Robbie Fowler comes to Sydney,

Okay, so he's ageing and is never gonna be anywhere near his Anfield best - but it was kinda cool to have a big name coming to play in an A League game for a change. Fowler signed a deal to play with North Queensland Fury, a brand new team who only started out life this season. Until tonight, they hadn't managed to secure a victory... EVER.

The first half played out with Fowler shooting towards the Cove, he didn't manage to do much, except get muscled off a ball or two. Meanwhile, at the other end of the field, Sydney won a Penalty which John Aloisi took all too gingerly allowing the keeper to comfortably save it.

The Townsville outfit mananged to get a goal but it was ruled out... and so the first half ended 0-0.

The teams came out, and I have to say, Sydney didn't once look like scoring in the entire half. Considering they're second in the league, it was pretty shocking. But the Nth Queensland broke loose and the ball got to Fowler, from just outside the 18yrd box, he masterfully lobbed the Sydney keeper; Bolton. All 43 of the travelling fans went nuts, and I could hear plenty of people in the Sydney stands applauding the goal also... I don't, in fairness think they see too many like that.

That was how it finished. We witnessed Fowlers great winning goal, which marked a new teams first ever victory.

Fowler 1 - Sydney 0

It Overtakes Me/The Stars are so Big

The Flaming Lips; The Hordern Pavillion.

A gig back at my love/hate venue... love it cos it's a decent size and there's usually a pretty decent atmostphere, hate it cos I can never get close to the stage to get the shots I want, and the security are usually pretty hot on SLR cameras.

That said, I smuggled in my 40d with my 50mm lens in my other pocket without any problems again. Once buried in the crowd I put my half drunk beer in my pocket, replacing my 50mm lens and set up, ready for the gig I'd anticipated a very long time indeed.

This band, as you may have heard put on one hell of a stage show; stunts, props, actors, lights, balloons etc etc they try it all out and just have a whole heap of fun with the crowd. The lead singer split from a giant TV wall that at the time was projecting an intimate part of the female anatomy as if being born, the rest of the band followed and before we knew it, there were 50 giant coloured balloons bouncing around, along with the front man inside a zorb, rolling about over the crowd!

Streamer and confetti cannons blasted, as kids dressed as frogs and kittens danced away at the side of the stage all the way thru the gig. They only made way breifly for a large inflatable Slug and sunshine!

The light show went on and it was undoubtedly the best small (ie. not Daft Punk at Homebush or U2 at Wembley '96) touring show I've seen in Australia, maybe even the world... fantastic and highly recommended, even if you're not so familiar with their music.

Mercury

Long Weekend; Sydney

With Sydney looking for ideas to promote the city during the WORST month of the year (June - weather-wise), they enlisted the help of Brian Eno. They came up with the idea of the Festival of Lights. Eno's contribution was his projected light-art that would be beamed across the harbour on to the sails of the Opera House as well as some other surrounding buildings like the Museum of Contempory Art.

I had a dodgy compact cam shot of the Opera House, but wanted a better keep sake, so drove into the city at 10.30 on a Friday night and set about capturing something a little more magical. I wound up having about 30mins of shooting time as the lights went out at midnight, but by this point, I had captured a few decent images. My favourite of which is here!

The following day, my old mate Aaron was up from Melbourne for the weekend, and along with the usual suspects, we headed to the Royal National Park to have a stab at some Mountain Biking. I of course also took my camera and managed to get some strobed shots of the guys smashing it thru a puddle. The weather was unusually hot for my self-proclaimed worst weather month in Sydney, and the conditions were perfect for a quick swim in the ocean in Maroubra before later heading over to Todds place for a dinner and drinks evening.

The following day was Matty's birthday celebrations, we headed into Kings Cross to the Czech beer cafe where about 20 of us dined on lots of meat. And Beer. Awesome :)

This left the bonus day of the weekend to recover from the weekends fun, that evening, I went to 6 a side soccer and banged 2 goals in - and it felt good!
- Easy day with soccer at the end - 2 goals

One Day Like This

V festival 09 - Australia, Centennial Parklands, Sydney.

I didn't make my feelings secret of how bad the last one of these was when I went 2 years ago... the lineup - so mixed up it made the UK top 40 sound like a Pink Floyd album in comparison, beer queues the worst I've ever seen and, well, that's enough.


This year... no margin for error, the lineup looked good, and I smuggled my own bottle of Vodka in to negate queueing up for beers full stop. Excellent move - cos guess what - those queues were still there... we're talking nearly an hour to get a drink - way to keep the festival vibe up V.

