I’ll always savour the fact that I was in Adelaide-town the very same day that Terry Wallace’s Tigers broke the world record (!!) for most marks in a game. A game when they knocked the Crows off their perch at Football Park.
Youth Group on the other hand, tried to cover ourselves in glory at the Flinders Uni Bar; out in the sticks and up an Adelaide hill. We found ourselves in what appeared, from the walls and carpet, to be a minimally-converted teaching space. We had asked Little Ice Age, an Adelaide band we’d spied at the Adelaide Big Day Out, to play with us. As we enjoyed their set, I noted that someone had designed a light-show that perfectly suited the institutional atmosphere of the Tavern. As choruses swelled, one light-bulb above the audience’s heads slowly glowed on and off, on and off. I was tickled to learn instead, that a dimmer-knob on the wall was being inadvertantly turned and that there was no light show.
Most of YG had a fun show in Adelaide. I got to write the set-list for a change – which was good. But Cameron didn’t have a great one: he said that the whole time he was thinking that this was the worst show ever and that it was never ever going to get any better. His gloomy outlook has passed I assure you. Bon vivant Toby Martin got a bit drunk on sips of scotch whisky and, by the encore, managed to bust a bit of wood off his Thinline Tele when he let it fly. All in good humour and high spirits of course. Later Toby somehow got lost on Hindley Street and had to make do with only a couple of hours sleep as we had to catch an early flight to Perth.