Thursday, December 10, 2009
While I realise it's the 10th I don't think having six days worth of content is viable here. Day 5 was a day I'd been looking forward to for months. Had no work, and an afternoon full of good vibes and plenty of dancing. But not at Stereosonic like the rest of Adelaide. I was where those NOT at Stereo were - A Day on the Green at Peter Lehmann Wines in the Barossa Valley.
Why would I, a 20-year-old, go there over Stereo? Well, these tickets went on sale months before, and I wasn't going to miss out on the first Australian tour The B-52's have done in my lifetime. That's right, the Rock Lobster and Love Shack people. They're still around. And they kick arse. With Mental As Anything and The Proclaimers as supports it was actually a really well-rounded show. We had a very large group of Scots next to us who knew all the words to every Proclaimers song... when 500 Miles came on my auntie and I went down the aisle to where a few of them were waving their Scottish flag and grabbed it. We were all singing (horribly I might add), waving the flag and it was the funniest thing I've done in ages.
My latest TINAB task came a bit before this (for I still had it in full view of course)... page 124: 'This is a MOMENT IN TIME. This day will never happen again. Document it's passing.' So I wrote:
"Red Red Wine by UB40's blasting over the speakers at A Day on the Green in between Mental As Anything and The Proclaimers and everyone's singing along. I'm to Mum's right and Angela, Toula and Tanya's left; we're chilling with riesling, food and anticipation for The B-52's!"
I would've missed the day if I'd written about it all. But the concert was rad, they played most of my favourites, and to hear Love Shack live, my fave song of ALL TIME, was incredible. To say I went nuts is an understatement. And Rock Lobster as the encore went OFF. The photo pick for the day is hard (there's a particularly funny one involving chocolate) but below is of the band, as close as I could get before the reserved seating. I've just realised the idiot in the cap is very reminiscent of the puppet from Hey Hey It's Saturday. Gilbert?
All in all, it was an amazingly awesome day with the (family) girls, with perfect weather and great atmosphere.
Day 6 wasn't very eventful but the photo shows my excitement from the concert continuing. Worn this T-shirt twice already... <3 id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413403952931941698" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbUVwhbd8u4lSoxTFJGCi-nH-54JExRrDcEXq3DGvwyuyQsvFESelt2D_oooc1wN38No9VcbpqU6Tm1ZDqMZQezuuwcu7o6KYVoDPP4QCFFghXmYpkqtwLl9MYWfGEQymhMO2X/s320/IMG_1554.JPG" border="0">
Day 7: same, but it marked the last day of my first challenge. During the week of placing TINAB in full view, it's gone with me to work, the gym, a festival, The Ed, coffee, the movies, and Fresh at least. Here we had a minor water spillage (sssh!) but TINAB was spared. Anyway, the studio is my photographic choice for this day so you can see where the magic comes from!
I really need to get cracking on these tasks. But so little time! Doing this AND the contents of my list aren't happening at a great pace :/ Having said that, stuff is getting done. So that has to be positive.
COUNT:
Pages in progress: 62
Pages completed: 1, 8-9, 7, 88, 124
Pages completed by others: 7 (Spratt, 1-12-09)
Monday, November 30, 2009
I thought $150 was a lot for a concert (which it is, but in this day and age with no-one actually buying albums anymore, shipping costs, etc. I’m starting to not blame them). When I heard seating for Britney was $200 for seats fairly high up I was floored. I should’ve known here that she can do whatever she likes and get away with it. But because Adelaide was a late addition on the tour, to be safe (for fear of them selling out) we bought pre-sale seats. So that brings it to $220 each. I was expecting a knockout show. Should’ve known better…
I’m with the girls (Jana, Penny, Helen and Demi) as we get to our seats; the stage was fairly big so we thought the view was good. Until we sit down. They had four big black constructions hanging (for lighting presumably), one of which blocked most of the centre stage. Not happy Jan. We figured the big circular screen would help us and we’d be alright. The show starts, and it’s all exciting. Then the screen fires up and we can’t see that either. They positioned the screens wrong so anyone who had the black things in their way couldn’t even make use of them. We suddenly see girls rushing down the steps to watch in the aisles. So believe me when I say it wasn’t just us. Later on Penny and I get told off for sitting there – and I turn and go: “Well we can’t see a thing. We’ve paid $220 and we can’t see centre stage!”
The poor lady had been moving people already and she said we could go down in GA but we’d have to surrender our seats. In GA we would’ve seen sweet f.a. so we didn’t bother. Because Miss Spears wasn’t singing, we wanted to see her dance. And we did. And she was okay at it. But what made me personally kerfuzzled was how she pranced around half the time and then took forever off-stage in between songs when it wasn’t even a costume change. I don’t reckon she made it to 90 minutes, we couldn’t figure out if she was singing ‘Everytime’ live (because we were negotiating the move and the backing track was loud) and we couldn’t hear her properly above the music when she said something like “This is the last stop on the tour and I’m so glad I could share it with you” (which was pretty much the extent of her interaction).
However: I made sure I danced to ‘Toxic’ (because I wasn’t going to sit down for the entire thing for the amount I paid) - and made Helen dance with me, the choreography was pretty good and it was a real show. The legless lady flipping around on the trampoline in the pre-show was crazy and the lady on the beam was incredible. The awesome montage of her clips on the screen towards the end showed her staying power in the pop world and the whole thing had a slightly creepy feel to it. But for all that I think Penny put it best in our post-show debrief: it was a good show but it felt a bit flat. Like she didn’t want to really be there. The question that burns most in my mind is this: she knows she’s the biggest star in the world, for right and wrong reasons… does she think she’s copping out her fans by miming? Although when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, as Helen said it’s all money-spinning. If she cared enough about her fans she’d have a less extravagant show and sing for them. That’s just how I see it. So the criticism can be justified. Perhaps Adelaide was jipped because it was a late addition, but for the amount of people that struggled to see, it was poorly planned out. But I’m honestly glad I can say I’ve seen her – in what I think will be her only Australian tour. After all the criticism she’s copped, I’d be extremely surprised if she ever came back.
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