Tuesday, August 14th, 2007...8:52 pm
Bobby Knocker
So I went to see Bobby Flynn on Friday night at The Venue. At least on a blog you can capitalise the name of the joint and avoid those long winded and pointless Three Stooges-esque conversations about where you’re going.
You can probably tell from that enthusiastic opening it wasn’t wonderful. It wasn’t bad; but it wasn’t wonderful. Except for “superfreak” which was truly wonderful, what I heard of it having retired outside for a fag.
The support band described themselves as “two acoustic guitars and fresh air”, but when I described them as “soft cock rock” in my little notebook and handed it to my friend J-Mo, she agreed heartily, as did O. I thought things couldn’t dip much below the first song, which from memory was called “Enigmatic Emblem”, until the words “Angst Ridden Angel” came in breathy earnest.
Dudes, some free advice - it’s not funny or cool to castigate the audience for having a chat at a pub style venue.* Also, you will look sad if you tell people you have sold 4 CDs, which is enough to get to Bathurst, and then wander around the audience between acts hustling your disc directly. He didn’t ask me, but should have, as by then I was prepared to give him $20 just to fuck off.
At 10:45 the main act started up as a three piece but it wasn’t until the full six piece, including visualist jaymis, came on stage that things hotted up. Bobby’s guitarist, the awsumly named Zachary Armytage was superb, but the rhythm section was overall a little cheesy and rigid.
Bobby’s stage patter was a bit twee in parts - he introduced two songs which had “popped out” of him since Australian Idol - but it is the end of a four month tour. Nevertheless there were real highlights, and the band could sustain a very tightly energetic, very funky groove.
YMMV, but I am out of form for late starts, and I think I would have felt much more charitably had I not been so enormously tired by the time the band came on. Also the $11 pizzas at The Venue are McCains’ ones.
* “Pub style venue” is a Canberra term. Elsewhere they have actual pubs.
37 Comments
August 14th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
* “Pub style venue” is a Canberra term. Elsewhere they have actual pubs.
mmmh - I think G.S-T is on about much the same thing in slightly different langauge:
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/
August 14th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Yeah, amen to that FXH. Three lies for the price of one in that little Canberran phrase.
BTW, did he get out the words “she’s a very freaky girl/the kind you don’t take home to moth-er”? Now that’s the kind of thing you don’t hear enough of on Ch.10. And that bridge—it just oozes bad taste.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:02 am
Zoe, is the Canberra Bar the happening live music place in Canberra?
August 15th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Teufeldüde, du bist ein fecking lustig Mutterfecker.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I didn’t like him on Australian Idol. His *unique style* grated on me after the first song.
Has he had a hair cut yet?
August 15th, 2007 at 9:59 am
What Fyodor said.
Gary, I haven’t been getting out much, but the ANU bar does seem largely the go. The Front in Lyneham is funkier and quirkier (the husbang’s band plays there a bit). The Merry Muse is good for folky/independent types. Local blogger Loadedog does an excellent roundup, and you can sign up for a weekly email with ticket giveaways and everything.
Cellobella! One thing I’m not critical of was his voice - he was in magnificent vocal form and at times just soared. And a bit of a trim, but still not short. I don’t if he could get away with really short hair what with all that chin he’s got.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
I’d never heard of Bobby Flynn until now and now I’m not sure I want to hear any more.
If that’s the best Canberra can offer, then girl you gotta get out of that place and come to where the beautiful freaks are* baby.
*I’ve been wanting to tag someone with this masterpiece for a while and I guess you’re it. I’m sure the boys will get a kick out of it too.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
He’s from Queensland, Nabs.
Thanks for the slime which was utterly wonderful. I was glad too because I thought you didn’t love me anymore after you wouldn’t be my friend on Facebook *sniffs and runs away*
August 15th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Not sure that Cthulhoid space monsters are classified as “beautiful freaks”, Nabsy, even if they do live in funky Fitzroy and play bass in a rastaslashfunkfusion band on the weekends.
Bit disappointed about the green slime, too. I was hoping for Moose from “You Can’t Do That on Television” to show up. Tant pissed.
But, you know, like, whatever. Zoe loves you more; what’s the fecking point.
*Plays Nik Kershaw over and over and over. Weeps.*
August 15th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
You’re right about the chin. Does require some balance. And I wouldn’t mind his voice if he would just sing not slur his words all the time. But perhaps his style has changed…
xx
Miss Conservative!!
August 16th, 2007 at 3:47 am
“I thought you didn’t love me anymore after you wouldn’t be my friend on Facebook”
Is there nothing we can do there that we can’t do here? And all naked and free in front of God and everyone too.
“Cthulhoid space monsters”
Or as we call them in St Kilda, middle weight creative teams.
And what is this “Fitzroy” of which you speak?
August 16th, 2007 at 9:35 am
“And what is this “Fitzroy” of which you speak?”