Anyhoo, the festival... it couldn't have been a more perfect day. The sky had zero white fluffy stuff in it, the temparature while hot, wasn't a scorcher, and friends were able to sit on lush green centenial park grass watching Duffy open the proceedings up, despite her grumblings of being first on for the first time in oh - a year or two. She was fun and sounded great. Next up was Elbow, I've been a fan of theirs since Asleep in the Back and finally got to see them live, not lively, but I didn't expect that, and again, a great way to enter the festival atmosphere as my vodka started to cement a foundation for the evening to come.

I did have to line up for some chips and a drink, which took all of 2mins, then I was back to the stage to meet up with Lauren and Oren again before heading off across the festival site to see Razorlight for the 2nd time in a couple of months - result! It was a very business like performance this time around, no frills - just fast hits with no small talk or smiles. By this point I was bellowing out every word of every song embarrassingly for the people around me I'm sure...

Time now for some dinner whilst queing up for food... again, not a great time - about 30minutes for some chips, but the Kaisers were playing about 50metres away so not the worst way to wait for food. They had the crowd, and indeed some of the queue rocking. I ate the last of my potato snacks humming "oh my god I can't believe it, I've never been this far away from home". The vodka was nearly done. Last top up was gonna need to last.

Next up, another trip across the venue to see Snow Patrol, The lead singer in very high spirits, so high, he kept forgetting lyrics to his songs, a little odd I must say, but everyone lapped them up and the stage show was great too...

Now for the grand finale... The Killers... Luckily we were all quite tipsy by this point, I'm pretty sure these boys were fairly average in reality, but banging out the hits from their first couple of albums was enough to get them through, even if the newer stuff was about as well recieved as a 3am wake-up call following on from a very spicy curry. I can't believe I've been going to V festivals since 1997 already, how time flies...

Bring Change

ShapeShifter & Kora at the SoCo Mobile Cargo Club, Sydney.

The format of gigs seem to be one of those things that don't get tampered with too often. A concert hall, a bar or two, a merchandise stand, a stage, a band, a big crown, a lack of sufficient air conditioning; they're pretty standard. So the SoCo Mobile venue pretty much sold itself to me before I even knew who was playing. Actually, this is a lie, since the aforementioned is generally true; I struggled to work out what the heck this mobile venue would be like.

Benny and I decided to give this a whirl. We met before for a few beers discussing our thoughts of what we envisaged the gig to be.

We approached the venue, which basically looked like 4 shipping containers side by side, with some noise eminating from the steel. The doorman was like a circus freak... no offense - he wasn't ugly as a slate layers nail bag, but he had the crazy shades, massive Outkast style afro styled out with flares and a psycadellic skin tight t-shirt. Mad. We get in after have a laugh with said door staff and are greeted by a girl with 8cm long eye-lashes who gives us some blig to wear. The gig was sponsored by Southern Comfort, so it was all branded accordingly. In we go - to see an inverted sea of twinkle lights - on the ceiling. Couches and a comfort zone to one side, a bar straight ahead, and a stage not much more than 10cms in height from the ground. The band playing could be touched, if you really wanted to. I think it was women singing about "Gash" if memory serves. Nice.

Benny and I made our way through many of the manlier sounding SoCo mix drinks right before Shapeshifter would make it out on stage. By this point, the coke, red bull, ginger beer and SoCo had kicked in properly - not to mention the foundational beers... all this adding up to a totally healthy night, as we rocked out to ShapeShifter - great crowd, great band (who even came out and partied afterwards). Great idea. See it, if it comes to a town near you.

Slow

Kylie Minogue; Acer Arena, Sydney-Homebush.

What are the first few things you knew in your lifetime about Australia? Some people might answer; Didgeredo's, Kangeroos, The Great Barrier Reef, Koalas, The Sydney Opera House.

These would also be true for me, but I would also add 2 more on the list. Rolf Harris and Kylie Minogue. Having seen everything else I've written about here already; it was time to see the final one. So Lauren and I scuttled on over to the Olympic showgrounds on a Tuesday night to go see the showgirl herself. Kylie. Quite an odd show really, an arena full of people, not many of them moving very much, not many kids like I thought there might be, plenty of gays but an awesome light show and sound spectacle to see when you looked past the thousands sat in front; and we had "Gold" seats.

I couldn't possibly compare this gig to anything I'd normally go to, cos it's nothing like those. In it's own right it was awesome, though I could only do it once in a very blue moon. Like the Spice Girls in 1998, I'm glad I've seen another of the living worlds most famous stars perform.


Without snobbery toward the dated songs that made her famous, she performed I Should be so Lucky, Better the Devil You Know and Step Back in Time

The stage went off like some of the best bits of a Daft Punk gig , some of the glamour of a Kanye West show, and the acoustics of a U2 show. All in all, well impressive. Nice work Kylie. Except next time - try making the tickets a little cheaper, it's the most I've ever paid for a single act concert here or in the UK. Did someone say Economic Crisis!?

