As the Rush Comes

Lily Allen (Luna Park), Australia Day and Kasabian (Enmore Theatre), Party Time (again!)

Wednesday night. Last day in the office. First Brit gig in Sydney since seeing the Zutons back in the middle of last year.

A small flurry of artists are playing around this time of the year here since it’s the festival high-season, so I made sure to claim a couple of tickets early on to a few English acts since I have no idea when I might get to see them again. The first of a weekly double act was to be Lily Allen playing Sydneys Luna Park.

Katy and myself would eventually meet up with Gemma and Marla – a couple more Poms out here in Sydney. But before, we managed to get seats at the Spicy Wok, an awesome little Thai restaurant in Kiribilli just next to the gig. As time ticked by, the support acts played inside the Big Top, we arrived just in time to catch the last of these – possibly the worst DJ I’ve ever seen playing live… think ‘kid brother with his first set of record decks going nuts with his new found ability to scratch a record’. It was truly dire.

Finally Lily came out on stage and turned things around for the better. She was backed by a wind section which really injected a load of fun into the show, and along with some cool covers of The Kooks and The Specials it was a really great show with all the tracks off her album.

So Thursday would be my first day technically unemployed, so I spent a bunch of time getting some odd jobs out of the way before hitting the job searching again. This would be relatively short lived since Friday was Australia Day – a public holiday.

After an Australia Day lunch in the city, I managed to pack in a wander around Darling Harbour; which was rammed with crowds awaiting the evenings firework celebrations, then a trip out East to Clovelly beach to hear the final part of the JJJ (Triple J radio station) Hottest 100. A track by Augie March was voted 2006s best track to some amazement of the Aussies around me. After this it was time for my most anticipated event of the New Year so far…

Myself and Aaron headed out to the Enmore Theatre to see Kasabian. The Enmore is probably the most similar venue to some of the London ones like the Forum or Brixton, as such, it was a great atmosphere once inside, and in similar fashion to those British establishments, it was stupid hot.

The Northerners came on stage and belted out their hits from 2 albums gone, the majority of the crowd unsurprisingly English lapped it up. From the last time I saw these guys playing at Glastonbury (where they had a spectacular lighting rig accompanying them), they had to rely on raw performance, and I reckon they managed it pretty well. A highlight of the evening was leaving the theatre with the crowd in full football-fan style voice belting out LSF. This carried on on the pavement for another 20-25mins whilst we watched on chowing down on a Garlo pie. Awesome.

We topped off the evening with a couple more drinks down at the Coogee Palace before going separate ways… after that day, I was ready for nothing but a long sleep.

However, the middle day of the long weekend, and it was time to revisit the Randwick Pool Party… except the weather wasn’t quite on our side this time. Speedy winds and grey skies kept everyone but the hardcore out of the pool and by or in the house. However a huge turnout still made it along and helped polish off a whole keg of Pure Blonde before the memory police showed up…

A great weekend, that still fortunately had an extra day to recover. I took time out and went taking pictures around the city before facing my final week before V-day (Visa day!)…