A city we were vaguely warned about for its conservatism turns out to be beautiful, vibrant and welcoming. The meandering Brisbane River provides glorious waterfront views and warm winds waft white clouds under starkly azure skies. Our show is at the Brisbane Convention Center, downtown, near the hotel, every bit as monolithic as the name suggests. Everything inside the building is far away from everything else, requiring directions, patience, time and strong legs.
in case you were looking
Our shuttle van delivers us to the backstage door in a hangar large enough for aircraft. Catering is three flights (or was it four?) downstairs from dressing rooms. The squash soup is as good as any I’ve tasted.
the cereal tour - getting better all the time
Mike Keneally plays my blue bass
The show is very well attended but we’d need to be Dethklok to make use of the entire space, much of which is blanketed over, especially the upper tiers. Nonetheless a very vocal and appreciative crowd greets every song and each guitar player receives a very warm welcome. This is the last official G3 show of the tour (tomorrow’s final performance will see us with an extremely shortened version) and everybody pulls out all the stops. The sets go a shade long – who can blame us? The crowd goes wild for the G3 jam. The playing is raucous and irreverent, the sound on stage is good, if a little boomy, but everyone is elevated. Upstairs again afterwards everybody laughs about clams, tone (or lack of it) and inspiration.
Joe (R) remembers the lines he forgot to sing
O no you didn't! (L to R: Dave, Philip, Renee, Steve)
Luke (L), Vai and Joe (R) after show
(L to R) Luke, Vai, Mick B., Joe, Mike K.
We all shout at each other while recovering from stage volume. Turning into fanboys and fangirls, we sign tour posters for each other as if we’re signing our high school yearbooks, mementos as the Summer begins. For the new G3 participants, myself included, it’s been a good-hearted whirlwind of super fun music played with joyful and often hilarious players. The G3 veterans say it’s the best, most enjoyable, of the series yet.
Tomorrow is the Byron Bay Blues Festival, two hours north of Brisbane. It’s an enormous affair with five stages, almost 200 acts from all over the world, and very short sets for us – a sort of musical surgical strike.
Allen,
From a fangirl (:-D) to you, can I say I have thoroughly enjoyed your G3 Downunder blog. You have a lovely turn of phrase and a lyrical way of expressing or describing something.
Had you never been south of the equator before? I read that somewhere.
Being from Melbourne I was relieved that no priest here was mean to you (yay!), you got new shows and that you seemed to enjoy the Palais Theatre. The first Melbourne show was terrific, I was in row 10 having fits of ecstasy (not E, you know, the good ecstasy).
May I ask, who is it who orders the muesli for dinner all the time??
I was also front row at Byron Bay (2 hours south of Brisbane not north hehe) and although is was indeed a short musical surgical strike it was a great show. I think Luke was hotter than Melbourne and Joe ripped it up (right in front of me!!). The real treat about this tour was not only seeing Joe perform again but I got to see you, Mike Keneally, Jeff, Dave Weiner, Steve V and Luke perform for the first time as well as the other band members. Everyone was great. And then Kenny Aronoff peeked out from side of stage too.
Did you get a chance to see any other artists at Bluesfest? There were so many great acts. I imagine you all relishing getting together backstage at these festivals to chat and compare stuff (hey where do you get your black jeans from?). Imagine if there was a giant jam with all of you.
So I look forward to the Byron blog, am sad the tour is over and hope you come back to Australia soon, we love you!
Skippygirl (fangirl).
thanks Skippy! no idea about the muesli, that’s what made it interesting. hope we’ll tour again soon!