Macbeth at Sydney Theatre Company, 10 September 2014

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most iconic plays about the nature of evil and the destructive human thirst for power.

Kip Williams, the director, is not a big name (yet). He decides on a drastic re-working of the stage setting: We, the audience, sit on the stage, while the action plays around a bare table, mismatched chairs and very few other props in front of the auditorium emptily looming behind. The actors (all of them except Hugo Weaving playing more than one role) are sometimes sitting up in random seats, sometimes standing right in front of us. This is a thrilling and raw experience. I could reach out my hand and touch them, I  hear their breath and see their spittle and sweat flying.

Hugo Weavering plays Macbeth. No, he doesn't play him, he is Macbeth. He whispers, he cries, he shouts and sobs, and he takes you right along on his intense emotional journey. He is absolutely mesmerising and domineers the stage. Next to his towering performance some of the younger actors seem slightly pale in comparison. Only John Gaden can measure up, playing first Duncan and later Macduff's young child. He is formidable as both.

Above all I'm struck by the physicality and almost athletic nature of theatre. I quite forgot this after mainly watching movies recently, where every experience is edited and airbrushed. Sitting on this (very uncomfortable) chair for two hours straight, there is no distancing myself, no escaping. I'm sucked in, I'm there - in that Scottish castle and on that battlefield in a snow storm, and I'm watching Macbeth die right in front of me. It's chilling and it's beautiful, and I am hooked. Watch this space for more stories from the theatrical frontline.

TEDx Sydney 2014



Sometimes a day isn't enough. How can I summarise the amazing experience that is being in the audience for TEDx Sydney 2014?

Firstly, a few words about the event for the uninitiated: TED originally stood for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It started as a conference in California in 1984, a not-for profit enterprise asking the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes and share their 'Ideas Worth Spreading'.

TEDx developed from there all around the world in local, self-organised events, bringing people together to share a TED-like experience with speakers and performers. TEDx Sydney is a day of ideas, storytelling, creativity and innovation. It's a day to foster the community, for conversation and debate.

There is an atmosphere of kinship, of 'we're in this together'ness. You can palpably feel the energy and love of 2,300 people in the audience, around 200 in the sold-out event downstairs and about 50 satellite events. The hunger for ideas is breathtaking.

It gives me such hope for humanity to look at the faces around me and know that we are all here to listen to inspirational people who - in one way or the other - want to serve the community, improve the life of their fellow beings.

The day is divided into four sections:

PASSAGES
BLOOD
ENHANCE
RETHINK

There isn't really one single performance that stands out - I'm blown away by different speakers for different reason.

There is the very first speaker, Markus Zusak, author of the bestseller The Book Thief, who delivers a poignant speech about the benefits of failure as a writer and a human being. He is funny, humble and self-deprecating.

There is the dry and matter-of-fact former soldier and diplomat David Kilcullen who works with communities in conflict zones to help them take over control in a participatory approach, dealing with crime and poverty in rapidly growing, overstretched urban sprawls.

Judy and Tim Sharp, down-to-earth mother and 25 year-old autistic son have everyone in tears after their appearance on stage. Tim is a talented artist who has created Laser Beak Man, a colourful, funny and quirky super hero who likes to take things quite literally. Think Barbie Queue or picking up chicks...

Oliver Percovich is founder of Skateistan, a grassroots project that started in Kabul, which teaches skating and general education to thousands of boys and girls in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. He is very nervous, but incredibly passionate about his cause. His speech is a good example of what is so satisfying about TED: These are often not polished performers, but real people with a real passion to share a great idea.

And then there are the musical performances - the whimsical beauty of Linsey Pollack creating an orchestra out of a carrot, a garden hose and a feather duster. Or the breathtaking performance of Flamenco dancer Johnny Tedesco with the ensemble Bandaluzia that sizzles with his understated sexual energy and incredible stage presence. There is composer Nigel Westlake together with singer Lior who delivers the sublime and haunting Avinu Malkeinu out of their song cycle 'Compassion'. And finally Megan Washington, who gives a touching and vulnerable speech about her stutter, followed by her flawless and beautiful singing.

