Tag Archive for ‘the zoo’ at me, my camera and my life.

Tag Archive for 'the zoo'

Still Banging On About The Breeders

Published

on August 7, 2008

. 4 Comments

It is Thursday night, about 71 hours since The Breeders walked onto the stage at The Zoo. I am laying on the floor of my bedroom with my laptop (oh yes, I got a laptop a month or so ago, it is pink, I love it) in my Breeders shirt, listening to Mountain Battles and loving it more and more. In those 71 hours all I have listened to is Breeders, The Amps and an itsy witsby bit of Kelley Deal 6000 and I could not love the sisters Deal more.

Sisters Deal

Charlyn likes to remind me round the net that I was super excited and well I must admit she is telling the truth. Man the grin I had on my face was a grin that has never appeared on my face at a concert before and probably never will, well the only time I think it will reappear will be if I ever get to see The Breeders live again and let me be honest and truthful I am by no means counting my eggs for that on the flip-side, I had a thought at the gig on Monday night that I could so see those girls pushing 70 and still singing their songs on the stage. I will have to wait and see I guess but those few hours will be a night I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Kim Deal

I still find it so hard to believe that man oh man I saw the Breeders. I will be sitting at my desk at work or walking to the train station and I find myself smiling at the thought of how magical Monday night was.

Gaslight Radio were the supports and to be honest I didn’t really think much of them. They had one or two alright songs in their set but that was about it. The lead singer had quite good stage presence but it was really let down by some of the other band members. One of the guys spent the entire set with his back to the audience playing his guitar??? what the?????

gaslight radio

My favourite photo I took during their set was not of them but of a piece of A4 paper I saw on top of an amp.

Set list

mmmm yeah! The set list. I close to fainted when I saw that Safari was on there. Still that didn’t stop me from yelling out for them to play it during the set and then Kim said something back to me and they they played it and well Helen went into a state of euphoria. The deviated from the set list a bit I think with the addition of one or two impromptu songs that I can’t recall. Looking at the order of the songs in the photo above and the set list from the show in Boston it seems that the set list for the shows on this world tour are pretty much the same.

01. Tipp City
02. Huffer
03. Bang On
04. Shocker In Gloomtown (GBV)
05. Divine Hammer
06. Night of Joy
07. No Aloha
08. Pacer
09. We’re Gonna Rise
10. It’s The Love (Tasties)
11. Mercury
12. New Year
13. Cannonball
14. I Just Wanna Get Along
15. Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Beatles)
16. Iris
17. Safari
18. Saints
19. German Studies
20. Empty Glasses

21. Overglazed
22. Fortunately Gone
23. Here No More
24. Drivin’ on 9
25. Full On Idle

I would have really really really liked to have heard and Flipside and Hag and When I Was a Painter and Son of Three and well the 100 other or so songs in their discography. Though I am really kicking myself for not yelling out for the Buffy theme as that would have been so fricking cool.

Kelley

I don’t know where to start about the Breeders set. It was just magical. The sold out crowd was a real mix of ages; people my age, people a bit younger and plenty of people who are more Karl’s age. As there were so many people like me who had been waiting years and years to see them, the atmosphere in the crowd as they started to play the songs and banter was just incredible, Kim and Kelley interacted with the crowd a lot and seemed incredibly at ease on stage.
Breeders

You can see the rest of the photos over at helenpalsson.com.au or at The Dwarf

If The Breeders come to a town near you any time soon, go! (and ask me to come along too )

Peter Combe and the Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band

Published

Helen

on June 28, 2008

in Music and photography

. 0 Comments

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 . 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

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

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

music, food and photos.

Published

Helen

on March 1, 2008

in Music, friends, photography and random life

. 0 Comments

Yet another post condensing most of a weeks activity into one blog post. I am so behind. I have dreams of posting a blog sooner after an event but I just get sidetracked. I have a whole week where I actually did things to blog about/process photos. Sunday I was at two concerts, Tuesday I baked, Wednesday Andrea and I went to the movies, Thursday I went to photograph Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Zoo, Friday I went out to dinner with Andrea and some of her friends, this morning I went into the city to watch the spires lifted into place at St John’s Cathedral. This arvo I went to the movies. Quite a week and now I am busy catching up.

I probably should start off with Sunday.
I had one goal for the arvo and that was to see Yeo and The Fresh Goods at Rics and that I did. Right next door at Kaliber, Nightillion were doing there Sunday afternoon sessions/jam thing. Fusing all sorts of musical goodness together, it was nice. Meanwhile at Rics, Mr Laneous (pron. similar to miscellaneous) were taking care of getting the arvo started. A wander round The Valley and then it was time for Yeo and Co to fill the stage at Rics and play to a bar full of Shiny Happy People. I was fancy free and relatively footloose or really it was a Sunday where we weren’t’ going to The Farm as Mum had taken Grandad road tripping and left us all at home. It is a catch 22 of sorts. I would love to go more of the Sunday arvo session at Rics/Powerhouse/etc but Sunday arvos/night is the time we spend with Grandad and I am smart enough to know that those days are a whole lot more numbered than Sunday arvo sessions at Rics. It was so great to see Yeo play live. Tom and Tiana were outside and asked me what sort of music Yeo plays, I described as sort of electro reggae, I much prefer the three myspace genres; French pop / Punk / Reggae. Much better.

