After securing tickets which were in short supply (hat tip to Justin!), Sue, Kristy, Ben, Phil and Stephe were keyed up for their first Herd gig since the new album came out.
Traditional dinner at Wagammama's was enhanced by the presence of the band pre-show (gee there's a lot of them!), but was also entertaining in its own right - in addition to having a quality surname, Phil turned out to be a great bloke...
Down to the Basement, and into a long queue to get in (via the old entrance - what's up with that?). Lots of ID checking, although for some reason our group snuck through without close inspection (!). Then lots of hanging around trying to find a decent spot not behind a camera position (it was Monday Night Live, being streamed by BigPond to the world, so there was a lot of gear about).
Eventually, we found a good possie, settled in for the start of the show - funny atmosphere: sort of expectation, but no warm up acts, and not the sort of vibe we were used to. The band came on (all 300 or so of them!), and straight into the first song off the new album - and a sense of worry overcame us... Whether it was because they were pumping the sound out for the broadcast audience and not focused on the sound in the room, or whatever - it seemed to be very flat in the room, with a real challenge on the quality (particularly with Urthboy sounding smashed off his scone (apparently he had been without sleep for some time), and OziBattler almost inaudible).
But, like the huge champions they are, the band came through...
A great mix of old and new, including a fancy new remix of 77% (if you sing it beautifully enough, the "c-word" doesn't come across anywhere near as aggressively!), a reggae version of "burn down the herb" (no idea what it's really called), and some great renditions of stuff on the new album including some that I hadn't really enjoyed on the recording but for which I now have a new found respect!
By the time they wrapped up with the farewell to John Howard, we were all captured, the room was on fire and much fun was had by all. I wonder how much of the vibe those that only saw it streamed would see, but it was another great Herd show - yee ha!
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