And finally the food. Oh, the glorious food. As Jill Dupleix says, "At TEDx Sydney we don't just do lunch". We sit down at long tables to nourishing, beautiful soups, curries, herbs, salads, hand churned butter and fresh bread with ingredients that are sourced from local refugee initiatives. The wine and beer is specially commissioned and locally produced for the day. The quality on such a large scale is astonishing and just so damn pleasurable. It seems like a fitting metaphor for the whole day - done with love, pride, passion and compassion.

What am I taking away from this day? Change is possible. Do something. Be open. I laughed out loud, I cried, I was speechless, excited, touched, inspired, and I can honestly say I enjoyed every moment. Bring on TEDx Sydney 2015.

The 19th Biennale of Sydney - MCA

I find art calming and invigorating at the same time. Strolling through the Museum of Contemporary Art to explore their display for the 19th Biennale of Sydney a few weekends ago, I'm wondering: What exactly is it about art that makes me so happy? Is it being surrounded by like-minded people, silently connected through the love of art? Or being alone with my thoughts, aimlessly musing about this art work or the other, making mental connections?

My first stop is a dark room with a wall-to-wall video screening by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. It's titled Mercy Garden Retour Skin (What is it with obscure titles for art works by the way? I guess it's supposed to draw you in, make you curious. Or I'm missing some vital cultural reference here. Clearly, this needs to be addressed in a separate blog post...).

People are lying on bean bags that are scattered throughout the room. I join them and let the atmospheric music and pictures wash over me. It's a loop of lush, organic, hyper-coloured plants, grains of sand, swirling water... I feel myself drifting off, being carried along by the vivid images when I notice people around me getting restless. There are a few embarrassed giggles, and I realise that what I took for a floating sea plant under water is actually a shrivelled penis gently swaying in the soft current. Which explains the reference to nudity at the entrance I was wondering about. It's light-hearted and sensual art at its best:

 

The next room is the opposite - brightly lit and angular forms. Jim Lambie's work is titled Zobop (obviously). He has covered the whole gallery floor in vividly coloured striped vinyl tape. The result is striking:

I almost walk past this next neon installation by Polish artist Hubert Czeropok. He is quoting the Joker in the Batman film The Dark Knight. The sign depicts a darkly comical message about the fine line between sanity and madness:

Continuing, I enter a bright, austere room where artist Roni Horn has assembled pale blue glass castings that look like small pools filled to the brim with water. It is incredibly tempting to disturb the surface of this still mirror, and a vigilant museum attendant keeps reminding newcomers not to touch the fragile art work. This is beautiful and ethereal:

The last exhibit reveals another thing about art that makes me happy: it's enjoying the sheer aesthetic pleasure of gazing at a thing of beauty. In that sense it's like poetry or music - it calms my inner turmoil. I guess you take whatever you need from art in the exact moment you experience it. And that is good for the soul.

Sunset Park by Paul Auster

It's been quiet here lately. There have been concerts, alt J and Leonard Cohen namely, but they both failed to move me, for different reasons. One concert entirely lacked feeling and pathos while the other one had too much of it, with sugar on top (also, when people next to you do the cryptic crossword waiting for the concert to begin, you kinda start to wonder if you're not too young for this).

I've been just so busy with... life, I guess. The kids and school runs and groceries and cooking and friends and a job that occupies a large part of my mind in a good way. So I've been doing a lot of thinking and researching policies and politics, ideas and abstract concepts, but not much immersing myself in a good story.

And then I came across this on Rozelle markets. I've loved Paul Auster for a long time, since reading the amazing and disturbing City of Glass, first part of his New York Trilogy. And just now I've discovered that he has also written the screenplay for two movies I loved, Smoke and its follow-up Blue in the Face.

I'm not going to reveal much of the plot of Sunset Park, just that it is about twenty-eight year old Miles who has fled New York and his family after a tragic event he has caused seven years ago. Now he lives in sweltering Florida, taking photos of abandoned houses. He stays because he has fallen in love with a teenage girl, Pilar. When he is blackmailed by Pilar's sister, he is forced to return to New York. There, he settles in an illegal squat with two women and a man and prepares himself to face his father and the past he has been avoiding for years.

