Let the good times roll

Oozing enthusiasm between spring sunshowers; crooning along with the soft indie rock wafting up the slope from main stage; Mates - crinkled in their ageing skin and with a harmonic off-centre world view.

A cachophony of islanders

... take a warm blast of pipers droning ...


... to that add a wee dramm of fiddlers sawing ...


... confound with a thunder of drums a quivering ...


... harmonise with a swing of lads a lilting ...

... and our couple goes a slinking ...

Visit Arthur's Circus in the Hobart suburb of Battery Point or allow the colour of Australia's island state to wash over you.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Morricone's classic 1966 whistling echoes around the village School of Arts. The lights dim. A hush falls over the packed audience.

The jaguar heels of Van Cleef click-clack over the burnished boards and come to a halt with the stage in full view. A gasp escapes the audience. Wallach continues to strum, a smirk consuming that ugly visage. A delicious triangle has swirled around him since that faithless lapse out the back of the Brown Mountain road-house.

The clear bell-like voice of the good-wife resounds into the rafters. Reaching the end of the phrase, she steps into the path of the intruder ...

Hands

... Jess giving Bach a burl ...

Sounding the heart

Busking can be a heart-breaking venture: few people listen, fewer people toss coins, and the musician slips into musical compromise.

Vice regal incongruity

Taken at Government House in Sydney's Botanic Gardens, these photographs surround a concert given by William Barton under the aegis of the Historic Houses Trust. With unbelievable inner resolve, I managed to still my trigger finger during the concert itself. Why is this incongrous?


Government House is of the establishment; William Barton is an indigenous Australian who is probably the foremost exponent of the didgeredoo in our country today. I felt goose-bumps up my spine as I watched him perform into these microphones under the watchful eye of King George V of England and her colonies.

Ooo ... how I wish I were one of those rudies who just flashes away with the hide of a rhino!

Love and grief: an enduring creative force

"A Ringing Glass" - the latest exhibit to inhabit the old boiler rooms on Cockatoo Island - is a 6 room art installation by Ken Unsworth in honour of his wife of 50 years, Elizabeth, who died in October 2008 after an 8 year illness.


Renown for his affection for suspended objects, the installation teems with musical instruments: Elizabeth forgoing a promising career as a pianist to live with Unsworth and support his burgeoning career. Walking through the rooms, reminders of her are everywhere from the steady beat of the drum, to her piano, to her hospital bed, with an ethereal image of her fading in and out of view through a window.

Vivid Sydney - Fire & Water

Vivid Sydney was the inaugural festival of music, light and ideas which ran from 26 May through until 14 June around Sydney Cove, The Rocks and Millers Point - the historic heart of the city.

Thomas McKinnon - 20 years; Fingal Lanahan - 7 years; Brendan Walsh - life; Eammon Connolly - 10 years; Milo O'Shea - life ... ... ... ...

The lilted roll-call echoed around the hushed Cove: the names of many of the 210 convicts from The Three Bees were accompanied by Aboriginal smoking ceremonies, the clinking of message sticks and the drone of the didge. These dazed members of the hoi poloi, uprooted and transplanted to this desperate place.

Life - life - life - life ...


Campbell's Cove in The Rocks resounded to a theatrical reenactment of the conflagration and subsequent sinking of the convict ship The Three Bees back in 1814 as it lay at anchor off what is now Dawes Point. With small hand-made lanterns floating in the inky waters of the Cove, a sardined-audience watched mesmerised as the drama unfolded before them - the ever changing projection on the Opera House sails creating a magical back-drop, and ferries plying their usual Saturday night trade.


Dramatically-enhanced, the narrative included said cabin boy, his bully of a Captain, hooded helpers-of-death, the Kings-own Red Coats and a computer orchestra glowing red on the nearby pier.

Accompanied by the harbingers of death and illuminated by fiery flame sticks, the hapless cabin boy was led along the Cove and dumped into a row boat for the journey out to the isle of the dead whilst the eeirie convict ship rose slowly from the murky depths, mast askew and canvas in tatters.


The performance featured music performed live by Coda, floating inflatables from Earth and artists from Stalker, Legs on the Wall, Theatre Kantanka, PACT and Jannawi Dance Theatre. The music was a cross between Philip Glass and a Red Centre corroboree. The final conflagration was fascinating and strangely affecting.


This spectacle is THE inspired piece of programming of the entire Festival - it brought our past to life; would that we had more like this. Done with a fine sense of drama (but drop the Avon calling ring tone, please) and with a reverence for those involved, there could be such a recreation around The Rocks and Millers Point each June. But please, whatever you do: don't dumb it down.

We don't have a lot of colonial history, so what we do have, please treat with respect.

Drum-taps

I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As with voices and with tears. I hear the great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me through and through. Walt Whitman

And from your lips

Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this The fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Leonard Cohen