' bars (including a new $10m neon-fronted disco called `Cloudland' – as in `Dreamworld' – I guess the owner's being ironic) in The (Fortitude) Valley.  I think Mark Dodshon's book `Beds are Burning' mentions 6 foot barrel-chested surfer blokes at Oils gigs.  They were there – even an accountant-looking fella', in this group, with short hair, metal-rimmed glasses and a vest, was 6 foot and barrel-chested.  At least two familiar faces from the Oils' Friday Canberra gig last year.  A couple of Hoodoo Guru Ts, and a couple of recent Oils Ts.

The Break was Jim stage left, Brian, Rob and then Martin stage right, with one `Midnight Oil Sydney' equipment box holding up a Fender on each side, in addition to half a dozen rectangular speakers hanging from the roof on each side of the stage, plus some boxes (wedge speakers?) sitting behind them.

I bought the album at the gig ($25AUD - the T shirts also look really good), and so hadn't heard most of the songs before-hand, so the following is even more, um, impressionistic.  The chaps walked briskly onto the stage at about 9.15pm (as scheduled).  I recall them playing `Cylinders' second, and Rob making remarks about how they were glad to be back up in Brisbane – and feeling freer - when they started in the `70s Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had his cops escort the Oils back to the Tweed River after their performance.  Brian later gave the impression that they weren't quite sure what to label the music – surfer – Mexican – Soviet – electronica - spaghetti-western music.  I'd heard that there was one word on the album; we counted about five, but that tally was decimated once you discounted several words as operatic-heavy metal-western `Orrrrs'.

Mate said "I've heard Wedding Cake Island live.  Now I can die.".  Personal highlight was hearing an old instrumental track which followed the Aus. national anthem on the `Rarities' Oils Live project, and which I knew only as `THAT track'; `surfed up' as `Birdman'.  I thought it was less ornate than the older version, but the drums give it that `oomph' (much like the drums on Prince's `Controversy' are a bit harsh on the first listening, but then become the masterstroke.) 

Inter-song banter?  Rob claimed that Brian had surfed on a lake near Milwaukee, catching the wake of passing tankers.  Brian remarked upon a new Russian space program, and pondered whether it was a good thing.  Turns out the Russians have named it after the ninth track on the album: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos-Grunt

Overall, very danceable stuff, occasionally tempered by pendant moments of Soviet space-electronica `largeness' (three times the width of Australia?  Hoooooo boy.)  And the audience (eventually) responded to that energy, helped along by comments such as `are you drunk enough yet to dance?', perhaps even more so than to the much more familiar Hoodoo Gurus songs later in the night.  Enjoyed seeing Martin working off and in with Rob's vim – perhaps I never noticed when they had PGa, who was well known for his footwork, but Martin is quite expressive, digging some notes almost out of his back, and making several large right-angles with his legwork.

It must be said again – Rob REALLY cracks those drums with vigour.  He dropped a stick at one point but from where I standing (beneath a speaker stack; stage right – ouch!) it looked and sounded like he covered it with his other stick, until he could pick up a new stick, a whole second later. Maybe it's the Mythbuster thing.  We don't just enjoy watching them destroy things (i.e. – one drumkit).  We enjoy watching them enjoying destroying things.  The Break's mix seemed to be crisper than the Gurus, but that could have been my lack of ear plugs.  They closed with another `dancey' track (sorry), and Jim raised his hat for about the fifth time.

HGs were in fine form, enjoyed vocal twists and turns in "Cracking Up", and especially Brad Shepherd on lead guitar (when not encouraging aforementioned big blokes to elbow people in the head  - ouch! - at `The Right Time'.) Ghostwriters fans would also know Rick Grossman, on bass.  In between throwing out plectrums to the audience, he seemed to recognise Ian Haig from `Powderfinger' who came down to the front at about 11.30, and stuck out his tongue at RG, who suddenly disengaged from the audience and looked at his feet instead, smiling.

Incidentally, the next night, New Zealand's Tim Finn (brother of Crowded House's Neil Finn) opened an exhibition of Kiwi art `Unnerved', at the Gallery Of Modern Art, at Brisbane's South Bank.  Favourites – `Persuasion', `Chocolate Cake', `Six Months in a Leaky Boat' and an earth song about a conversation between trees and soils.  Exhibition includes a map of the world, with NZ at the top, done in lamington coconut topping.  Them's fightin' words.  Both claims.