The Polyphonic Spree, Enmore Theatre, Sydney, 27 Jan 2005

Found this while archiving in Gmail. Don't think i ever sent this to anyone except the band. Added a few comments in [italics].

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Confused post-gig ramblings, which I'll reorder into coherence and post in the forums later:

I've just come back from their gig at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. This has been the strangest, most uplifting, most ecstatic gig that I have ever been in.

I'd never actually heard their music before I got the tickets to the gig. I'd read some articles about them, and of all the post-Big Day Out shows - the Hives and Chemical Brothers also had gigs on the same night - decided this would have to be the most unique. Twenty-piece plus band, with guitars, drums, horns AND theremin, how could it fail? I asked a guy at the music store to describe what they sounded like - was it like choir music, 60s pop, or more like gospel? He had one word - "happy". I eventually managed to get a copy of the album, but had only listened to it a few times, and the most familiar ones have been the poppier tunes like Hold Me Now and Two Thousand Places. Unfortunately, I won't be able to give an accurate setlist, as the songs are still quite new to me, and I don't have the first album.

My friend and I arrived to see support act Sarah Blasko nearing the end of her set, to my regret. Damn. The last song was pretty good, with some layered vocal effects at the end that reminded me of recent Bjork. I wonder if this was a single. Sounds like it. Faster than the previous song.

I'm glad I didn't get any seated tickets. I originally wanted to get seats for the dress circle/balcony, but they only had General Admission, and Reserved Seating at the bottom. Since everyone was gonna stand up eventually, seats at the bottom would be useless anyway.

What does it all remind me of?

• Sesame Street --- pampam, papap, papapam, papaman.. sunny days sweeping the clouds away...
  


• Pokemon - because they're also cute
  


• Sanrio - because it's the asian symbol for happy, hehehe...
  


• The intro to the Velvet Underground's "Head Held High", which starts with these voices in harmony going "haaa..." then the drums kick, and you keep on jumping back to the start, so you can figure out which air drums to "play" when you're pretending to be Mo Tucker... did
  the kick drum come first, or was that a snare?
  


• Speaking of "haa..." does anyone remember that Jim Henson animated movie from the 80s, the Dark Crystal? There was a part where all the turtle-like creatures come out and also go.. "haaa...", and it piles up, all these deep bassy tones converging...
  


• Jesus Christ Superstar, though not as wide-eyed and funky. Hmm.. must be the robes and the hair then!
  


• tibetan throat singing
  

Oh my god, I've got a crush on someone from the band! O gorgeous Lady of The Orange Robe, of the first row in the choir, standing beside the lady in Red robe, who was also looking extremely cool in her choreography. Love those head-shakes! Does anyone know all their names, and more importantly, *her* name? There's a list of names on the PS website, but no pictures to match the names to!

[I later found out her name: Apotsala Wilson]

We're all high, and we don't wanna come down!

There was one part of the gig where they're playing a song, and then it all goes quiet and everyone onstage was standing still in a pose, except for Tim, who got the audience to start singing this single note for what seemed like ages - ME: "Haaaa......" "Aaaaa......" "Aaaaa......" "Aaaaa......" "Aaaaa......"

They returned to the stage for their encore by coming through the theatre entrance, and going through the crowd.

Little kid in robes at the side of the stage on his little drum kit, sooo cute!! Later, the percussionist came to him and got him to play tambourine.

[This was lead singer Tim De Laughter's son]

Percussion guy comes out and lifts one of the drumkit cymbals and stand, and goes to the left speaker.. I think the's the same guy who went offstage and into the crowd with the cymbals.

Drummer comes out with drum hanging from his neck, like in a marching band

Songs played, in no order:

A Long Day Continues
Hold Me Now
Two Thousand Places
One Man Show
Suitcase Calling
When The Fool Becomes A King

I dont' have the prev. album, but this song -
"It's the sun... It's the sun.. " - must be from that one...

Short verse of "Oh what a night"
A bit of "You are my sunshine"... don't know if this was a request from someone in the audience, but I assume so, seeing Tim holding up a sheet of paper with "You are my sunshine" written in red marker.

Last song of the night - Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (!) - main song and reprise.


[Best cover ever of Sgt Pepper! They played it regularly during this tour. My friend in San Francisco also heard it there.]

