Eurovision 2013

It's one of my favorite weekends of the year- the Eurovision Song Contest!  This year it was held in Malmo, Sweden and I kept myself in a media blackout all day so I wouldn't be spoiled for the finals on tv tonight.  There was a bit more diversity in song styles and I liked that a lot of countries sang in their native language instead of English.  I'm not sure if this is due to post-GFC national pride or what I would like to call the Psy effect- not needing to sing in English to have a worldwide hit.

It was a tight race but the winner was Emmelie de Forest from Denmark with "Only Teardrops" 


My top 3 on the night were:

Margaret Berger (Norway) - "I Feed You My Love"


Amandine Bourgeois (France) - "L'enfer Et Moi"


Andrius Pojavis (Lithuania) - "Something"


I was very disappointed that Who See from Montenegro didn't make it through to the finals with their song "Igranka."  Their performance had astronaut suits, hip hop and dubstep.  It was awesome.


Finally, the "What the hell was that" award for this year goes to Cezar (Romania) - "It's My Life"

Oh Mercy- Last Melbourne Shows For 2013

The last two nights have been spent at the Northcote Social Club with Tash and Mary (on Thursday only) to catch the last Melbourne shows for a while by Oh Mercy before they relocate overseas.  It was coined as a celebration and both evenings were a bit of an Oh Mercy fest.

The opening act was Slow Dancer (aka Simon Okely) accompanied by James Vincent on bass and Myles Wootton (The Panics) on drums.  They played an excellent set both nights.  There is such a great groove to all of Simon's songs, especially the single "Leave It To Me" (see video below) which has been a favorite of mine since I first heard it over a year ago.  I can't wait for his debut album Surrender to be released sometime this year.



Next on the bill was Alexander Gow solo on electric guitar playing some older Oh Mercy songs.  He began with "Hold Out Your Hand" and "Blue Lagoon" from Great Barrier Grief.  I was so thrilled to hear "Salvation Jane," which is one of my all time favorites and a b-side from one of their first singles.  Interestingly it was "In Good Time" (only played on Thursday) and "By The Collar," the two Privileged Woes tracks, that sounded the strongest to me in the set.  This could be because I haven't heard them live in years.

Alex did covers of songs by Kieran Ryan (Thursday) and The Panics (Friday) and Jae Laffer of The Panics returned the favor by singing his version of Oh Mercy's "Labour Of Love."  Alex also invited Gossling (aka Helen Croome) onto the stage to sing their duet "La Minute De Silence," which was recorded for the Melodie Francaise album of French songs sung by Australian artists.  He finished the set with the Deep Heat b-side "Lady Eucalyptus."

Here's the video for "La Minute De Silence," which was shot in Paris a couple months ago:


For Oh Mercy's set Alex returned to the stage with Rohan and began with "Europa" before Eliza and Simon joined them for "Lay Everything On Me."  The set was mostly songs off Deep Heat including my favorites "Rebel Beats," "Pilgrim's Blues," "My Man," "Still Making Me Pay" and "Drums."  We also got a few Great Barrier Grief tracks with "Keith St," "Stay Please Stay" and Kieran Ryan's lovely cover of "Doldrums."

The funniest moment of the two shows revolved around Simon's birthday on Thursday, which his band members completely forgot about until he announced it on stage.  The reason they gave was that they did so many fake celebrations of his birthday at shows that they didn't know the actual date.  To make up for it they brought out a birthday cake (complete with a penis drawn on the top) and Jagermeister shots on Friday as we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Simon.

The band was quite sentimental at both shows since these will be the last Australian shows for at least a year.  Alex thanked all the familiar faces in the crowd who have supported them over the years.  They finished the night with a ripping version of The Waterboys' "Fisherman's Blues" before taking a final bow on stage.  It will be a new chapter for Oh Mercy with Alex and Rohan moving to the US for a while but I have great faith that we will get their best album yet from the experience.

La Belle Miette

My battle against obtaining an afternoon sugar hit at work just got harder now that La Belle Miette have opened their Collins Street store in the last couple weeks.  I have been a big fan of their macarons for over a year now, with their Hardware Lane store being a safe enough distance away to make it more of a special treat than a regular visit.  Now they are just down the road.

Besides the wide variety of yummy flavors available daily (with salted caramel being my favorite) they also do special macarons during various holidays.  For the past two years there have been special limited edition flavors in honor of Mother's Day.  Last year the theme was floral scents, and this year they did a Macaron High Tea with cucumber sandwiches, pink champagne, berry cheesecake, Devonshire tea, opera cake and chocolate brownie flavored macarons.  All of them tasted exactly as described, with the berry cheesecake being my favorite of the six pictured above.  Between La Belle Miette and Spring Street Grocery's gelati I'm either going to go broke or need to hit the gym more often!

Hungry Kids Of Hungary- You're A Shadow Tour

Last night I met up with Mary at the Corner Hotel to see Hungry Kids Of Hungary play to a sold out crowd on the last date of their You're A Shadow tour.  The first act of the night was Melbourne indie pop band Them Swoops.  I was very surprised to discover my friend Satoshi playing guitar and keys with them.  Next up was Sydney band The Preatures, who I thought were pretty good with their atmospheric and soulful songs.

