musopantz

In 1986 Reabold Hill’s abandoned quarry, which had not been used for eighty years, was re-opened as ‘The Quarry Amphitheatre’. Surrounded by natural bush land, it and offers panoramic views across the City to the Darling Range and provides an ideal setting for intimate acoustic concerts with a capacity audience of 644 people.

- Extract from The Quarry Amphitheatre’s Live At The Quarry website.

The Quarry Amphitheatre in City Beach is fairly new to the live music scene, having started its Live At The Quarry series only in the early Summer of 2008 with the likes of James Morrison, Holly Throsby, Old Man River and Kate Miller-Heidke.

This summer, though with a smaller line up but nonetheless a warm mix of live acts, started off with Paul Kelly’s A-Z series. The shows spanned over four nights, singing 100 songs thematically from A to Z, over his 30-odd years as a songwriter accompaniment from his nephew Dan Kelly. Oh gosh, how I would have loved to have been to all four nights, but I arrived in the middle (in the middle, in the middle) of the series where he had started off on the letter “L”. Paul Kelly was also handing out his books if people had pointed out lyrical errors after they were performed. With a hundred songs to go through, and many more in his back-catalogue, who can blame him for forgetting some words, hey?

I’d just like to mention that Dan Kelly and The Ukeladies were supporting Augie March only a day before Paul Kelly’s shows were to start. How convenient! I’d thought about whether he’d be at The Quarry and I can say I wasn’t surprised!

From this one (half) night under the stars, I was absolutely mesmerised by Paul Kelly’s storytelling. It’s little wonder that he’s such a legendary songwriter. I sure the crowd agrees too - all four nights had completely sold out. It even rained the first two nights as well (this was the week of November when it was really pissing down). Why did I only stay for half the night? Well I didn’t expect to be allowed to stay so I wasn’t exactly prepared for it. Although I tried my best, I left after the intermission (after the letter “O”) as I was freezing out there only wearing a long-sleeve, a shirt and jeans. Though I’d like to thank the couple who lent me their picnic blanket. I also envy the reviewer (Matt Hogan) for having the “job” of documenting all four nights!

Recently at The Quarry, comedy trio Tripod performed their Christmas-flavoured lewd and nerdy antics to two sellout audiences. Both nights were supported by local comedy act Diggy Bones and his band The Tokens of Love. I had seen Diggy Bones perform under the guise Ben Sutton doing improv nights at The Lazy Susan’s Comedy Den at The Brisbane Hotel. Diggy Bones is Perth’s very own pimp, out there on the streets of Northbridge (cough) “lookin’ for luuuuuurve”. He loves to sing about it too with analogies to the activities of the Bonobo monkeys. Oh yeah, he’s smoooooooth…

Tripod had a Christmas show happening. That is to say, they had a comedy show with hints of Christmas. Another Christmas album to spruik means they can tour again! The show started with the Kwinana Community Support Choir to lighten up the evening. Can you spot the odd one out?

The show was underlined by a pantomime about the Three Wise Men starring yours truly and a freshly plucked audience member to narrate the story. Tripod don’t try to hide their geekiness as Yon wants to play the part of Gollum, Gatesy referring to one of their camels as Battle Cat (from Masters of the Universe) and Scod… well, he wears glasses. That’s geeky enough, isn’t it?

You have to admit though, these guys sure can pull off soothing harmonies even if the subject matter is Star Wars or Daryl Somers, the latter of which was sung to the tune of Little Drummer Boy. Their choirboy tunes rang through the amphitheatre as they sang a proper(!) version of O Holy Night and covering Paul Kelly’s Meet Me In The Middle Of The Air. Fancy that… I wonder if they knew he was in town not too long ago.

Unfortunately, due to size constraints in the special Christmas/New Years edition of Drum Media Perth, my photos of Tripod will not be in the Feedback section. So, you lucky readers get them all here!

More photos to be seen on my Flickr photostream.