three south melbourne nights

We did three nights in the old council chambers of the South Melbourne town hall. A beautiful, old and grand building on Bank street, off of Clarendon street. the area used to be called Emerald Hill. Lovely wide streets in this part of Melbourne. The council, along with port Melbourne, was amalgamated( swallowed up) by St Kilda in the Jeff Kennett era. Since then it seems to have been used by the "National music school" and as a rehearsal place for orchestras and small chamber groups. Not a real bohemian hot spot. all that trailing crew having their fun across the river in the northern suburbs.
The shows were a part of the cabaret Festival.This festival is run by two fellow who used to operate the Butterfly Club which is just next door. Very capable and inventive people.
The word cabaret is a problem in Melbourne. I made the point at teh start of each of our shows that the term is a great insult in rock music, which is our world- and we had just strayed into this one.Something about the word- full of connotations and assumptions. there is a small audience that gravitates to it and they are up for new ideas and approaches and performers. A larger part of it is up for the tried and true cabaret-circus-campery . The larger audience outside has difficulty approaching it at all.
To that end we played three nights in a lovely room all standing around a grand piano, two electric guitars, bass and drums , bringing the sound down in volume and power.
Thats how music used to be played - at some point, nothing louder than the bass drum. Only the vocals were mic'd up. We had a great time experiencing that and recorded the nights and filmed some of it. Audiences were small but appreciative.
Part of our aesthetic in playing music is that we like to play in different situations and find different audiences. Its a bit of a bummer that so much of music is played out or only looked for on the main travelled roads.

We'll be doing some more dates in September.