Band

A Band by Any Other Name….

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I just read an article about how bands like the Beatles and Pink Floyd and pretend bands like Coldplay got their names. It was interesting up to a point. The point being that they left out one of the world’s premier, if somewhat understated and underground, bands. I speak (write, actually) of none other than Not Garfunkel. The stories of how others got their names pale into insignificance when compared with the saga around our name. Did I mention that I was one of the founders of this iconic band and am currently the only member? Actually the others may still consider themselves to be members. It’s just that when I grab a guitar to play, I’m the only person in the room these days.

Back to the name. Son and girlfriend at the time came round to see the CB and me one night. The girlfriend was 24 and basically knew nothing about anything that had happened before her 18th birthday and outside this state. So when we told them we had tickets to see Simon and Garfunkel she explained that not only had she never heard of them but that it was a stupid name for a band.

Later that evening I announced that Saturday afternoon some mates were coming over and we were going to set up our gear on the deck and play some music and drink some beer. I forget which was used as an excuse for the other. Son asked if we had a name for the band and before I could answer girlfriend blurted out “It’s not Garfunkel is it?” And a legend was born.

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A Night Fit for a Queen

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Another rollicking good time at the Hammo last night. It seems tribute bands are all the rage at the moment. It was Led Zeppellin a couple of months ago and we have Pearl Jam and Bon Jovi on the horizon. But last night it was the turn of Killer Queen, a tribute to Queen (obviously) dutifully attended by daughter, son-in-law, son-in-law’s mate and your humble correspondent.

Whereas the Led Zepp tribute sounded really good, not only did the Queen guys sound good, they even looked like Queen. So we had Freddy with the obligatory black short back and sides and the 70’s pornstar moustache, Brian May with the still black shaggy curls and John Deacon with the gravity defying front bouffant which looked like it was about to tumble down his face.

But make no mistake, these guys spent more time on music than appearance and nailed it. The night did, however get off to a rather confusing start. We were advised that the Freddy character was sick and the John Deacon character would do the singing. Now a lot of the Queen songs contain some pretty lengthy and unmistakable bass runs so I was a bit dubious as to how the poor bugger would be able to handle both roles. But as the intro to the first song was being played, out bounded Freddy like Trevor Gillmeister off his death bed in State of Origin III in 1995 to lead an unexpected triumph.

Of course there were those iconic moments to look out for and the crowd didn’t disappoint when it came to their (our) turn. Everyone remembers the head banging scene from Bohemian Rhapsody in Wayne’s World. This was faithfully reproduced by all of the women with long shaggy hair. Sorry, but it doesn’t work with a sensible haircut. And the spontaneous hand clap (well it was spontaneous at Live Aid in 1985) for Radio Ga Ga was there if a little disjointed. But we only had a few hundred people, not 72,000.

And when Freddy told the ladies that the next song was especially for them and the unmistakable intro to Fat Bottomed Girls started I scanned the fat bottoms for signs of rebellion but thankfully that potential tipping point passed without a descent into chaos or at least indignant detachment.

My review of the Led Zepp tribute also featured a crowd review because when we’re talking about bands with their origins in the distant past, all manner of enthusiasts emerge from the shadows. This time the attendees seemed a tad more middle of the road with more women than men by my estimation. I expected the gay community to be out in force and maybe they were, I just didn’t notice. Anyway, one thing’s for certain; when the band starts up all of the tall men and short women push their way to the front. Lucky the child bride wasn’t there or she would have been somewhat miffed.

At the end I commented to my daughter that most of the songs we heard were recorded before she was born, some of them a decade or more before she was born. I don’t know how to adequately explain this but it’s like time has condensed or concertinaed in recent decades. Had I been her age and we were listening to music from a similar time in my past, we’d be listening to Glen Miller and when I was 30 that was never going to happen.

Status Quo

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Driving from Brisbane to the Gold Coast hardly qualifies as travelling but if it’s to see one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time – Status Quo – on possibly their last tour, and certainly last in one regard which I’ll cover below, then I’m prepared to extend the definition. Besides, they came all the way from England so to drive an hour or so to see them seemed only fair. Incidentally, while sitting at our hundredth or so red light I was beginning to think this was not such a good idea. There are more red lights on the Gold Coast than the Reeperbahn, Kings Cross, the Rossebuurt, Roppongi, Patpong and the White House (during the Clinton era) combined. You’ll have to look those places up if they don’t all ring a bell. I’ve been in the same city as all of them except the White House. That’s how I knew.