I'm on a Beach

Australian Rental Property #2 , Maroubra - New South Wales, Australia.

November 1, It was time to move to my second longish term home in Australia. One suburb away from my old home in Randwick, is Maroubra. Famed for it's slightly rough past, the "Bra Boys" have caused some fights in their time, and maybe, just maybe, kept the prime beach front property prices that bit lower than all the other Eastern beaches. Thanks boys.

So a Saturday spent moving stuff from one house to another, the Sunday spent getting things straight, and then the following week nights, having to zip back and forth to the old place to get things finalised for our bond... and then the following weekend - SWEET SWEET NOTHING. A relaxing weekend at the beach. A year of weekend holidays at the beach starts here.

I'll leave you with some random shots from the surrounding areas...

It's a War

A bit of a break was required in the usual 'pack-it-all-in' weekend regime. For our tenure at Bundock Lane is nearly over and I must find a new home to live in. After Lauren and I hit up a bunch of properties, we were left hoping - a couple of places that really appealed to us had come up and we had lodged applications.

We headed out West, for I had a wedding shoot to do the following weekend and I needed to check out the venue for potential shots. During this visit, we got a call from a real estate agent advising us that we were firm favourites to get one of the places we'd applied for on Maroubra Beach. We were over the moon with the prospect of spending the Summer months, living at the beach.

The following day, it was time for some relaxation - the previous and upcoming weeks business was sign to let loose for a bit. I went for an exploration session around the South end of Maroubra beach and sucked up the fresh sea air before some crazy busy times ahead.

Oren Leaving/Supergrass

It seems like every few months, someone else from the Sydney circle heads off overseas. This time is the turn of Oren. So for a Friday night, we headed out for dinner and drinks in Coogee. After we all ate more than we should've I had a gig to make that I'd double booked - Supergrass, from the UK.

So off I went with my camera, hoping to capure some good shots of Gaz and Co. However where the last few gigs I'd been to, I'd been able to smuggle in my camera under a jacket, the warmth of the Spring months meant I had just my T shirt on, and as such, a bouncer required me to check in my camera for the performance. I was to say the least, bummed.

However, every action has a reaction, and this was no exception. For without the shackles of a weighty camera, I was free to drink several more drinks, and then go a little crazy and believe I was 10yrs younger, for half an hour at least.

Flashbacks to several years ago, they started playing one of my favourite all time songs - "Movin' " - and as the chorus chords and drums came crashing in, I found my feet bounding me off the floor - several inches at a time... then I noticed the usual British suspects that liven up the front 'pit' area in a usually well behaved Sydney crowd - they were going nuts. My feet followed and pretty soon I was in there too. Just like I was 18 again, the fun and adrenaline pumping... just one thing wrong, I'm not as fit as I used to be, so I had to retreat promptish to get my breath and allow the springs in my legs to recover!

And so I walked away from that gig, with a massive smile on my face - nostalgia running through my veins and ready to head back to Orens leaving party at the Coogee Bay Palace - with just a handful of pitiful shots taken with my phone - still, stoked.

The night wound its self to a halt as the Palace opened its front doors only to sweep out the party goers onto the beach promenade.

A Certain Romance

A little luxury in my own back yard, Sydney, Australia

Work was over with for another week and another escape from the day to day monotany of work was due. This time, and quite unusually, the escape would come without getting away from the city physically. More so, just emgracing the city as a tourist destination rather than a place of work.

That evening I started out my drinks at a clients site, before heading out to a pub on Jones Bay Wharf with my work colleaugues. I split from there at 8 and went to meet friends, one fresh from a year in the UK, at the Ivy lounge on George St. There we sipped drinks in the VIP section for the evening before slipping home for the weekend ahead.

After some early house hunting in the morning, I took Lauren on a mystery drive which would wind up in the Rocks at Sydney. Once she thought I was hopelessly lost, in the city I spend 8-9 hours per day, I turned in to the valet parking driveway of the Shan Gri La 5* hotel and feigned to ask for directions. Of course I just handed over the keys and proceeded to check us in.

An afternoon of freakishly high temperatures so early in spring (30+) was a great way to sit 29 floors above sea level sipping Moet and watching everyone below scuttle around Circular Quay and the Opera House.

Evening time came and we dined Al Fresco with the Opera House over Laurens shoulders, and the Harbour Bridge over mine. A lovely setting for a feed - it was just too bad they let kids in there too :P After that we headed up to the Horizon bar - something I've been meaning to do for all of my two years in Sydney; and sipped on AWESOME cocktails (at a price!) overlooking the Sydney Westerly horizon.

