I See Red!

I went to the Tim Finn gig tonight, and - WOW. It was amazing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Firstly, I got a bit of a hair trim today, because I've decided I'm growing it out, so I got rid of the longer bit so it'll grow out evenly. I had the tiniest smidge of blonde left, so I dyed it bright pink again, and while that set I decorated the house for CNY, and it looks pretty cool.

Went into the city about 2:30...went to the Howard Arkley exhibition. I know I've been planning to see it with people, but I'm not sure if I'll have time before it closes on the 25th, so I went today just in case. It was pretty awesome. Interesting to see how his style changed over the years - from stark black and white in his early years, through to more complex pieces in earthy tones, through to his comic book inspired saturated colours in his latter years.

So anyway, onto the gig! I met a couple of my frenz at Southbank for dinner, then we headed up to the Forum...there was a surprisingly large number of people already lined up, but we still got a good table, at the front left of the stage. I guess being an older audience (the majority would be my parents age) they're not too fussed with being up the front. We had a young lad and his mum ask to sit at our table, and it turns out we all know each other from the Frenz messageboard. The support act was Josh Pyke, just him and his acoustic guitar and some guy on violin, glockenspiel and tambourine (obviously not all at once). I don't know any Josh Pyke songs but he was good.

Tim came on at 9pm, which I consider early (usually the gigs I go to, the headliner comes on at 10:30) but I wasn't complaining, having taken public transport in. He's still a brilliant entertainer, with a really strong backing band (and a girl bassist, yeah :)). For some songs he played acoustic guitar or piano, and on others he was dancing around in the customary Tim Finn style (ie very crazily indeed), sometimes with his yellow star-shaped tambourine (or 'starbourine'). It was a pretty even mix of songs from his latest album Imaginary Kingdom, a couple of singles off his previous solo albums, a couple of Crowded House tunes (Weather With You and It's Only Natural, naturally) and a few Enz classics. I wasn't familiar with one song, but I knew the rest, and while every song got a rapturous reception, the Enz songs in particular went down very well. We ended up getting two encores (those tables were very handy for noisemaking) and at the very end of the second encore, my wish came true and the band played I See Red, probably the closest to punk the Enz ever got. The crowd had remained seated all night, but with encouragement from Tim, our table got up and started dancing (or in my case, flailing - I've no idea what the hell was going on there. I think it was a bit of the Tim spirit!) and soon the floor in front of the stage was packed and IT WAS AWESOME.

The band finally staggered from the stage at 10:45 and we immediately headed out to the stage door. Apparently sometimes Tim politely refuses to sign anything and just escapes to the car, but tonight must have been a good night, because he hung around, signed things, chatted to people and took photos. I got my guitar strap signed (the one which is the same as his), and either he really did remember that he told me on myspace where to get it, or he's nice and a good liar.

And I still made the third last train home. So all in all, a pretty sensational evening.

-R