Sunset Park is the seventh novel from Paul Auster I've read. Reading it feels like coming home, recognising a kindred spirit on an almost instinctive level. It is a book about loss and forgiveness, about love and loneliness. It is intelligent, it is tragic, it is articulate like all of Auster's work, and it has the immediacy of living inside the protagonists heads, even more so as Auster switches perspectives in each chapter. And then there's the clarity and beauty of his prose, the simple elegance and rhythmic cadence of his sentences.

It all just reminds me why I love books so much. No matter how busy life gets, there is always enough time to lose oneself in a good story.

The Maids at Sydney Theatre Company, 17 July 2013

I love theatre. I love the big gestures and big emotions - it's life amplified.

This performance has been anticipated as the highlight of the year for Sydney's theatre lovers: Cate Blanchett, French actress Isabelle Huppert and the young prodigy Elisabeth Debicki together on stage to play The Maids in an Australian adaptation of Jean Genet's classic written in 1947.

The play is loosely based on real events, where two maids and sisters murdered their employer. It is a sexually charged piece that explores the complex relationship of the three women. Solange (Huppert) and Claire (Blanchett) are subversive characters who have nothing. When their mistress (Debicki) is out, the two engage in an elaborate roleplay, one assuming the part of the mistress, the other one of the maid. They hate and depend on their mistress in equal measures, playing out sexual fantasies, but also a secret desire to kill the decandent oppressor.

Elisabeth Debicki is only 22 years old and working with two of her professional idols. She carries her role of the mistress with confidence and charisma. She is very tall, towering over the two other women, with the gangly, loose limbs of a dancer.

Blanchett's voice is remarkable (I've noticed this for the first time when she played Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings): sometimes booming and frightening, sometimes chilling and clipped, sometimes shrill, sometimes girlish. The same goes for her appearance: She can be plain and almost plump looking in one moment and of luminous, shimmering beauty in the next.

Huppert is like a naughty child - surprisingly small and slight, with the lithe body of a teenager. She is constantly moving, swinging from the clothes rack, frolicking in the big bed with her legs in the air, gesticulating and sticking her tongue out. She is hard to understand with her very strong French accent, but what courage of her to expose herself like that!

Part of the stage set-up are cameras taking details of the performance and projecting them on a big screen above the stage.

The cameras capture unexpected angles that are sometimes grotesque, sometimes painfully intimate, sometimes strangely random, like the shot of the yellow rubber gloves or one single shoe. At the same time this gives a sense of unease and building tension, the foreboding that a catastrophe could happen at any moment, from any corner.

The actresses are brave enough to let the audience see unflattering angles, sweat and faces that are no longer as taut as that of young Debicki. But they are still beautiful and at moments strangely innocent looking, yet so bitter, polluted and twisted in their murderous hate.

Huppert and Blanchett are incredibly courageous performers. They look exhausted and drained at the end, having hated, yelled, plotted and flirted for two hours straight.

I'm virtually on the edge of my seat for the whole time and find myself audibly exhaling at the end, being relieved for this emotional roller-coaster to end. And isn't this what art is all about? To suck you in, shake you up and spit you out at the end, dizzy from the experience.

Manu Chao at the Enmore, 27 March 2013

All good things happen twice. I have no idea if this is true, of course, but it's a way of weaving into the conversation that this is the second time I see Manu Chao perform live. The first time was his free concert in the Domain at the opening night of the Sydney Festival 2012. Tonight he is visiting the more intimate venue of the Enmore Theatre.

It's been an eventful day leading up to the concert. In the morning I had an interview for a job I really wanted and had veered all day between thinking I did ok and there was no chance in hell they would ever employ someone like me (spoiler alert: I got the job in the end!). So this evening finds me tingeling with exitement and eager to release some pent-up tension. And have I come to the right place!

Manu Chao is still the small, bouncing bundle of energy he was a year ago. He has the rather disconcerting habit of pretending his guitar is a machine gun, miming to shoot at the ceiling or pointing it at the audience, but other than that he is just pretty much jumping up and down throughout the whole concert, playing with pure, unabashed bliss that is inspiring and infectious in its joy.