The following morning, we ate Brekkie at the 'La before jumping on a packed out train to Milsons Point for the start of the Annual Sydney Running Festsival. We were hopelessly late for the event we'd signed up for but luckily we were able to slip into the 9km walk. So similar to last year, where I ran - this year I strolled along with my camera to take some nifty shots of the bridge from some rare vantage points (the usually busy roads!). The day was again lovely and warm and it made for an awesome stroll taking in all of Sydneys best loved cliched tourist spots; the Botanic gardens a highlight.

With the walk over, it was time for lunch, and a very late checkout at 4pm after yet more R&R. An awesomely relaxing weekender.

That's Entertainment

Paul Weller, The Enmore Theatre, NSW, Australia

Just a normal Tuesday I thought.

I head to work, get on with my day. I work on my projects, I do my maintenance.

Then Kev emails me the most recent Paul Weller setlist, in preparation for the gig I've been looking forward to seeing for months, it suddenly dawns on me, it's tonight.

Now I've been pretty bad with updating the blog recently (a line I'm sure gets written in just about every blog at some stage), but for now, I wanted to write and give a bang up to date report from the life of Luke... as this was something just a bit special.

The setlist contains a long list of songs documenting playlists since I first heard "Sunflower" back in the mid nineties on a teenaged Lukes, "Now, that's what I call music" album. Since then I've listened to a fair bit of Wellers earlier works from "The Jam" and a little "Style Council" stuff too.

Paul also fronted one of my earlier gig experiences back in Southend, Essex in '97... and then littered my social calendar through the last 11 years, seeing him a t various festivals and other live shows. He hadn't toured Australia for about 20years, so this was a gig to truly get excited about.

I'd also been trying to get special permission to take my camera to the pit to get some really up close and personal shots of the act, but no bosy at the Enmore, or at Wellers management wanted to reply to my emails... so I brought it upon myself to smuggle in my camera. After getting it in at the Fratellis by the skin of my teeth with a little lense, I was gonna have to work harder this time. I strapped a lensless camera under my jacket, and carried in a 15cm long 100mm lense in my pocket so there were no huge lumps to be spotted by the doormen... Success, and as soon as the lights went down I whacked it all together and set about blasting through 2GBs of memory card space... I wish I'd brought a 4GB!

Enough of camera stuff now, you can see the images I got for yourself here. The set. Oh my. First off it really helped that the soundman was somewhere near the top of his game. Second, there was actually some kind of lightshow, and instead of watching the usual Sydney - dimley lit affair (few gigs excluded), But it all came down to the talent on stage, Weller and Craddock simply amazed me with their new takes on old classics, they managed to get to the opening line of one of Wellers most popular songs before anyone realised what it was... there was some serious fore-thought into this set of songs.

As I juggled my time between taking pictures, clapping & singing along and sipping beer, I realised I was watching what would now be remembered as one of my top 5 gigs of all time... just.

Nobody Lost, Nobody found.

Birthday weekend, Sydney, NSW

So another of these annual dates rolls around again, and this one, seems just a little bit of a non-event... late 20's (no hiding from it!), but a year off the big one. That said, I had a great weekend celebrating it.

I arrived home from work on Friday evening to find a large manilla envelope stuffed in the mailbox. I opened it up and found 2 sealed copies of "What Digital Camera" magazine. I instantly new what this meant, and I hurriedly pulled the plastic wrapping and began flicking through. As I reached page 74, there it was, my first photograph in a magazine! Okay, so the contents of the manilla envelope are all I got in return for this, but it's a nice achievement never the less :)

So to the big day, which for obvious reasons is always a day of reflection, but with the fact that today heralded my 3rd Sydney City 2 Surf race - it was even more sentiment to the anniversary. After running it last year, this year I decided to crawl it; via the pubs en route.

I headed in to the city with the boys, as all those thousands of people that I was part of last year, line up and psyche up for Australias biggest 'fun' run. 14kms ain't really ever fun. This time however, we stood by and watched the masses pound the tarmac up through to Kings Cross. Once the people we knew had made fleeting appearances, we headed into the pub and started on our first beers of the day, before 10am :)

The plan was to pub-crawl the route. But with hardly any pubs open at this time of day, it was looking a little tricky. So we headed to the Sheaf in Double Bay, had more beers, played some group pool and then jumped in cabs to the Bondi Beach Road Hotel... the rest played out a little like the past 2years before it. I took a few calls from around the world today, to which I was overjoyed that people had remembered me all the way around the other side of the globe. Thankyou.

A week followed where I would finish dinner excitedly, looking forward to my leftover ice-cream birthday cake.