crazybrave

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.

At about 1:45 this afternoon on the freeway just outside Bowral and heading south into Canberra, a hairy-arsed man thought it would be a good idea to rub his arse on his car window in our direction.