Manu Chao performes with three band members, but at times it gets pretty crowded on stage: After a couple of songs he is joined by political activists he had previously invited who are protesting against coal seam gas mining. It slows down the momentum the concert had built up so nicely, but it's still admirable to give this group a platform to express their views. As we are in Newtown, they are of course preaching to the proverbial choir, earning cheers and loud applause. Clearly there are no mining magnates or conservative politicians hidden in the audience...

Towards the end of the concert there is another interruption on stage that is far more entertaining: A very agitated bloke breaks through security and dances wildly on stage. Then he takes off all of his clothes, continues dancing and proceeds to hug Manu Chao. The singer, who is clearly having a great time watching this spectacle, signals the stern security people that everything is under control. He hugs the naked guy back and smacks two kisses on both his cheeks.

Manu Chao, who was born in Paris to Spanish parents and has travelled the world with his music, clearly hasn't lost either his Punk roots or his political conscience. And apart from all that there is the simple pleasure of witnessing this force of nature on stage. Twice.

The Cat Empire at the Metro Theatre, 1 March 2013

I love sad music. Always have, always will. Give me a voice full of sorrow, a haunting melody and mournful lyrics any day. One of my favourite bands is still The Smiths, for God's sake.

 

 

But this clearly isn't going to be one of these days. The first person I notice on stage this Friday night is a young lady in a purple sequin dress and a huge flower headpiece (this is called a fascinator, I think, and how pleasing it is to have such a fitting word for it). The lady in question is smiling sweetly and playing banjo. Barefoot. She is part of a band called Flap! from Melbourne, and they are here to set the tone for a night of singing, dancing and general cheerfulness.

If there is any music that is just meant to be played live, it is that of The Cat Empire. This eight-piece band oozes energy out of every pore from the first moment they come on stage. I'm here with a bunch of friends, and when trumpeter and amazing vocalist Harry Angus plays the first tunes of How to Explain, we are well and truly ready, with a pair of knees to spring and a pair of lungs to sing...

The evening has a lovely, organic flow to it: The playlist is a satisfying mix of old songs and material from their new album that is due for release in May. Everything fits nicely together - all the songs are utterly danceable, or at least jump-up-and-downable, which is all I manage, squeezed in as I am among a very enthusiastic crowd. Harry Angus shares the front man role with the very handsome and very charming singer and percussionist Felix Riebl. One girl even throws her bra onto the stage, which seems to unsettle the poor drummer entirely, on whose instrument it lands. The girl later meekly (and unsuccessfully) asks to get the offending garment back.

My personal favourite song of the The Cat Empire is The Wine Song. It is introduced by a brilliant keyboard solo by the highly talented Ollie McGill, who very much reminds me of Schroeder from the Peanuts. This song is everything that the band does so well: simple lyrics that you can relate to, a rousing chorus that you just can't help singing at the top of your lungs and an irresistible rhythm that just makes you want to shake those hips.

The music of The Cat Empire defies labelling - it's a mixture of jazz, reggae, latin, hip hop and everything in between. It is, in short, one loud and joyful invitation to party. My taste for sad music will just have to wait until the next concert...

Presence

Being present. Sounds simple, right? Well, I can tell you that it's not, at least not to me. This is one of the reasons why I love yoga and why it is sometimes so damn hard: It strips back all the layers and leaves you with the simple, unvarnished truth. This week's theme of the 40 day challenge is Presence (Come into your body).

To become fully aware of this moment without worrying about the future or reminiscing about the past is something children are really good at, but as adults we have all but lost the ability to just be. While I'm in the shower I remember that I need to buy toilet paper. While I'm cooking dinner I'm thinking that I really should organise the pantry, and why don't my kids eat more fish? While I'm reading my daughter a bedtime story I wonder if she's ever going to love reading as much as her brother does and if I should already get another couple of school uniforms for her, which reminds me that I need to tell my son to do his school project for next week, and I really should get my own website to get that freelance business going... And instead of savouring the delicious feeling of my lovely daughter's warm body next to me, I'm somewhere else, absorbed in things that aren't real.

