As another weekend
arrives, I’m delighted to say that I have continued in my persuit of fulfilling
musical dreams by seeing Passenger live. Over the last year, I have well and
truly fallen in love with him and couldn’t wait to experience his amazing talent
in the flesh on Friday night.
I knew I was in for a
good day when a group of us at work decided to give Kebab Friday a go. I took
some convincing, considering that getting a kebab back home only occurs during
grease cravings after a particularly drunken night out; Mega Bite was our local
establishment in Bath last year and I lost count of the number of times we
stumbled through their door on the way home, armed with loose change to trade
in for elephant leg, chips and chilli sauce. Gross. However, I was assured that
kebabs in Australia are actually nice and Andy, Alex, Marissa, new girl German
Jen and I visited a restaurant a short walk away from campus in Broadway
Shopping Centre. I’m pleased to say that it was delightful.
After the culinary
delights of lunch, I had a crack at performing some very confusing statistics
on my calixarenes data, before accepting intellectual defeat and succombing to
the weekend. Next on my to-do list was a trip to the International Beer Shop in
West Leederville to take care of my secret Santa present. As I’ve mentioned,
I’m heading down to Dunsborough next Monday for two weeks of Christmas and New
Year fun with the McKiernans. Their parents, Terry and Maggs, are absolute
legends and, being used to hosting various Cornish folk each festive season,
have all sorts of yuletide treats planned for us all, including organising
aforementioned secret Santa. There are seven of us “young folk” this year:
Candice and Chris, Oli, Jess, Chloe and John (visiting from Cornwall) and
myself. I’ve got Chris and, after much deliberation about what to buy a
Cornish-turned-Aussie surfing builder, I decided on alcohol. No surprises
there. The Beer Shop had an absolutely crazy selection of tipples and I
eventually settled on a gift set of Chimay with the help of the guy behind the
counter who, judging by his belly, was quite the expert.
After a quick shower
to wash off the day (we’re currently experiencing the “first heatwave of the
summer”, with it hitting 40 degrees every day this weekend), I hopped on the
bus into the city with plenty of time to spare in order to find something to
eat before the gig. Chloe Foreman, I hope you’ll feel my pain reading this; I
found myself in my usual spinster situation as the one lone diner in a
restaurant full of couples on romantic Friday night dates. I need you over
here; lesbian is preferable to lonely singleton! Either way, Grill’d served up
a splendid Moroccan lamb burger and their healthier cooking process removed
some of the guilt piled on by my lunchtime kebab. A short walk through the
district of fancy bars teeming with the usual cohort of grotesquely drunk
businessmen and I found myself at the entrance to Perth Convention and
Exhibition Centre. I’d never been inside before and the place is huge and very
modern with all sorts of functions going on. A little early to be allowed into
the Riverside Theatre, I killed time people watching/admiring the outfits of
the women on their way to some big corporate ball.
When we were allowed
to our seats, I made my way in, cider in hand, and was instantly surprised at
the beauty and size of the theatre. I was seated a little left of centre and
near the front; looking back at the huge expanse of seats behind me, I’m glad I
booked when I did! Passenger’s opening act was Stu Larsen, a Kiwi guy he’s been
touring with for years. He’s incredible and one thing that always gets my goat
with audiences is how they talk the whole way through the support act’s set and
sometimes didn’t even clap him. Poor show, people of Perth. I like him almost
as much as Passenger himself and couldn’t get enough of him!
Stu finished up and
the crowd went absolutely mental as Passenger took to the stage. He was, of
course, completely sublime. He is so funny and really should be known as an
entertainer as much as he is a musician, putting the audience in stitches
between songs. He got even funnier as he made his way through a tumbler of
whisky planted next to the microphone! The gig in Perth was the last of his
crazy two-year world tour and must have been pretty special for him; he told
the story of how he spent the day before ‘Let Her Go’ catapulted him to stardom
busking in Fremantle to about 10 people, so it’s pretty poetic that it all came
full-circle in WA. My only regret was that he didn’t play a lot of his older
stuff, which I much prefer to his current album, but when you’ve got a thousand
teenage girls screaming for the current favourites I guess there’s not much you
can do. What a shock it must be for him to go so quickly from people walking
past you in the street to a whole stadium singing along to your songs! The
concert finished at 10:30, just in time for me to catch the last bus back to
Peppie Grove and fall into bed, pretty chuffed about being in such close
promixity to one of my heroes.
I woke up late this
morning and had just settled down on the sofa in my pjs for a morning of
cheering on the Poms at the WACA, when I happened to check Passenger’s Twitter
out of curiosity. To the delight of the groupie inside me, he was planning on
busking in Freo before flying back to the UK. With less than an hour to spare,
I had the quickest shower of my life, coated myself in sun cream and bolted out
the door, bound for Cottesloe station. A quick train ride later and I was
exploring the maze that is the streets of Fremantle, following the cheers to
the very pretty King’s Square. The man himself was set up under a tree,
surrounded by a crowd of only about a hundred people, so I plonked myself down
on the grass and instantly absorbed by the more intimate setting. With the
screaming girls removed from the equation, his old songs came out in force, the
emotion in them making a much stronger impact. About halfway through, I felt
someone settle himself on the grass next to me and turned to be faced with the
unmistakeable straw hat, blonde hair and ginger beard of Stu Larsen. No one
paid him a shred of attention without a guitar in his hands and, as I stared at
him in disbelief, he said hi and seemed pretty surprised that anyone had
recognised him at all. I spent the rest of Passenger’s set in my very own
personal heaven, chatting to Stu about music and touring and our backgrounds
and hopes and dreams; you know, all the usual stuff! Surreal, but amazing.
Before I knew it, the
set was over and Passenger and Stu were being herded into the van to catch
their plane back to England. For something that didn’t cost me a cent, my Freo
encounter with Passenger far out-classed his official gig. Stu Larsen saying it
was good to meet me = Life complete.
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