The gigtastic year kicks on, with recent
trips to those old haunts the Enmore Theatre and Hordern Pavilion to take in
Aphex Twin and New Order respectively.
I’ve had mixed experiences with Mr Twin
in the past, the nadir being a night at the much-lamented Astoria watching a
laptop on a table playing headshredding techno. In contrast, Friday’s set
involved a fantastic light show and laugh-out-loud funny visual trickery.
Musically, it started off as beefed up hip-hop beats, mutated through a range
of styles more familiar to the facially hirsute cognoscenti than to my
indie-boy ears, and ended with a thrilling all-out aural assault.
I couldn’t identify a single tune, but it
was ace.
The sadly Hookyless New Order provided an
opportunity to catch up with old mates and dance like a fool to reworked
versions of all the classics you would expect, plus a couple of unexpected
pleasures like 586 and Elegia. Another winner.
Next up Elbow, whom I once saw supporting New Order at the Olympia in Liverpool.
M nipped off for 10 days to visit our
friends Sara in Utah and Kari in Washington State, leaving me to kidwrangle. I
must admit I was apprehensive but thanks to three things.
1) The Bs being lovely.
2) Family and friends rallying around to
help with picking up from school/daycare, feeding times etc.
3) Nothing going wrong. If either of them
had developed so much as a mild rash on the elbow I think I would have
undergone a meltdown.
The highlight was, in the end, our final
day before M got back, for which we sojourned to the Blue Mountains. We first
took in the Botanic Gardens at Mount Tomah, then the lookout at Govetts Leap
and finally a hot chocolate in a cafe in Leura. A long day but a lovely one.