Jack Johnson

For me, there is no better way to spend Saturday night than curled up on a blanket, beer in hand, watching one of your favourite artists of all time. I’ve been lucky enough to see Jack twice before, both in Cornwall; in 2008 in a very rainy field at Newquay’s Watergate Bay and in 2010 at the iconic Eden Project. Despite him not doing too much new stuff since then, I’ve grown up with his music and I adore everything he’s ever written, so jumped at the chance to see him play in Australia. The gig in the beautiful Kings Park sold out in a day, demonstrating how well loved he is over here, and it seemed the perfect venue to soak up his chilled-out tunes.

In preparation for an evening in the great outdoors, I spent my morning hibernating on the sofa in front of the second Ashes Test, which turned out to be a rather depressing affair. The last thing I want is for England to lose the series (looking increasingly likely), because I will be constantly reminded of how useless we are by all the smug Aussies at work. After suffering a terrible fate of being knocked off my head and into the river when we were sailing a few weeks ago, my sunglasses needed replacing, so I hopped on the bus to Claremont Quarter for a little morning retail therapy. Claremont is pretty much the richest suburb in Perth and I felt positively dirty cruising around in my trainers and backpack amongst all the yummy mummies in their designer clothes! I also had to go into work briefly to treat my cells, so I caught the bus the rest of the way to uni and took care of that before walking the couple of kilometres to one of the footpaths into Kings. One thing I didn’t factor into my plan was the sheer size of the park; it’s the biggest inner-city park in the southern hemisphere and the concert venue was on the east side, whereas I entered on the west side (near the uni); nothing like an unexpected long walk uphill in 35 degree heat through the bush to work up your appetite! I eventually emerged from the wilderness at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial, a huge, grassy auditorium where everything was already fenced off and set up for the gig. With a couple of hours to spare before gates opened, I took the opportunity to wander around and soak up the sights for the first time; the DNA tower, Botanic Garden, War Memorial and viewing platform were incredible and it made me wonder why I hadn’t explored it properly before! I grabbed a sandwich from the café and enjoyed lunch under the trees before making my way over to the venue, where I was pretty much front of the line.

Soon there was a hefty queue forming and they let us in to set up camp in front of the stage. The whole venue was sweeping grass planes, apart from the deck, which was set up over a huge lake directly in front of the stage. Luckily it wasn’t a gig that warranted a lot of jumping around, otherwise I’m sure we would have all ended up in the water with the ducks. During the support acts, I lay on a rug on the grass; the gig began with local Perth girl Grace Woodroofe, who is just starting out but had a very pleasing Hannah Reid (from London Grammar) vibe about her voice. Next up was Paula Fuga, a large Hawaiian lady with a ukelele and possibly the nicest female voice I’ve ever heard; the traditional Hawaiian melodies are so beautiful, especially in the native language. John Cruz, another Hawaiian who reminded me of a Native American chief with his long hair, took us through to the big headliner and I wandered up to the stalls during his set. Jack Johnson’s concerts are always focussed on being environmentally friendly and I did my three green deeds to enter the competition to win a signed ukelele, but unfortunately didn’t win. I also made an obligatory trip to the merchandise tent, then bought a couple of beers and a bowl of chilli nachos to munch on. It was a little bit weird being at a gig by myself, but tickets were sold out before any of my friends could get involved and, besides, it did provide the ultimate chill-out atmosphere.

As John Cruz played his last song, I packed up my little camp and moved down to the deck to get as close to Jack as possible. I was only two rows back and could easily see over the heads of the girls in front of me (not being racist, but there are merits to there being so many Asians in Perth!). Just as the sun went down, out rolled Jack with just a guitar to deafening applause. He played a few acoustic favourites, before welcoming out his band. I was delighted to see his old friend Zach Gill on stage with him, who I like almost as much as Jack himself for his terrible hair, farmer’s cap and incredible range of talent on the piano, accordian, vibes and, my personal favourite, the melodica. His voice is also amazing and he stands on various items of furniture while playing solos. He called Paula Fuga and John Cruz back out for a few tunes, but mainly played a mixture of his old classics and newer songs; the thing I love more than anything about gigs is so many different people all singing along to the same song; it always gives me goosebumps.

The highlight of my evening, however, was when they started asking for song requests; I immediately screamed out “Girl I Wanna Lay You Down!”, a duet him and Zach did at Watergate that began with him asking parents to cover their kids ears; it wasn’t that rude, just hilarious and clever and awesome. Considering half the audience was probably shouting a song title or just screaming, imagine my surprise when he looks directly at me with a look of disbelief and says “Sorry, say that again?” so I did; he smiled, looked and Zach and they played it. They actually played a song that I asked for. I guess he was mostly surprised to be faced with such a die-hard fan, seeing as that song isn’t very well known and only on a special edition album. Needless to say, it was one of the best moments of my life to date! I was a bit scared for my life afterwards, when a group of Brazilian girls who’d spent the entire time screaming their undying love for him at the top of their lungs (to the pain and disgust of everyone nearby) started shooting me “I kill you” looks, but I was too elated to care. They weren't the only pain in the arse in the crowd; some douche got pulled out for pushing everyone around like he was listening to Skrillex and this incredibly tall woman who absolutely stank of weed pushed in front of me at one point. Luckily, stoned people are awfully friendly and she happily swapped with me when I asked her nicely :)

Before I knew it, he’d left the stage for good (after returning for an encore to the most deafening screams I’ve ever heard) and it was time to negotiate getting home. I decided against going back the way I’d come through the bush, which would be pitch black, and instead took the exit into the city, where I figured having to get a longer bus was worth not being murdered/eaten by snakes. I just about made it through the door before the long day of trekking up hills and being outdoors forced me to crash out on my bed for a good ten hours. My Sunday has so far consisted of a major lie-in and catching up on England’s dismal situation in Adelaide before getting back to the grindstone tomorrow. To continue my month of music heaven, I’m seeing the one and only Passenger on Friday and may go as far as to say that I’m even more excited for seeing Mr Rosenberg that I was to see Mr Johnson.

In the words of the mental Brazilian chicks, “Me love you Jack!”