Parkinson (I would've really liked to have caught him), and only got a fragment of Dinah Lee, The Delltones and Normie Rowe from the wings, so I can't really comment on their performances. As the lone comic, he was incidental to the music, but I enjoyed what I heard of George Smilovici's routine - he's prepared to tackle the Big Issues as well as make the more typical personal observations.
Wilbur Wilde opened the second of the three sets with a version of Local Hero accompanied by Michael Christian on guitar, and, if nothing else, it made one appreciate the shrewdness of Knopfler's writing. Where the theme proper takes over from the introspective preamble, you may as well have had the Radio City chorus line appear, such was the Pavlovian response of the audience - and it was still only the sax and guitar up there when you opened your eyes again. If Wilbur looked as if he'd just woken up, it was because he had. (pic 1)
Next up was Russell Morris with Hush and The Real Thing, (see large pic), which, I'd not realised till then, are very similar songs. It's even possible that the success of Hush informed the composition of The Real Thing now that I think of it. There's a belated discovery for you! Anyway, they're perennials that never seem to lose their power, and the band rocked.
One technical observation that bugged nearly all the performances was the non-appearance of guitar solos in the mix, in which omission Ronnie Peers was the chief victim - as he was here. Having said that, given the immense challenge of just getting all the artists on stage at the same time, let alone looking and sounding brilliant, the night was a credit to all the crew (special mention here of our mate Scrooge Madigan) that made our job just a matter of performing the songs to the best of our ability.
I don't know why James Reyne always surprises me, but he does. He exudes a calm confidence that gets you on his side before he sings a note, and his guitar playing is relaxed and unequivocal. He was joined by a guitarist (who eventually came up in the mix) and a female singer who matched James' vocal idiosyncracies nuance for nuance as he faultlessly rendered Reckless and Downhearted (at least - there may have been another).
Daryl Breatherite hit the stage with Howzat!, (which I'm still humming), followed by an extended version of the Horses song, in which he featured a very effective falsetto, a proclivity which had been unknown to me before now. My goodness - he could do the entire Smokey Robinson repertoire for the rest of his life if he runs out of other ideas. He did get noticeably excited about this point, and ran about the stage in a strangely disjointed manner, adding some welcome quirkiness to what might've otherwise been a run-of-the-mill Braithwaite performance.
Then came what was undoubtedly the highlight of the night's performances, offered to us by no more or less than a child representing the next generation of performers. Vanessa Amorosi appeared on stage, all shoulder-length hair and innocence, repleat with knee-high boots topped with a mini-dress of green and gold. Her disarming protestations of humility and respect smacked a little of Eve Harrington in All About Eve, but only in retrospect, and I'm sure she meant it at the time - sort of.
Then she simply launched into Piece of My Heart, which up till then had been the exclusive domain of Janis Joplin, repelling all challengers. Vanessa, this young girl, who has never explored the darkest chasms of the soul by imbibing every substance within reach, (to my knowledge anyway), actually channelled Janis for the first verse and chorus, which is no mean feat in itself; but by the time she'd finished with the song, (and, I might add, employing full voice in a stratospheric realm that Janis could only achieve harmonically), she'd utterly eclipsed Janis' rendition for everybody in the room, and I'm including hard-bitten professionals like me (who'd stopped breathing after the first chorus).
It was, by way of osmosis, an astonishing bravura performance by everybody on stage - her accompanying musicians were clearly galvanised by this child's towering performance. Christ! Somebody do something intelligent with this talent.
Joe and the Black Sorrows were next. This is a man who has slipped into his older self like it was a Maltese mafioso dressing gown and slippers - and it suits him. I have to say it was pretty scary in the corridors back stage seeing us old folk up close, but with Joe it's like he's anticipated everything. And so it is with his music. What was cool, remains cool, and what's happening now in Joe's world is equally cool. And it's distinctively Melbourne too, and I felt a little swelling of pride in my trousers just thinking about it.
Peter Cupples opened the last set with a slightly wayward version of Max's most successful song, Slippin' Away, 'wayward' in that Peter had actually changed the melody from the one that people know and love. Sometimes that kind of variation can breathe life into an old song, but in this case it just sounded wrong. The crowd gasped when Billy Thorpe appeared on the screen and introduced the song, and applauded when it abruptly finished. The man exerts his charisma even from the grave.
Jon English blundered onto the stage as if he was in some G&W musical or other, cracked a joke or two and sang one of his more famous songs. This was followed by a song that I'm sure he said Max wrote for him (Turn The Page). Before the count in he turned to the band and said, 'See you at the other end', and then proceeded to leave the stage before the song had finished.
Mike Brady's contribution was almost as mystifying, with an adaption of Up There Cazaly that involved simply changing the principal line to Up There Young Maxie. He should be so lucky.
I think the crowd was getting tired by this stage, because Ross Wilson and band could barely rouse them to murmur along in Come Back Again, an infallible crowd-pleaser in normal circumstances. An elfen-like Renee Geyer joined Ross to sing an appropriately funky variation of his A Touch Of Paradise, followed by a Max Merritt standard in Fanny Mae, and although it's hard to imagine a less likely couple - anywhere - at least there was some electricity crackling in the vicinity.
I didn't see any of John Paul not-quite-so-Young's set, 'cause I was trying to get back stage for the ensemble reprising the LWTTT's Long Way To The Top finale. I wasn't the only one who felt horribly redundant, but as I looked out wanly into the sea of faces, I could see young Alana Galea eight rows back, singing along like mad and completely lost in some rock 'n' roll magic that was eluding old Uncle Mike entirely.

gig report
Fran and Rob say goodbye to Lancefield
14.10.07 - It was just as I reached the Bolte Bridge I realised that I'd left my clothes bag at home, but it was later, when I was setting up in the Curly Flat Vineyards dining room, that I made my most annoying discovery - that I'd left three crucial guitar leads at Ormond Hall the week before. (There's no point in sending an idiot to do an idiot check). I managed to scrounge a spare lead from Curly Flat's Phillip Moraghan, himself a guitarist and budding drummer as well as fine vintner, (Jeni gave me a parting gift of the 2004 Pinot - yum!), and he observed there were enough musos at the party to field a couple of bands. Despite some misgivings about the acoustics of the