Hungry Kids Of Hungary came out to a very eager crowd and started their set with "What In The World" before launching into "Sharp Shooter."  It was great to hear the majority of tracks off their excellent second album You're A Shadow, including my favorites "Do Or Die," "Twin Cities," "Litter and Sand," and the absolute highlight of the night, "When Yesterday's Gone."  We were also treated to some classic Hungry Kids songs like "Set It Right," "Scattered Diamonds," and "Wristwatch."  They finished the main set with an epic version of "Coming Around" and for the encore did their Triple J Like A Version cover of Tame Impala's "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" before inviting all the support acts on stage to close the night with an energetic "Let You Down."  I always love seeing Hungry Kids play live and their harmonies and musicianship were once again on point.

Here's "When Yesterday's Gone" live from when they were on Triple J a couple weeks ago:

Lawrence Leung's Part-Time Detective Agency

After meeting up with Ruth, Danny and their friends for dinner last night at Terra Rossa we all headed next door to the Swiss Club for my second comedy festival show of the night, Lawrence Leung's Part-Time Detective Agency.  I always enjoy seeing Lawrence perform because of his use of multimedia and pop culture references in his shows.

This time Lawrence has been inspired by Sherlock Holmes and the tv show Bored To Death to become a part-time detective and solve one of the greatest mysteries in his life: Who dumped a bucket of raspberry cordial on him at his 21st birthday party?  He took the crowd through the evidence and the various suspects for the prank, but the culprit may or may not be who you expect.  The filmed bits were quite funny, and I had no idea he was so obsessed with Brandon Lee and the movie The Crow.  Check out Lawrence's show if you want to put all those detective skills you have learned from watching tv crime shows to the test.

Here's the promo clip for Lawrence's show:

Hannah Gadsby: Happiness Is A Bedside Table

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is currently on with shows occurring all over the city.  I headed down to the Melbourne Town Hall last night to catch Hannah Gadsby's show Happiness Is A Bedside Table.  I first became aware of Hannah from her work on Adam Hills In Gordon St Tonight and this was the first time I had seen her live.

Her show focuses on the themes of adulthood and the loss of innocence and confidence people go through in childhood.  Many of the stories she told were quite personal as she discussed some of the lows she has experienced in her life and trying to regain her confidence back again.  Of course, there were also some very funny moments woven throughout the show, and her description of an incident on a water slide at an Adelaide water park when in high school had me laughing to the point of tears.  It's a hilarious and poignant show that you should definitely go see if you have the chance.

Here is Hannah's short set from the MICF 2013 Gala:

Heide Museum of Modern Art

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to have an all day event for work at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen.  It was my first visit to Heide, which has a couple of galleries as well as various sculptures scattered throughout the grounds.  The property was originally the home of the Reed family and became a retreat for several Australian artists (Sidney Nolan painted his Ned Kelly series in the dining room) before being turned into a museum in the 1980s.

The exhibition that was on while we were there was Louise Bourgeois: Late Works.  It focused on pieces from the last 15 years of the French-American artist's long career.  Most of the works were sculptures she made using different fabrics- from headless torsos to severed heads both hanging from the ceiling and in glass boxes.  There were some interesting embroidered pieces and images made by folding fabric into patterns.  They also had one of her giant spider sculptures over a cage with tapestry on it, which reminded me that I had previously seen one of her spider sculptures that was on display along the Embarcadero in San Francisco near the Bay Bridge a few years ago. Overall it was a confronting and thought provoking exhibit which I quite enjoyed.  I wish I had had more time to spend looking at the pieces.

While at Heide we were also fortunate enough to have a two course lunch from Cafe Vue.  I chose the main course and dessert for my two dishes, which were part of a special menu done for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.  The main was a lamb terrine with fried eggplant and salad.  Dessert was a macadamia banana split, which consisted of caramelized bits of macadamia nuts and cubes of banana bread with pieces of banana and sauce on top of them.  Both dishes were very good.  One of these days I hope to do the degustation menu at Vue de Monde.

Neil Finn and Paul Kelly- Return To The Palais

Mary and I returned to the Palais Theatre tonight for the second run of dates in Melbourne and show number six of Neil Finn and Paul Kelly's tour.  A big thank you to my friend Ben for getting us tickets (as well as for Fran and her sister).  Since they have been on the road for a couple of weeks I was curious to see how things had evolved since I saw them at the start of the tour in mid-February.

Lisa Mitchell was the opening act again and seemed to be more chatty tonight.  She played a couple different songs from the previous nights, including "Bless This Mess."  My highlights of her set were "Coin Laundry" and the closer "Spiritus."

Neil and Paul once again emerged onto the dark stage with lanterns and shook hands in the middle before playing Paul's "Don't Stand So Close To The Window."  The set list was pretty much the same as the previous two shows I saw, with a couple of changes to Paul's songs, including the addition of "From St Kilda To Kings Cross."  You could tell the whole band was much more comfortable with the songs and now able to add their own special touches to each number.  A lot of my favorite moments remained: the variety in the selection of songs from Neil's back catalogue, Neil's breathtaking version of "(You Can Put Your) Shoes Under My Bed," and the energy of so many of Paul's songs throughout the set.  Neil had a ripper of a guitar solo during "Distant Sun" and Paul's playing of the opening guitar riff on "Don't Dream It's Over" adds a whole new dimension to the song.  I feel very fortunate that I got to see three of the Melbourne shows and be able to watch these legendary songwriters perform with each other.