So this week I'm trying presence. I'm meditating every morning, and while it's tempting to drift back into sleep, I have tiny glimpses into the calm, still centre of my mind. In the same instance I'm realising this, my "monkey mind", as the yogis call it, runs off and the stillness is gone. But that is also part of the process: to witness it without judging and to just bring my mind back to the breath and this moment.

On a more mundane note: I'm feeling pretty tired and not glowing at all this week. After fighting off my children's cold for weeks, it has finally caught up with me, and I have a sore throat and splitting headache. The last symptom could also be caffeine withdrawal. Not having any coffee is probably the hardest thing this week. I'm also a bit worried about my back, which pinches uncomfortably in the morning and after yoga practice. I've had surgery of my spinal disc last year, and going back to these months of unbearable pain is really the last thing I want.

I'm still glad I've started this journey, and I think I'm ready for next week's theme, Vitality...

40 day challenge - The beginning

Tomorrow is my first day of a 40 day challenge. Sounds exciting, doesn't it! For six weeks I will practice yoga six days a week in my local studio (www.powerliving.com.au) with one day of rest. I will meditate twice daily, say good-bye to coffee and alcohol and just generally take a long, hard look at what my body really needs and what it doesn't.

Why do I do it? I guess the main reason is that I'm just curious how it will affect me. The program is called 40 day challenge for a reason. Will I cope or buckle under the physical and mental pressure? I also believe that it will kick-start this year and somehow help me manifest the perfect job and the perfect balance of making my family and myself happy. A teensy bit far-fetched? Ridiculous? Maybe, but there you have it. Well, and then there is obviously the sheer vain pleasure in getting fit and looking great. I dare anyone participating in the challenge to contradict me in this point.

So for the next 40 days (or 960 hours or 57,600 minutes...) allow me the weekly self-indulgence of only talking about myself: my mind, my body, my fears and failings and ultimately (hopefully!) my triumphant success. Stay tuned.

Morrissey at the Enmore, 21 December 2013

I have waited for this concert for 25 years. When I listened to the Smiths for the first time, I knew that someone finally got it - the loneliness, the longing, the joy and pain and sometimes the shear boredem of being young. Be it "Mother, I can feel/ the soil falling over my head" or "When you walk without ease/on these streets where you were raised", Morrissey captured all these feelings poetically pitch-perfect.

So as I am standing in the Enmore Theatre, I feel like pinching myself: I can hardly believe that it is the man himself on stage, opening the concert with Shoplifters of the World Unite. It feels utterly surreal seeing him perform live the soundtrack of my teenage years. Although I haven't listened to some songs for a long time, I find myself singing along word for word.

Morrissey is all theatrical gestures and snappy one-liners. He throws in the odd dispariging comment about the royal family or dictatorships around the globe. His vegetarian anthem Meat is Murder is really too long and a bit tedious, but still chilling accompanied by footage of cattle being led to be slaughtered in the background. For Let Me Kiss You he throws his shirt into the audience and reveals a pretty trim body for his 53 years. People hand him books and flowers, something I haven't seen in a long time at a concert. He even invites a few fans on stage. Their reactions go from enthusiastic hugging to reverently kneeling before Moz.

Satisfyingly the playlist leans heavily on early Smiths material and ignores the worst of his self-indulgent smooth solo numbers. And when he sings the first tunes of Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want, I feel like crying: This is flawless and beautiful and just perfect.

Museum of Contemporary Art (Part II)

Here are some impressions from another recent trip to the wonderful MCA.



 



Rosalie Gascoigne: Tiger Tiger, 1987

This is made from road signs that are carved up and reassembled. Some critics refer to Gascoigne's work as visual poetry. It caught my eye because it is inspired by a poem I love, The Tyger, by William Blake:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Tim Johnson: Dewachin, 1987

This is inspired by Aboriginal dot paintings and is beautiful and shimmering in the original.

 

Nick Mangan: eXoecoaXis, 2005

The kids were impressed by the hand-made crystals poking out of the Persian rug, and I like the catchy title...

Robert Owen: Sunrise #3, 2005

Imagine this in your living room - minus the bucket! Love the combination of vibrant colours.

