Elements Tour - Swollen Members, Z-Trip and more

Went to the Elements Tour at The Forum last night with M and W. The best night out I've had in a long time.

Jungle Brothers
Mike Gee - who's looking a little older than he did in 1989 - still has what it takes, although most of his material was unfamiliar to me. A small crowd at this point (he was first up) - so there was little atmosphere - but he demonstrated his skills and a great big smile.

Swollen Members
These guys were who I was there to see. They have a huge live reputation and I was far from let down. In fact it was one of the best performances I've ever seen. And they gave the impression they could (and may well) do it every day of the week. Prevail in particular had incredible energy and just so clearly loved being on stage and performing. The crowd were incredibly enthusiastic and there was great interaction between the band and the crowd. Prevail possibly spent more time surfing the crowd than he did on stage. Madchild was perhaps a little muffled and low-energy: he may well have been partying too hard on the tour.

The performance was absolutely jaw-dropping. The crowd was singing/rapping along to every song - and every track they played was good - and the energy had to be felt to be believed.

Some [horrible phone camera] photos.

Z-Trip
An incredibly skilled DJ, master of the mash-up... I can't say much that hasn't previously been said. Except perhaps that the heavy reliance on mixing in hard rock and heavy metal tracks left me cold - I could appreciate the skills, but given that I hate hard rock I still couldn't feel it. Some great moments - in fact, most of the stuff that wasn't heavy rock mixes was great. And Soup from Jurassic 5 was criminally under-used... did he have an easy tour or what?

Long time no see

It's been a while since my last post... an incredibly busy patch with work - sorry!

Had a great birthday weekend last week - M took me on a surprise trip to NSW. Birthday dinner at North Bondi Italian on Friday night, caught up with Sydney friends Sat AM then drove to Newcastle and settled in to watch the election. A swim at the surf beach Sunday morning then lunch at Robert's in the Hunter Valley before our flight home.

More soon.