sites and sounds...

The Palais Theatre - such a grand old building, an icon of St Kilda. i used to spend a lot of time there when i was young and saw some incredible shows - i guess it helped that me mum was the head cashier when i was growing up!!

Originally starting life as Palais Pictures in 1927, it was hailed as "one of the largest theaters in the southern hemisphere" and was one of the "first suburban cinemas to screen talkies on 3 July 1929, five months after their first Australian exhibition at the Athenaeum. Until the fifties, it was the place to go to the movies. You saw two full-length films, preceded by Harry Jacobs and his Band with 30 minutes of singers, music, dancers or other variety performers." ... you can read more here if you're interested in 'its-story'.

amazing that here it is, still surviving in the 21st century as a venue for home-grown and international performers, providing luxurious - although somewhat shabbier than I remember from my childhood - surroundings for the comfort of appreciative audiences.

I went to a Jimmy Barnes concert at the Palais on friday night with my brother and we had a great time, although it had the potential to be disastrous with the mixing quality being appalling for the first few songs. Elly-May, youngest of the 'Barnsie clan' was suppporting her father, but the sound was so bad - it seemed like there'd been no 'front of house' sound check (either that or the sound engineer hadn't turned up!!) - everything was distorted - you had to feel sorry for her because she was just getting no audience appreciation - Darrell and i were starting to wonder if we'd be better off out in the foyer - or just going home!!!

Luckily, by the time she got to the song "Gone, gone, gone" that Alison Krauss & Robert Plant have recently released (and one of my favourite from their Raising Sand album) you realised she did have a good voice - she could sing, and do it well... obviously the 'soundie' had either turned up or finally worked out there were problems!!! ... and then the lead guitarist could have toned it down a bit - her voice isn't as raw and powerful as Jimmy's (although she can do the "Barnsie screech" - you could really tell she was her father's daughter when she hit some notes!!) - she needs a less 'blasting' band where she doesn't have to compete with the loudness i think...

of course, Barnsie was grouse!!!! although i could have lived without hearing 'working class man' (twice!!! never has been a favourite song - he started and finished with it!!!!)

He did perform one of my favourites - Flame trees - and it was one of the best versions i've heard... he's playing around with different music styles and had incorporated the Mexican "mariachi harp" - also known as the jelisco harp - ooooh, there appears to be a lot of variations and names - played by Victor Valdes - the performance was stunning - it added such a different quality to the song... beautiful...

he's not doing too bad for an 'old man' of my era... he's still 'making a living' out of his music and his new album "the rhythm and the blues" has gone into the aria charts at #1 - he did a few tracks and he does the style really well... have to say though that after all these years he still can't boogie!!!!

it was an enjoyable evening... after a couple of hours of Barnsie we got pizza on the walk home and sat, smoked, talked and laughed about 'the old days' until around 5 am ... it was a pity i had to work the next day though - luckily i was able to swap my first half and only had to start at 1 pm - it was busy though and today i feel exhausted - everything aches...

the ABC website has a really interesting interview of Jimmy by Fran Kelly - you can either listen to it or watch it... it's about his influences for this album - and he does encourage everyone to listen to the original versions of all of the songs if possible - he does some wonderful covers (tributes) of great rhythm, blues and gospel artists and talks about the evolution of the music...

and of course i couldn't do a post about Barnsie without adding some of his music...