Angus Stone at the Enmore, 1 November 2012

 

 

It's like stepping into a fairytale: cut-out trees, a fake campfire in the corner, glittering light bulbs for stars. It fits the atmosphere this evening. People are sitting cross-legged, chatting quietly and waiting patiently for Angus Stone to appear. When he finally does, the crowd goes wild though; and when he calmly utters the profound words: "Hi, I'd like to introduce myself, my name is Angus", there is no stopping at least the female part of the audience. There is a lot of chanting his name and fervently shouted declarations of love. The man himself takes all this in his stride. He strokes his beard thoughtfully and answers carefully that, yeah, he loves us too, which sends the girls into another screaming frenzy.

 

But all that aside, there's the music. It's mostly stripped back, acoustic and folksy like River Love, the first song of the evening that has more than a hint of Bob Dylan to it, but there are also slightly edgier and darker pieces like It Was Blue and End of the World, which suit Stone's voice surprisingly well. This voice really is something: It's raw and emotional, and like his big sister he has that uncanny ability to give you the impression of sitting right next to you and singing gently into your ear.

 

For the encore Stone plays a song that he has written on the same day, something gloomy and acoustic about a beautiful French girl who makes him sad for some reason. If feels authentic, and I'm thinking that this is what people crave: that sense of a simple truth; a guy with shaggy hair and a guitar who sings softly about his feelings, his loneliness and his dreams. It certainly isn't new, but it is honest and beautiful - and it still gets the girls...



Autumn Laing by Alex Miller

A while ago I wrote about the satisfaction of putting things into order, of quantifying and labelling them. Well, here I will attempt something that I have meant to do for a very long time: I will choose one book every month that I loved reading and will try to explain why I did love it. And thus I will hopefully save it from disappearing in that big pile of all the other books and movies and newspaper articles and websites that I really wanted to remember; the ones that moved and inspired me and that somehow fell between the cracks in the mysterious landscape of my mind...

This is a book about being old. It is a book about being young and immortal. It is a book about art, about jealousy and passion, about women and about Australia. Autumn Laing tells her story, beginning, 'They are all dead, and I am old and skeleton-gaunt. This is where it began fifty-three years ago.' Doesn't this alone make you want to sit back and read on? Oh, the power of words, drawing you in and creating a world just for you to discover!

Autumn Laing is young and beautiful. It is the late 1930s in Melbourne, and she is married to kind and gentle Arthur. Theirs is a quiet and comfortable marriage. They have a circle of artistic, bohemien friends who come to their house to eat, drink copious amounts of red wine and discuss art and poetry. They are trying to invent an Australian version of the European modernism and argue about aesthetics, philosophy and ethics. Their lifes change when Autumn meets and subsequently seduces Pat Donlon, a promising and hot-headed young artist. He is married to lovely and innocent Edith, who is pregnant with their first child. The book shifts between the unfolding story and the present, where Autumn is dying, bad-tempered and armed with a sharp tongue. She is looking back with regret and longing and eventually is able to find some kind of peace and closure.

Alex Miller is an amazingly skilled writer. His style seems effortless, but is so confident and elegant in providing first only glimpses of the story and the characters that inhabit it and subsequently weaving all the threads together into a rich and colourful tapestry. Miller lets Autumn talk and gives her a truly unique voice. I tried to slow down my reading towards the end, and I really missed her after finishing the story. In fact, I'm still thinking of her as someone I knew and who has recently died. The power of words...

Julia Stone at the Metro Theatre, 15 September 2012

I have been vomited upon by my two sick children for the last two weeks and have only recently re-surfaced from under a mountain of dirty bed linen, stacks of salted crackers and seas of chamomile tea...

So just before heading to Fiji for a long anticipated and, I think, well deserved holiday, a quick recount of my last little adventure into the Australian music scene. The venue is the Metro Theatre again and the occasion the concert of the lovely Julia Stone.

Support act is The Trouble with Templeton from Brisbane. The band's young singer and songwriter Tom Calder is definitely someone to watch. He's got charisma, a wonderful voice and he writes songs that are catchy and packed with raw emotions.

Julia Stone herself, when she finally enters the stage, is delightful: Her unpretentious and relaxed banter gives the concert a very personal and intimate feel. She tells little stories about how the songs for her solo album By the Horns came about and what inspired them. She is sweet without drifting into the kind of sugary and infantile cuteness that strangely seems to be the default setting for a lot of girls these days (Wow, I sound like a grumpy old woman, and I'm breaking my own rule of not being bitchy in this blog, so enough of this).