You know. That bohoherer enclave next to Carlton where all the Arts students go for authentically ersatz ethnic cuisine.
Oh. So sorry: North of the Yarra.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Doubt there’s many places in Fitzroy the Arts students of the sandstone degree mills could afford to drink or eat these days, Fyodor. Well, mebbe the rich ones.
The Bohohenzollern.
August 16th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Pishtosh. There are plenty, Herr Bohohenzollern von Schwefelpuste und Naßhosen.
There are certain kinds of cuisine* that seem to exist solely to serve the fashionably bereft, and Fitzroy has them by the bucketload.
*e.g. “Nepalese”. What’s up with “Nepalese”? Lovely people, good soldiers and sherpas, but food? More boring than Indian, but sounds exotic? What’s the fecking go?
August 16th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Well, it’s been a while since I Fitzroyed. Oy.
Nepalese: Curried cheese without the crackly ring-stinging effects of all those South Indian firestarters with chilli paste? I don’t mind the flaming date effect, myself, but I suppose the elderly and infirm might appreciate the relief. Ahem.
PS. On ‘fecking’. Ever heard the apocryphal story about Norman Mailer’s language-sanitised The Naked And The Dead? Just after the launch and the first reviews, he supposedly went to an élite sort of swanky cocktail do where Dorothy Parker greeted him with
I hope it was true.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
As it happens - and this is absolutely true - I was reading about it only last night in, would you believe it, the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction (”Brave New Words”. I know! Sooo droll - those lexicographers are wild & crazy guys).
“Fecking”, however, is not a bowdlerisation of fucking [I'm well acquainted with fucking, as you know]. It’s perfectly legitimate Hiberno-English, and not a fraking gorram smegged-up tanjing neologism.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Heuh. Would I believe you read the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction to get to sleep. Ahah. Heh. Hmmh.
Next question?
Oh, no, now here I think you’re definitely mistaking me for someone else. Damn.
Try the Demon Lust, down the corridor in Number 96.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Demarcation dispute, huh?
No, don’t tell me: Demon Lust’s on an AWA, right? The dirty bitch.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:11 am
You know, industrial specialisation’s a mixed bag. The job satisfaction of great, but the wages of sin? I’m sure you’ve heard.
Actually the Demon Lust is pretty cool, as I’m sure you know perfectly well—the kind of girl you read about in new-wave magazines.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
ITIKWYM - the kind of magazines one reads for the articles, n’est-ce pas?
Besides, I thought Teh Wages of Sin were pretty good. Or is it Teh Fringe Benefits of Sin that really get the productivity juices pumping?
August 17th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Oui, bien sûr. Avec Dieu et la main droite.
There’s no real stipends or fringe benefits, we get paid by péché-work.
Oh, even I’m ashamed of that one.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
*golf clap*
Et le Diable à la gauche? Bien joué, mon vieux.
Well, if Yeshua ben Yosef was a fisher of men, I don’t see why your lot can’t work off a commission structure.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:21 am
I was wondering this evening what entitled Mongolian food to its own particular name. To me it looked like ordinary greasy noodles in a bain-marie.
August 18th, 2007 at 6:14 am
“Avec Dieu et la main droite.”
J’achèterai cela pour un EUR 0.74.
I’ve always felt though that the wages of sin should just be garnished at sauce from the start.
August 18th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Oh god, I can’t believe you went to hear Bobby in concert! I can only think it’s because you live in Canberra (we do equally strange things in the name of entertainment in Alice).
August 18th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Un(e) “golf clap”? Qu’est-ce que c’est?
August 19th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Un geste plus faux que beau, madame.
“Golf Clap”
August 19th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I’d hoped you weren’t going to use UD, Monsieur Terwilliger. That place makes the comments fields of YouTube look like the Paris coffeehouses of the ancien régime.
Swigging? SWIGGING?
Give the author of that baffling definition a clean glass and a toothbrush.
August 19th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Hey, look: I was DRUNK, OK?
August 19th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Late night with Col Allan, yeah?
Being tanked would be one thing, but I’m rather more impressed with your flexibility. Actually, the whole posture sounds like an asana in a yoga variant I could thoroughly endorse.
August 19th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
You endorse the asanine? Quelle surprise infinie.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Look what happens when you stop talkin’ babies.
Carry on, chaps.
(and elsewhere, I like Bobby.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Oh God, Zoe, I’m sorry. I should have looked it up myself.
You have to admit the swigging action was pretty funny though.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Yes! This thread needs Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey. Shock at Bobby’s cheesy-rigid schlocky soft cock rock? [raises wrist, points downwards, pouts]
Ooh, err. I’ve never heard it called that before.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
My friend June saw Bobby at Woodford (she was volunteering). She found him at little underdone and very nervous. I think he’s at his best when he does those broody slow songs.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
PS - I don’t have a television so some updates about this year’s Idol would be good.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
by the way… I like the burqa thang.
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