gig report
Maldon Hotel Sun. 28.11.10
Act of God fails to stop the Maldon Blues Club party
29.11.10 - The alleged creator of the Universe, Mr God, was moving in manifestly meteorological ways on the weekend, but the gig at the Maldon Hotel went ahead as scheduled. It made a change from listening to the flood reports, the baffling updates on the State election and the Aussie cricketers being systematically dismantled anyway, so a good half of the entire town's population trotted down to the pub to cop a bit of the full-Monty Spectrum, satisfyingly augmented as they were with the addition of keyboardist, Daryl 'Chopper' Roberts.
Our Blues Club host, Kinga Roy, (pic 4) made us all feel at home, but I must see if he can come good with a green room next time - a pub urinal is not the ideal place to change at the best of times, but this one requires holding your breath at the same time and so is particularly demanding.
It was great to see the three Trollops (pic 2) after their scary text messages, and

The Station Reunion

1) The Mick Elliott Band is appraised by the crowd that was there in the first place - and found to be exactly the same

2) The musical hits of the arvo, Mason, Stockley and See 3) Anita Monk winds down from the benefit with Robbo

4) Robbo chats with local Tom Spanos 5) Joe Creighton chats with former gonzo journalist, Jenny Brown

6) Interstate visitors from SA 7) Chris Stockley makes friends with a jug o' beer

8) My co-conspirator, Lena Blomfield 9) David Pepperell remakes acquaintances
gig report
Station Hotel Sat. 20.11.10
The Station Hotel reunion finds an audience
21.11.10 - Bill and I arrived outside the Station Hotel just after the agreed load-in time of 12.30, fully expectiing Glyn 'Mother' Mason to be waiting for us impatiently, but instead we ran into an irate little man claiming to be Mark Barnes who vehemently harangued us for being grey-haired has-beens playing the same crap we've been playing for the last thirty years. And your point is? Anyway, Bill and I thought nothing more of it, but he came back again later when the Mick Elliott band was playing, only to storm out minutes later loudly voicing his dissatisfaction. I think he was miffed about something, but most people that I spoke to during the afternoon were delighted about the reunion in nearly every respect. The opening act, the Mick Elliott band, (pic 1) was chillingly authentic and Trevor Young scared the bejesus out of Robbo's drums. I thoroughly enjoyed The Pardoners' set (Sam See and Glyn Mason) and the Stockley, See, Mason numbers (pic 2) worked absolutely fine without a rhythm section and went down a storm.
Glyn joined Spectrum for I'll Take You High and we cheerfully massacred a couple of Chris Stockley's songs without incurring a dummy spit. Michael Bright said his highlight of the afternoon was seeing David Pepperell dancing to I'll Be Gone, but I think everybody had a memorable moment or two. There is talk we should do it again. What do you think?

The Harvey James benefit

1) The Oakleigh-Carnegie RSL or the Caravan Music Club + moon 2) I'm rudely awakened

3) Bill cuddles Harvey's Faye 4) Harv with daughter Alex and Fender's Margaret O’Loughlin

5) Bill wraps up Harv's sons, Josh and Gabe 6) 3 NRG's Andrew Smith was one of many media people in the room

7) John Grant and Phuil Manning having a chat 8) Jimi Hocking has a reflective moment

9) How long since I've seen Jenny Brown? 10) Phil Manning assumes there's a crowd out there somewhere

11) Garth Porter joined Ariel for I'll Be Gone and Launching Place 12) Harv joins in the encore with Faye looking on

I had some misgivings about the rigorous schedule of performances Harvey had set himself for the evening, but he coped manfully all night and managed to put in an heroic performance.
I was dividing my time between socialising/resting in the green room and catching acts in the hall, so I certainly didn't see everything, but the performances I did see ranged from honest and heartfelt (in the case of Harvey's Band of Friends with his sons Josh and Gabe for instance), to muscular and electrifying in Ian Moss' case.
It was especially touching to see the Sherberts (sans Darryl) back together again - Garth Porter (pic 11) even joined Ariel for I'll Be Gone and Launching Place Part 2, (which he'd never heard before), and Tony Mitchell borrowed Bill's Precision for the Sherb's set, which might give you an inkling of the camaraderie back stage. A bit different from the old days when the Sherbs were the enemy.
Ariel had prepared ten songs for our part of proceedings, but things were running so far behind by that stage that we cut it back to just the four. The audience had understandably diminished by this time, (it was a Thursday night after all), but their singing in I'll Be Gone was whole-hearted and actually quite stirring - even for jaded old me.
I've had a couple of e-mails from Harv since then. He's truly happy that the night happened and that it was by any measure a wonderfully successful night. Of course, it wouldn't have happened without the support of the musicians on stage and the crew working behind the scenes, but the ultimate kudos are reserved for the Anitas Monk and Sulcs for pulling the night together. It was a huge job on very short notice and I think if you were there you'd agree they pulled it off magnificently.