Stephe was lucky enough to snag a spare ticket to Xavier Rudd, with Tamara for his sold out White Moth gig in Sydney.
After a very good cafe dinner down the road, we wandered up to the Enmore, to join a very eclectic crowd (young folk, old folk, hippies, not hippies, dreds, no-dreds, etc...). But, just for the record, a much friendlier crowd than at the Annandale a couple of weeks ago!
The support act was a dude called Jeremy Fisher, who had a Neil Young quality to him - but was entertaining as well as talented. All good, and the crowd was well and truly warmed up by the end of his set (and in fine vocal form).
The opening track for Xavier's set was nothing short of brilliant. A huge production, with lots of lighting effects on top of heavy drum set from {oops, forget his name} supporting Xavier for the first time on this tour, and more percussion and guitar from Xavier. The crowd was up, and hyped. After that there was a mix of old and new over a long set, with a very appreciative crowd doing lots of cheering and yelling along the way.
However, there were a couple of long 'not quite drum solos' (with Xavier working the guitar into a fever pitch of feedback while the drummer was smashing out a backing - thing Led Zeppelin doing Moby Dick on Song Remains the Same!), which seemed to stun a fair bit of the audience. I think it was fantastic to see a more aggressive / loud / electric Xavier, but I think a few people would have preferred a much more acoustic / peace, love and mung beans set.
That said, he remains the only person who can pull off a bunch of aboriginal (and other) children dancing on stage, without looking completely tokenistic - let alone his ability to keep telling us he "feels the love" from the audience, while actually meaning it!
A great gig, and certainly worth seeing a new view of the great man... My highlight for the night was Conceal Me, buried beneath a 15 minute version of "burning"? on either side.
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