Yeo, (click image for the gig gallery).

Random Valley Shot. 56/366

Sunday evening it was the Creative Vibes shindig at The Troubie, not much of a turnout but it was still good, the couches were “pulled” from the walls and arranged in a few more social friendly rows near the stage, made it feel even more like a lounge room than it normally does. The bill for the night was Tess Henderson (what a voice), Tom Woodward (see x previous posts on Tom) and Justin Grounds (technically interesting but I was too tired to appreciate it). The light seemed to be at half strength to what it normally is at the Troubie which was a bit bleh for me.

Tess’s piano player, (click image for the gig gallery).

Random Desk Shot.

Monday. 57/366.
Yep Christmas Cards are still up, it is only February (when this photo was taken) after all.

Tuesday. 58/366.
I was really tempted not to take a photo on Tuesday, was just so tempted to chucking this whole project in but I took a photo of my saeng cover, I love those flowers dearly. Yay for Ikea.

Wednesday night. 59/366.
Andrea and I went for fish (Barramundi-Andrea, Calamari-Me) and chips and a movie at Portside (Hamilton). We had 1hr 45mins between when the fish and chip shop closed and when our movie started. Granted we probably didn’t leave the fish and chip shop till a good 25mins after it closed, it meant we had quite a bit of time to laze around by the river talking, laughing, chatting and playing. The movie we went to see was Charlie Wilson’s War, which was not as funny as I thought it would be.

Thursday night I went to photograph Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Manchester Orchestra at the Zoo. I met Alain Bouvier, that was a laugh. I started talking to one of the other photographers, he said he was French etc etc, I asked if he knew Ange Takats, he said of course and we laughed, we knew of each other through Ange, that was a laugh. Music wise I preferred Manchester Orchestra over CYHSY, I left shortly after our three songs were up for CYHSY. I think that explains it.

Manchester Orchestra, (click image for the gig gallery).

Drinking Receptacles. 60/366

Friday was a hell of a day at work, just never seemed like I was going to get my work done. I got it all done though.
Friday night I went out to dinner at Sitar with Andrea and some of her high school friends who I had met round her parties before.
80% of us had the deluxe banquet. I was glad I wore a dress as I wasn’t unbuckling a top button like the others. Oh it was good, of the four curries we picked, the only one which we all disliked was the Bengal Prawn Masala most likely because the prawns were like rubber. The Lamb Korma was oh my and don’t get me started on the Peshwari Naan. I could eat that for breakfast, lunch and tea for the rest of my life.

That brings us to today, Saturday which will very much be another blog post as that has photos, photos, photos of the spires going on St John’s.

New week, new concert

Published

Helen

on January 28, 2008

in Music and photography

. 1 Comment

Last Monday night, gee a week ago, I went along to The Zoo to photograph Enter Shikari and The Amity Affliction. I am really watching every dollar at the moment so am not going to any gig where it is going to cost me money to get in. It means I have got a lot of housework done

The Zoo has two new lights. They are LED arrays and are on either side of the drummer. They don’t seem to actually provide any light though. mmm. It was my first gig where I spent the entire time at iso 3200 and oh it hurt, it hurt so bad. However, I much prefer noise to blur so I have to accept it.

Lots of rude punters. I think that the odds of crowd rudeness increase significantly based on the music. mmm. It is not like you have any desire to steal their spot hanging off the front of the stage, all you want is 10/20 seconds to pop in front of them or lean over them, take a picture and move on. You have a big sticker on your shirt saying media and a camera in your hand that you can use as weights practice. The common answer at the gig however as you politely tap them on the shoulder, raise your camera and ask if you can duck in front of them for a few seconds was Get lost, Get or a grunt or shove.

Other than that it was a fine night, by no means my style of music but the crowd seemed to enjoy it. Photos are here.

The Amity Affliction
Amity
Amity

Enter Shikari

Enter Shikari1

I have to be this way.

Published

Helen

on December 2, 2007

in Music and photography

. 2 Comments

Friday night in The Valley.
The eve of Summer.
The Zoo.
85% sweaty males in black t-shirts.
Melbourne Bitter was the flavour of the night.
One of the greatest Punk bands.
Something special.
$35 was a bargain price.
It was The Bouncing Souls.
There is a reason they are who they are.
It was a very good night.

I went with my little brothers and one girlfriend. There was Carter ambushing Kate, yeah that Kate as in Futon store Kate. There was a guy who was in my year at school breaking his nose in the 2nd song. There were the people who smiled at me when they saw my camera and let me pop in front of them or forming a guard round me to prevent stage divers landing on me. There was milling on Ann St after the show whilst Matthew talked to the various randoms/scene kids.

It was a night which was a good night. The support bands were good, The Zoo wasn’t as hot as it normally gets.

The supports were The Gift Horse and The Black Market.