Home » Australia » Pacific Music

Got slightly sunburnt on St Kilda beach today, but it's not too bad - my skin seems to be aclimatizing to this weather finally, or maybe I've already maxed out my skin-cancer quota for this year?

Pacific Music

Ricklivesey
2006-08-31 12:32:33

Displayed times (last time: )

Got slightly sunburnt on St Kilda beach today, but it's not too bad - my skin seems to be aclimatizing to this weather finally, or maybe I've already maxed out my skin-cancer quota for this year?

Watched some sort of Pacific Music Ensemble with Miranda this evening at the Music Bowl, which consisted of a -pretty cool Mauri band followed by some horrendously repetative pan pipes from The Solomon Islands; you know it really didn't help inspire the audience when the MC declared that 'althought Pan Pipes have only been a part of the Solomon people's culture in the twentieth century, they've embraced them passionately'. I mean, I'd turned up in the hope of seeing some historical dancing and music from eons ago just to be placated with some high-street musicians who've stolen instruments from other cultures just to juzz up their own. Sorry, but it just didn't wash. We exited stage left, straight to the bar.

The final act saw the crowds roar with expectation. Te Vaka, another NZ group were supposed to be well worth a look in, according to Randy, but although they held a good beat, I couldn't really see it for more than 15 buskers exploiting, sorry publicising, their heritage. Call me a Philistine, but I wasn't impressed.

On the tram home I'd squashed into the 2nd one to arrive that the crowd forced to stop, (since the first refused to stop due to being over capacity), but as soon as I got on, too my embarrassment, (and the annoyance of the passengers I was crushing), the doors wouldn't close, then the power went and we were all stranded in a hot tram - simultaneously rammed and trammed. Still, there's nothing like a minor crisis to bring people together and soon I was wittering away to a lovely old gay couple, an Aussie girl and a British lass. Oh we laughed! At one point we'd got the whole tram crossing their fingers while the driver started frantically pressing buttons and reciting 'The Lord Is Sheppard, I shall not want': LOVE IT!

Australia is brill. The people are wicked and I hate to say it but I almost with I could jettison my Brit6ish reservedness sometimes in exchange for an Australian laughing, smiling, outlook.