I know it's now several days since the two LC concerts at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, but I have a few moments, so thought I would transcribe some of my notes on these two shows.
SYDNEY: JANUARY 28 SHOW
The first Sydney show (as I have briefly mentioned in a previous post) was a fantastic performance, well received by a very warm audience. Because of the venue (and maybe because of the audience) the atmosphere was more one of cultured and civilized respect than the type of raw over-the-top adoration that I saw at some of the winery shows. But there is no doubting that the crowd was incredibly enthusiastic, and the sight of three or four standing ovations which brought the packed Ent Centre crowd to their feet -- that was very special. Since the house lights were brought up for each of these, there should be some good photos or videos -- maybe these moments may even make it to LC's DVD
Specific moments and occurences that made the Jan 28th performance unique:
1. For whatever reason, the version of Chelsea Hotel was really excellent on this night, and the crowd was exceptionally swept up in the feeling of the song. After one of the lines about Janis preferring handsome men, there was a huge applause which caused LC to pause ... which was a little interesting, since it was the middle of a bar. But LC and the band stepped right back into the song and everything sounded great.
2. At the beginning of set 2, in the intro to Tower of Song, LC told the story about how his teacher (Roshi) once made a remark on turning 97 which was basically "sorry for not dying". LC said that he felt like that sometimes. As is sometime the case, LC's keyboard solo was rewarded with an applause, to which he responded my holding up his right hand and saying "... one hand!"
3. The line in Hallelujah was localized to "I didn't come all this way to Sydney to fool you"
4. In Boogie Street, part way through the song, I'm fairly sure I heard some static or other glitches in Sharon's mike -- which is a bit of a shame, since she pretty much sings that as a solo. She made it all the way through very professionally though.
5. I Tried To Leave You: as always, everyone got a nice solo -- Dino had got some bit applause earlier for his various solo, so he seemed to want to see how far he could take it. His solo at this show was (initially) one note ... then he put up his hand seeking the audience's applause. After the joke was obvious, he went on to play a proper solo. Also, in Rafael's solo he blew a kiss to the drum-kit-cam and attempted the difficult maneuver of throwing one brush into the air and catching it. I'd have to say that on this night ... it wasn't to be.
SYDNEY: JANUARY 29 SHOW
While this was still a great concert, I would have to say that the overall experience of this show is a fair bit below the magnificence of the previous night (and all subsequent performances). There were IMHO two factors that contributed ... firstly I think that LC's voice did seem a bit weaker for this performance. The normal routine seems to be to leave a day between concerts for the performers to refresh themselves. Originally, when there was only ONE Sydney show, this would have been the case. But when the second show was added after the sell-out, this rest day evaporated. But, I'd have to say that this factor was by far the smallest contributor to the second Sydney show seeming (to me at least) less magical: by FAR the greater factor was the crowd. Put simply, the audience reaction between the first and second Sydney shows could not have been more opposite -- where the first night's crowd were very obviously enthusiastic and warm, the second audience seemed (from where I was close to the front) to be only somewhat interested in the show. Before I get criticized ... there were clearly one or two obvious exceptions, people who were giving huge cheers and standing ovations, but to me it seemed that there weren't many of these folk (and most of them are probably on this forum
. I'd have to concur with one of the previous posters who conjectured that maybe all the really die-hard fans had already bought their tickets to the Jan 28th show before it sold out ...
Specific moments and occurences that made the Jan 29th performance unique:
1. This show had the first change of set list for Australian shows: Sisters of Mercy subbed for Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye and Closing Time subbed for Democracy.
2. I'm sure it's nothing particular to this show, but this was the first night I noticed the somewhat elaborate assortment of drinks that Sharon and the Webb sisters have with them on stage. On this night, it seemed to me that each had three drinks: a tall glass of water, a smaller glass of something amber-ish coloured, and either a mug or a white cup.
3. At the beginning of Anthem, when LC talked about how lucky he felt to be in such a peaceful country, a woman called out from the crowd "then stay here!". LC couldn't hear but, after calling out a few more times, Sharon relayed the message. LC said "ok".
4. At the beginning of Tower of Song, when LC said "you won't have seen one of these down here, it's kinda sophisticated", someone yelled out "Bullshit!" Gotta love drunken audience members.
5. The "Don't every stop" routine at the end of Tower of Song was (like the nights before) more of a meditation, speaking specifically to the singers "I know we have a concert to play ... "
6. There was a slight mishap at the end of the "doo dum dum" section of Tower of Song: one of the Webb Sisters (I think it was Hattie) missed the cue to stop; so we got an extra "doo dum" before she realized. She looked very embarassed ... but interestingly, LC made this the subject of a joke the next time they performed (in the Hunter Valley).
7. During the middle section of The Partisan when he's not playing, Dino did a bit of a martial march.
8. I Tried To Leave You was missing the second verse -- it felt a little hurried, like LC wanted to wrap up the show. Rafael did, however, manage to finally pull of his trick of throwing a drumstick and catching it!
