Bloody Fann-tastic

Sometimes working at the places I do there are some fringe benefits. One of those was Tuesday night when I got to see the opening performance of Terrace old-boy (the school plugs him at every turn, so why shouldn't I) Bernard Fanning (or as the Powerhouse calls him - Richard Fanning).

Now this was the opening date on his "Tea & Sympathy" tour - and for a guy with only one solo album to his credit, it was a pretty good show. Now it's kind of hard to be the lead singer of one of the biggest Australian bands going around and release a solo album that doesn't sound a heck of a lot like what's come before, but Fanning does a pretty good effort from what I've heard.

Reading an article on the weekend, Fanning said that when he started recording the album, it kicked off as a country one. That is relatively evident by the sound of many of the tracks. They heavily feature more acoustic guitar than you would expect from the usual 'finger effort.

Showing his Brisbane roots, his backing band was renamed "The Gap Jazz Choir" for the evening (some kind of in-joke for one of his friends I believe). They did a pretty good job of supporting Fanning on his journey around the music. The bands banter and by-play felt natural and it seemed like they were having a pretty good time. At some stages they actually seemed more interested in ripping on each other than actually performing.

I know that with a couple of artists I've seen who were formerly parts of a band, the temptation is there to sing some of the better-known 'classics' from their former catalogue to please the crowd. While I'm by no means a Powerfinger expert, I'm pretty sure Fanning didn't resort to this at all during the night - at least - none of the more familiar mainstays I recognise. The closest they came was a bit of teasing noodling by one of the guitarists in between songs.

All in all - it was a show I quite enjoyed. Made all the better by being paid to see it. There is one thing I still don't get. If you've paid $60+ to see a show, why on earth do you then proceed to spend the entire time pointing a camera at the stage and trying to take photos of it (especially those wankers with camera phones - they're even more useless over distance). If you're going to a concert, why not do something radical and ACTUALLY WATCH THE BLOODY THING.

Morons.