The concert was held last night at the Star Hotel and Casino at Broadbeach on the Goldie and what an eclectic crowd that place attracts. Everyone from fake ID’d teenagers with their arses hanging out of the shortest of tight, short skirts to 90 year old Chinese grannies. Of course being a casino, the gambling obsessed Chinese are ubiquitous. The crowd that filtered out of the casino and into the theatre to see the Quo were more akin to an Australian Conservatives gathering (in appearance) although I don’t think the average Australian Conservatives crowd would know all of the words to Status Quo’s extensive back catalogue. There were a few outliers with grey ponytails, some sported by women, but since Francis Rossi cut his off a few years back it seemed like a rather superfluous gesture. And there were a few kids who’d been dragged along by their parents (or grandparents) as we had been known to do with ours some (many) years back.

There are some fundamental differences between a Quo/Stones/Eagles (our last three concerts) crowd and a Taylor Swift (for example) crowd, not least minor things like age, fashion, size (individual as opposed to collective) and willingness to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tickets although to be fair, that only applied to the Stones and the Eagles. But one thing is quite similar I assume, although not having ever been to a social media fuelled, hormone busting, like, best everrrr Justin Bieber concert I can’t be certain. Youngsters can be quite rude because many have not been schooled properly in common courtesies and oldsters can be quite rude because “I paid a bloody fortune for this ticket so I’ll come and go as I bloody well please…and spill beer on the person in the row in front as I squeeze past in the dark”. The young country singer who opened for Status Quo was very adept at embarrassing the latecomers, much to the amusement of the more polite section of the crowd. Take a bow Travis Collins.

The show was called “Last Night of the Electrics”. After this tour is finished it’s acoustic or aquostic as they call it, from then on. Not surprising really when you consider the number of shows they do and have done over the years (more than most) and the volume at which they perform. Their ears (certainly Rossi’s) must be mush. Just on the noise thing, the child bride and I saw them in 1976 at Brisbane’s now demolished Festival Hall. We were six rows from the front and my ears were still ringing when we took our seats last night, 41 years later. If Spinal Tap’s amplifiers go up to 11 then Quo’s go up to 12. Having said that, last night’s show was loud but manageable in the aural department but we were two rows further back in row 8 so that may have been why it didn’t seem as loud as in 1976.

Rather than “Last Night of the Electrics” I would have called it “Still Having a Bloody Good Time”. If I could magically transform my very modest musical ability into something a bit more respectable, to the extent that I could hold my own in a top echelon band, I’d want to be in this one. Of course I’ve said that every time we’ve seen the Eagles (five times) but that’s more from a technical excellence perspective than a fun perspective. I also thought it would be a hoot to be in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers but now that Tom has left the building, it would hardly seem the same. No, when a bunch of musicians laugh at each other and take the piss when they (rarely) make a mistake that we mostly don’t even notice and then let the crowd in on the joke, that’s the band for me. None of this hunched over the instruments, terminally serious Radiohead bullshit for me. Or Eric Clapton demonstrating virtuoso capability but not uttering a word other than “thankyou” or cracking a smile for a whole concert.

I love that there’s no preaching and no sentimentality with these guys. There’s certainly banter and audience interaction but no preachy social justice warrior hypocrisy and promotion of pet causes. There can’t be too many diseases or inequalities left that don’t have some second rate celebrity’s name attached to them. There wasn’t even a mention of Rick Parfitt. Some bands would have put a telecaster on a stand in the corner or a cardboard cut-out or some such tribute on the stage. But they didn’t. But I reckon Francis did his own little tribute. At one point everyone else left the stage, even the drummer and Francis played the intro to a song on his own in semi darkness, a song Rick used to intro. Maybe I’m wrong – doesn’t matter because it works for me.

One more difference between 1976 and 2017. Back then, as soon as they started to play everyone stood up. Not such a big deal when you’re six rows from the front but when everyone in front of you stands on their chairs you have to follow suit. The cute but diminutive child bride was not impressed. Now, we (the typical Status Quo audience) prefer to stay sitting down. Some did get up and dance and good luck to them as long as they don’t dance in front of me. The girls with their Stevie Nicks hair-dos wave their arms around and blokes do Dad dances and think they’re cool. Even I know they aren’t. But as long as I have an uninterrupted view of the stage go ahead and act like a dork.

We got to the second and last song of the encore before the All Blacks front row immediately in front of us stood up. I thought the concert was over because it went dark all of a sudden but I could still hear muffled music, like it was coming from a radio in an adjoining room such was the totality of the wall erected in front of us. I looked at the woman sitting next to me (not the CB, the other side) and we shrugged our shoulders and stood up – what else could we do. No amount of “DOWN IN FRONT” which usually works at the cricket and football, was going to work here.

Brilliant show. That’s another tick on the bucket list.