 

Julia Stone does a few trumpet solos, but for most songs she plays the guitar (one bearded guy seems solely assigned to hand her a different model after each song). Stone seems mature and confident and is clearly a seasoned performer. But her most obvious asset is her sheer talent: Her voice is beautiful and fragile, and it matches the songs with their stripped back, acoustic compositions that sound deceivingly simple, but are delicate and well crafted arrangements.

 

After playing together with her brother Angus for six years, they both have taken this year to pursue their respective solo projects. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Angus Stone perform at the Enmore Theatre this November, where he will play songs from his new album Broken Brights. They have promised to get back together after this little excursion. Whatever they decide to do in the future, these extraordinary siblings have proven that they continue to deserve a central place in Australia's musical landscape.

 



David Helfgott at the City Recital Hall, 10 August 2012

As David Helfgott jogs onto stage and gives a thumbs up into the audience with both hands, grinning like an excited child, you can't help but be enchanted. This is not your average start of a classical concert, and Helfgott certainly isn't your average classical performer. After having inspired the Oscar-winning movie Shine in 1996 with Geoffrey Rush portraying him as an adult, he is in fact probably one of the best known pianists of our time. The movie shows Helfgott's childhood in Melbourne, born to Polish-Jewish parents. He displays early signs of being a prodigious piano player, but increasingly struggles with a schizoaffective disorder. The movie was subsequently strongly criticised by his sister who disagrees mainly with the depiction of their father as an authoritarian tyrant.

Today David Helfgott performs Sergei Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor, the very piece that brought about his mental breakdown and admittance to a psychiatric hospital as a young man. It is known to be one of the most technically challenging pieces to play. "Rach Three" is a wonderful composition - full of longing and nostalgia and a passion that sometimes simmers under the surface and sometimes bursts open in glorious, brilliant rainbows. The extraordinary thing about Helfgott's performance is how he seems to literally live and breathe the music he is playing. Every now and then he mutters and grunts, bowing deep over the piano and frowning in concentration. At other times he beams gleefully into the audience, nodding vigourosly when playing a particularly triumphant part. He plays without sheet music and is utterly immersed in the piece. His enthusiasm is contagious and highly entertaining. There is nothing grave and somber about Helfgott's playing; it is pure, unadulterated joy.

When he finishes, the audience erupts in cheers and gives a long standing ovation. Critics have found fault with Helfgott's technical abilities in the past; they have condemned an audience, not used to classical concerts, for clapping between movements. They were bothered by Helgott's grunting while playing. Looking around me, I see smiling faces everywhere, people laughing out loud at Helfgott's repeated hugging and kissing of his fellow musicians on stage, others copying his two-handed thumbs up. This man brings joy and wonder into people's lives, he makes classical music approachable and is truly inspiring in his playfulness. Why so serious?

Jack White at the Hordern Pavilion, 26 July 2012

 

I've go a confession to make: I used to be a rockabilly. This was when I was about 17 years old, right after a brief gothic stint and just before donning Doc Martens and jumping around to Ska and Punk music. It took me a year or so to figure out that my rockabilly friends not only adopted the music from the 1950s, but also the macho culture and latent racism of this period. But for a while my girlfriend and I were part of this cool gang, clad in leather jackets adorned with the Confederate flag, sticky hair and all; feeling very rebellious and different indeed. Until I understood that subcultures are in a way much more conservative than the mainstream, with their stringent rules about the right clothes, the right hair and the right music. Rebellion? Sure. Individuality? No way.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm at a concert again - one that I had been looking forward to for months. The support act is the infectiously cheerful Lanie Lane with her mix of rock'n' roll, blues and rockabilly. And that music takes me right back to these exciting times of carving out an identity, deciding where I want to belong and gradually realising what's important (and it isn't what brand of hairspray you're using).

