Peter Combe and the Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band

Saturday night, what a night it was at The Zoo, by far my favourite show of the year and I think the favourite show of the year for many of the other punters there. Why? Well Peter Combe was in town and playing at The Zoo :D. I was going to wear a newspaper hat but thought that was a bit too ordinary so I went with toothbrushes in my hair. As I walked past people, they would smile and make comments or start singing Mr Clicketty Cane. Later on as I moved through the crowd, people would exclaim “You’re the girl with the toothbrushes” to which I would smile and ponder the fact that people were actually talking about me. Let me tell you know that putting toothbrushes in your hair is no easy feat, it involved numerous hair ties and I would have to push them up every so often.

The Crowd, Yay Newspaper Hats 😀
Newspaper hats

First up was Deb Suckling and Craig Spann as Peachfish providing some of their fine folksy, alt-country romance.
peachfish

Then there was a band, well they were a band and a half. They were The Danaj Show. The lead singer came on stage with a briefcase. With much lead up he opened that case to reveal a newspaper hat!! This was not just any newspaper had though this was a newspaper hat covered with stars (those stars that you used to be put on your forehead when you were good in class). The crowd went wild.
The Danaj Show

I had left my Spagetti Bolagnaise LP at home, as I had left I had thought of bringing it with me to wave at the right moment. I decided against it though. As the second band played I kept on thinking about the sign that said Peter would be doing a signing at the end of the night. I rang Matthew and paid him $20 to grab the LP and drive into The Valley to drop it off for me.

I got it signed 😀 and you can see the toothbrushes.
Signed

After long wait the Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band came out, led of course by the icon that is Phil. Phil, Phil, Phil is what was chanted as he took is rightful seat behind the keyboards. Then they played a crowd rousing tune as the chants for Peter, Peter, Peter got louder and louder. Then our child icon ran onto the stage, grabbed his mike and everything was ok. Peter Combe was on stage, we knew the words, he knew our faces and no one could be happier.

When he played Tadpole Blues, I smiled, for as much as Matthew denies it, that was his favourite song. Then there was Rain, Rain, Rain, my favourite song now. There was the blow fly song, Down in Bathroom, Nutrition Blues, Rock ‘N’ Roll Is All You Need, Chops & Sausages, Jack & The Beanstalk, Syntax Error, Newspaper Mama, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Toffee Apple, Phone Calls Daddy, Jellybean Road (well I think he played this). He has written a song for each of his children and since his son Tom is in The Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band, they played Lullaby (For Tom). The crowd let out a collective sigh during this. No Parcel in the Post though or 12345, that is life though.

Of course the last song they played was Juicy Juicy Green Grass and it was something special 😀

Band

It was the happiest gig of the year, every where you turned people where smiling and singing/shouting/miming along with the words. As people poured out of The Zoo onto Ann St, the smiles were there, people were milling around humming tunes, clutching their new Peter Combe T-shirts and just going yeah 🙂 I went with Ms Clare and her friend Jackie/Jacquie who was smiling and singing along with me the entire time.

The rest of the photos are here

Angus and Julia Stone, The Tivoli

Thursday night saw me at The Tivoli with The Dwarf for the second night of Angus and Julia Stone. What is most likely a shock to most people is that I haven’t really heard that much of the Stones prior to the concert and what I had heard, I found enjoyable but was by no means a fan. Leaving the show I appreciated them a whole lot more. However the treat for the night was not the Stones but Víctor Valdés, the support act. Man, that man can play the harp. Doing requests from the audience is always the way to go, though I was hoping he would pull out Stairway to Heaven for some strange reason but he didn’t. He did though do a Gypsy King song (I think it was Chan Chan) what had me going was of course Guantanamera. I also got to meet a few other photographers for the first time and a chance to catch up with Eleny again. Quite a nice night indeed.

The Harp Man
Victor the man

One of the things I loved watching was his fingers dart over the strings, it was so magical!
harp fingers

Doesn’t Julia just look so happy to be up on stage?
Julia

I love the focus on this one though, sigh nice borrowed glass.
Julia

Angus had his hat on all night which meant some pretty nasty face shadows so this is about the best I grabbed
Angus Stone

The siblings Stone
siblings

and the rest of the photos are over here in a gallery

bit of a wrap up

Yesterday was the Queen’s birthday public holiday and I spent most of it at my parents sewing, I have finally finished the top of my 21st birthday quilt. I turn 23 in September…… IT looks so good and I can’t wait to see it on my bed.

Today is Tuesday and I flexed the day off to give me a four day weekend 🙂 What a day I had, I started off with a long list of jobs to do this morning and now at 21:40 I can cross most of those jobs off. I have changed the address on my drivers licence, bank account, organised insurance (I’ve only been here a month and a dew days…..), re-arranged my wardrobe, did some shopping, took a bunch of cracked lids back to Tupperware for replacing. The only thing I haven’t done is my ironing which I am about to do and to process the photos from the two most recent gigs I have gone along to.

Tonight for dinner I made a delightful salad. It was fennel, salad leaves, beans, carrot, dried cherry tomatoes, some lightly fried capsicum and toasted walnuts with a lemon and Shiraz vinaigrette and a rasher of bacon. It looked good and tasted good, the only thing I might have added was some apple for a bit of sweetness. Since moving out I have experimented a lot more with my cooking as if is a flop it is only a flop for one person or maybe two if Andrea is eating with me. The pork/ginger rissoles were not the best but the dhal I made last week was soooo good. Andrea commented tonight that I am so good always making dinner and as I said to Andrea, it is just because I am too cheap to buy takeout. Friday night I made a tasty apple and walnut loaf which I will make again in the coming days and tweak the recipe a bit before posting it here.

I am very slowly getting used to having the internet again. It is not weird I just don’t have the desire to check out all the sites that I was checking out before I moved out.

Oh I also should probably mention I got my hair cut two Wednesdays ago, I had about 3″ taken off it, about half my hair or more thinned out and I have a bit of a side fringe. It is so weird, my pony tail is sooo skinny compared to how fat it used to be. I like it just not used to having so much lightness with this sort of length.

Mt Mitchell

On Saturday Mum and I went on our first YHA Bushwalkers walk, a pleasant 10km stroll up Mt Mitchell in the Main Range. There were fifteen of us on the walk and was it was meeting some new people and walking in clear weather.
birds on a log

One of my highlights was “feasting” on wild raspberries with my lunch and ringing Grandad in his hospital bed from the top of the mountain.
Wild Raspberry snacks Wild Raspberry snacks Ringing Grandad

It is such an easy walk, I almost felt like running back down the track but didn’t instead I ran my hands over the grass trees, each time, delighting in the rush of the leaves over the palm of my hand.
grass trees

I had forgotten how much I love the view from the gap. Sitting on a rock looking out over the Fassifern Valley it just looks so nice.
Fassifern Valley Looking West

When the walk was over we had a little shop in the very nice Aratula Fruit Market before heading back to Brisbane and stopping in for a little while at the hospital to visit Grandad for a while.