Image grabbed blatantly from the interwebs
I feel like I need to squee just a little bit… I get to see Radiohead, twice, yep twice in 8 days. After what has been an eternity waiting to see these guys, as I had a golden ticket from Sue mentioned in an earlier post, when I managed to snag some tickets.
I also agreed to Nigel’s call out seeing who wanted to attend the first day of the cricket, along with a breakfast prior to the days play, so it was poised for quite a day…
The day started early, with a 4 at the start of the clock radio coming into focus as I realised it wasn’t Christmas day, but pretty close to it. After ensuring tickets were packed in a very safe area of my bag, it was off to the train. I disappeared into my own world listening to a Radiohead mixed tape on the way to the train, and I when I got the the station, I pulled out my kindle as I was nearing the end of a novel, Shantaram, and it had me mesmerised.
Tickets for the big day
Our day started with a breakfast, hosted by 4BC radio station. We met at 6:15 and headed in. It was a very entertaining breakfast with Ian Healy quizzing Glen McGrath about some of his fast bowling exploits, and his big batting score at the Gabba, as well as other amusing anecdotes.
Healy and McGrath entertaining the breakfast crew
I guess you need to carb up at Breakfast for a big day
After our breakfast session, we had some time to kill before we could get in the ground, so we grabbed a coffee nearby, and Troy then hatched a plan for our lunch, as his wife used to work with owners of a very close restaurant. Looking at the menu in the window as we passed before opening time, it did look a little higher standard than pie and chips that the Gabba serves. Whilst we had our coffee, I made a comment to Nigel about his remark with his iPhone 5 bad battery life. He asked how much battery I had left on mine, and I said I didn’t have the percentage coming up, so grabbed my phone and added it to the display, and I suspect something else I am thinking, as my power was in free fall all day (though it did start at 75%)
When we got inside, the ground look fantastic, even with the lack of rain recently.
picture perfect ground
We had a good morning chatting, watching the cricket, enjoying tasteless, weak beer in plastic, but still an awesome day.
We (Troy) made our booking for lunch, and we headed across to Enoteca for lunch. This was not my normal cricket lunch experience, but the food was superb! It was very pleasant for the 5 of us, Nigel, John, Troy, Tom and I to enjoy some nice beers and the pasta I had was superb! As a side note, our family drove past here the following day on our way to Potted Potter play and I commented that we must head here.
My tagliatelle, prawns, garlic, chili was superb! I guess you need to carb up at Lunch for a big day
The afternoon cricket wasn’t such a good couple of sessions for the Aussies, with South Arica looking very solid.
Some smarter folk, banked sleep before a late night ahead
Bad light was called before 5:00, and John spotted lots of rain heading towards us. Very Soon. A call was made to head across the road to the German Club, though we were down to 3 good men, John, Troy and I. After a couple of drinks (OMG they have my favourite beer, czech budvar, on tap!), Troy needed to get going, so John and I decided to have dinner here. I guess you need to carb up at Dinner for a big day. We both went the low fat Pork Knuckle option, as I may have mentioned that I smelt something that smelled like pork knuckle when we were waiting outside.
Fast forward through getting wet trying to get a taxi, then getting wet trudging to the centre as we were dropped off outside Boondall as the road became a carpark.
We grabbed our seats, and good seats they were, and listened to buzz of people finding their spots and the electro music while we waited.
The band took the stage and launched into Lotus Flower. The stage setup was great, with large LCD’s suspending on 4 wires each, which transmitted images from a lot of fixed cameras on each of the band members. The 4 wires allowed the screens to move into different heights and angles. The effect was great! In one song, all of the monitors laid parallel with the stage and just above the group. It mimiced a low ceiling club, with lights strobing off all of the band.
Shot sourced from a google search showing an example of the staging
I won’t go into the concert in depth, as I think I will do that next week, when I experience with Ryan in Melbourne. Suffice to say that the experience well exceeded my expectations, and I was a little worried that with all the build up to me seeing them, that it would not. I have pasted the set list below, and whilst I knew most songs very well, I had 2 surprises. The first was how much I enjoyed There, There with 4 people playing percussion through most of it. The next song, is one that hadn’t stuck with me before , but it has been in my head since seeing them perform it Seperator, which is from their last album released.
They also had 3 encores, which was awesome. Very awesome!
I had a long train ride home, and without any sounds since my phone ran out of battery just before the start of the gig. Once John jumped out at Roma St, my ride to Wynnum station was replaying the concert in mind, and chanting don’t fall asleep!
A link to their concert at Coachella which had a similar set list and staging.
Was there any doubt what the song of the day’s artist would be? Today we have Reckoner as song of the day. This is another one that really stuck in my head after seeing them perform it live. Thanks to John and Nigel for a lot of the photos above.
SET LIST c/- Setlist.fm
- Encore:
- Encore 2:
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(Unravel intro)
- Encore 3:
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(Extended due to Thom messing up the outro)