The dials were always at 11. Not in terms of volume, but in how it made us all feel. Every song was played like it was the last song of the night.

You don't watch The Polyphonic Spree - you become one of them, if only for the hour and a half that you share the same room.

Steam cleaning Babel into Weng Weng

Stayed at home and moved furniture from living room so we could get it steam-cleaned.

Wife rings steam-clean guy, who says that he's just looking at the map. Says our street is not on the map. "Wait, i will just look at the internet". He arrives at 12, instead of 11 as originally scheduled.

(Later, i will find out that his map is from year 2000. Goddamn, wouldn't it make business sense to get a new street directory every year, just so you can bloody find your customers' houses without any problem?)

Cleaning, cleaning... it all looks good anyway.

Oh, he doesn't have change! What a surprise. Oh great.

Well at least he didn't go and try to rip us off like the previous steam-clean guy, who charged $30 extra! When my wife told him she already got a quote from his wife of $55, the guy goes, "Well that's my wife, not me." WTF? Amazingly, my wife booked him to come back to our place to clean the rest of the carpeted area. I got her to cancel that, of course. Talk about adding insult to injury.

But for a bargain hunter like me, paying $140 instead of $135...waah, it's the principle of it! So he's late AND gets a $5 tip? Nice.

We were planning to watch Babel at 6pm at Westfield Burwood, but now my wife decides NO I DON'T WANT TO WATCH IT, NOT THIS WEEKEND, NOT NEXT WEEK, NOT IN THE CITY. Under my new policy of not cancelling things I really want to see/ go to just because she friggin' changes her mind, otherwise i'll just be resenting her later.. I still go and catch the train in time and get there with a few mins to spare. They had other trailers anyway.

Babel was screening at Senstadium cinema.. biiig and nice. And there, your seats are booked, though seating is never really a problem when the 6pm session had only 3 people in the cinema. And we're all Asian.

I really want to cry at a movie. I want to be touched. To feel something so deeply. To get my buttons pushed, be emotionally manipulated, be a bigtime teary-eyed sucka. But no, not this movie. Throughout the film, you could sense there was this grand, profound statement about the connectedness of us all. Or maybe there isn't, and Innaritu just wanted to use that overlapping, sequential events thang used in Pulp Fiction, Amorres Perros.. oh, wait, Amorres Perros was his film! Anyway. Maybe it was all an artful, deeply felt, emotional way of saying "Shit happens. To everyone. At the same time."

The Mexican nanny played by Adriana Barraza was quite moving. As was Rinko Kikuchi as the rebellious, deaf-mute Japanese daughter. Who was also pretty hot, and amazingly still a virgin. WTF?

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett lent starpower, and quite possibly were major factors in this film getting made, but they didn't really have much to do. The drama was with the Moroccan characters, which I guess is a bit of a novelty for a big budget film like this.

I can just hear the studio execs before this was greenlit:

"Seriously? More than half the film is subtitled? But it doesn't have Zhang Ziyi or any kung fu? And it's not produced by Mel Gibson? And no steamy sex like Y Tu Mama Tambien? Or creepy monsters like Pan's Labyrinth? You mean, they really have to read the subtitles to know what's going on?"

"But the Japanese chick flashes her pussy. And takes it all off. Full frontal. She's emotionally fragile, you see."

"Bada-bing! Carry on then."

But at least it wasn't as down as Pan's Labyrinth. That was a good film, but I'd have to agree with my friend who called it depressing. The killing of hope is never a good thing.

Off to see Weng Weng films tomorrow! I never saw a single one when I was growing up back in the 80s, but now that I've heard theyr'e actually cult classics, hey, lemme have some o' that. That's my heritage. Hahahahaa... Been trying to ring my brother, who actually enjoyed these films in our childhood, but he never answers his phone, for some reason. He'll be kicking himself now, when I tell him what I saw! Maybe.

At the Chauvel in Paddington, 9pm, they're showing the films For Your Height Only, followed by The Impossible Kid. And I won a double-pass from Drum Media, so my name's at the door. So if it sucks really bad, it didn't cost me a thing! Except dinner. (This is actually the very first freebie/ prize of any sort I've won in Australia)