After this stroll down memory lane allow me to be briefly reduced to a gushing teenager in reliving the amazing two hours that are the Jack White concert. Oh. My. God. What a musician! What a guy! I was never so right in anticipating an event; this is without a doubt the best concert I saw this year, if not one of the best I've ever been to. Jack White is a true rock star. Mysterious, a bit bonkers, it seems, but oh so sexy, and with the most amazing voice and guitar skills.

With his terrific all-male band (alternating nightly between this and an all-female band), he plays songs from his time with the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, and from his debut solo album Blunderbuss, about which I wrote in an earlier blog entry. He starts thunderously with Black Math from his Elephant album with the White Stripes. To imagine the power: With just one gesture you indicate you want the audience to clap, and several thounsand people obediently raise their hands. The contrast between his earlier, explosive pieces like The Hardest Button To Button and his new material as a solo artist is sometimes stark, but White pulls it off as he tackles each song with intense concentration. It is only halfway through the concert that he allows himself a half-smile. He ends the concert with an electric rendition of Seven Nation Army, and the crowd goes wild, shouting the lyrics and roaring the bassline. I'm squeezed in, I am drenched in sweat and my lukewarm beer is sloshing out of my plastic cup as I jump up and down - in short, it is exactly how a great concert is supposed to be.



You might have noticed the slight improvement in the quality of the concert photos (I know, the photos of my rockabilly years are pretty dodgy. They are scanned, but I couldn't figure out how to change the frame. Where is your personal technical advisor when you need him...).
I could claim that I took a proper camera this time and was really, really close to the stage. But I'm just going to admit that I got them from Jack White's official website (jackwhiteiii.com), because we weren't allowed to take photos. I'm sure you're glad.

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

I feel like sharing a poem again; one that I love passionately and irrationally in equal measures, as it is - in my view - intensely beautiful, but quite long and not easily accessible, although it is very well known. It is a wonderful example of what I wrote about poetry earlier; that it is sometimes best just to let it wash over you and trust that the poem will carry you safely ashore.

John Keats had the extraordinary power to move his contemporaries as well as readers today. Surely part of his appeal is due to the tragic circumstances of his short life and his death of tuberculosis at the young age of only twenty-five years. He fell in love with his Hampstead neighbour Fanny Brawne, a romance that was beautifully captured in the movie "Bright Star". Keats wrote almost all of his major poetry in the short period between 1818 and his death in 1821.

I
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, –
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

III
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

IV
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

V
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

VI
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –
To thy high requiem become a sod.

VII
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: – Do I wake or sleep? 

Books that changed me

I love to gaze emptily at my bookshelf and just skim the book titles. I've spent many a happy hour standing there, occasionally pulling one book out or the other, opening it at a random page, reading a few lines and smiling in that warm and secure knowledge of having rediscovered an old friend.

The Little Witch (Die kleine Hexe) by Otfried Preussler:
This is the first book I read when I was five years old. Here it was: The magic of words and the astounding miracle that a whole world is just waiting for you when you open a book. I was hooked.

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse:
The knowledge of self was a recurring theme in Hesse's work. And isn't intense self-examination at the core of trying to become an adult? Hesse wrote about finding yourself, being true to who you really are and about claiming your individuality against the odds and against society. So when I discovered these books at the age of about fourteen, they very much suited the angsty, confused and quietly rebellious teenager that I was.

The Age of Reason (L’âge de raison) by Jean-Paul Sartre:
I shared an apartment in Munich with a bunch of crazy, noisy and partying art students. I had just returned from a year of backpacking through Australia and Asia, had broken up with my boyfriend and was at that delicious and heady stage of absolute freedom without any constraints. And - voilà - at this pivotal moment Sartre stepped into my life and talked about just this: You alone are responsible for your own fate, you choose your destiny. There is no helpless surrendering to a divine fate that makes the decisions for you. The purpose of life? You create your own meaning in life (or a lack thereof) yourself.

The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) by Thomas Mann:
With this book I come full circle: Here again is the vast, sheer endless landscape of knowledge that just waits to be discovered. The language is full of beauty, rhythm and musicality, and one can dreamily read whole passages without quite understanding what Mann is actually talking about. The characters in the book reflect on time, politics and sociological issues. Reading the novel just makes me feel so damn clever and eloquent; a state I have tried to capture and maintain ever since.