MF34

DS34

Apologies for it being a bit on the dark side, the pub garden was going for 'moody' in its approach to lighting.

HH34

Floody hell

Have the floods here been a big story back home? It's getting properly mental now. A huge part of Queensland, which is over thirteen times the size of England is flooded, loads of people have been killed, loads more are missing, and it's set to get worse. It's like something from the third world, or like when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

After days of flooding in the country, hitting towns like Toowoomba, Brisbane's getting it now and it's looking total madness. The photo above is outside the SunCorp Stadium, which is at least half a mile from the river - and inbetween is my office that I've been to when up there for work, as well as the hotel I stayed at. All the bods who work there got sent home yesterday and have obviously been unable to get in today, including a member of my team (more work for me, frankly I'm outraged...), meanwhile thousands of offices in the CBD have flooded, thousands of people have evacuated the city, refugee centres have been set up in sports arenas etc... it's carnage. The stadium itself is flooded.

After days of flooding there was another massive flash flood yesterday which caused what was termed an 'inland tsunami'. There's also a huge dam (called the Wivenhoe Dam, Essex fans...) that has reached 190% capacity and is threatening to break or flood areas upstream, so in order to stop that they're having to open the gates and let hundreds of thousands of megalitres more water into the flooded rivers.

There's already been a big Children-In-Need style telethon that's raised tens of millions for the disaster fund, and things have got much worse since and are set to get worse still. There are king tides set for Brisbane tomorrow which should take it to a new level, which is mental as it's a disaster zone as it is. There's loads of heart-breaking stories emerging, like this one.

It seems more mental as it's happening in a major city, like if the Thames flooded and Charing Cross and The Strand, Trafalgar Square and that were all under water.

Very weird. Err, happy new year!

Midgets in leather keks

Went to see U2 on Monday night, very good it was too. Even if you weren't a big fan you'd struggle not to get whipped up in the atmosphere with 80,000 folk going potty and such a massive spectacle as the claw, or spacestation as Bono called it.

I only bought a ticket on Monday afternoon. When tickets went on sale months ago (and sold out in hours) I decided not to bother - it was over seventy notes a ticket for stadium floor standing by the time booking was involved, and no one I knew showed any interest in going. I actually thought it'd been on about a week before as they'd been in Sydney for various things and had been in the papers and on the TV etc knocking about by the Opera House. it was my work's Christmas party last Friday and I was chatting to a couple of work mates who said they were going on Monday, and with 80,000 tickets sold, there were plenty to be had on Ebay/Gumtree so I got one for a few bucks cheaper than face value on the day, the lad even dropped it off at my office!

The setlist is here, though disappointingly, I preferred the setlist they did the night after, which had All I Want Is You and Pride in it instead of Where The Streets Have No Name and Bad. We did get a brilliant version of Hold Me Thrill Me though... which was relaced by Ultraviolet the next night.

All in all, very enjoyable, though Australia's shite at putting on big events - there were teams of police walking through the crowd and generally lurking around (all those middle aged U2 fans being well-known troublemakers and drug takers), and as with quite a few big gigs I've been to here, they shut the bar well early. I was one of the last people to get served and there was still a good 45 minutes of the gig left, which in a two hour set is virtually half way through.

Jay-Z was the support, which was good as he's someone I wanted to see but I wouldn't have lashed out cash and gone to one of his own gigs. He was good.

The lad in the picture is my work mate Iain, who's from Glasgow. We were trying to pulling weird faces but it's ended up looking like he's just grabbed my nuts.

Speaking of gigs - The Complete Stone Roses are playing here in January! They're doing a two hour set including playing the whole first album all the way through, the stand alone singles and some b-sides. On a Friday night no less! Know why I won't be going?

...IT'S THIRTY QUID A TICKET!

Fuck me! We paid twelve to see them at The Garage what, eight years ago? Fair enough prices only rise, and I might have gone to twenty, but thirty notes to see a tribute act!? I'm quite pissed off 'cause they're great, but that's taking the rise. Primal Scream are playing Screamadelica in the same venue the night after for fifty quid - and for that you get the actual band playing their early-90s classic album all the way through, not a bunch of Scottish chancers playing someone elses. I remember when I interviewed Ian Brown (have I mentioned that before?...) and he said he makes about three/four grand a year in performace royalties from the Complete Stone Roses. Based on these prices that'll be into five figures now... except it won't, because they're currently touring the UK and it's fifteen quid a ticket, which includes support from the "Kings of Lyon" no less! (Quite funny that I'm wearing a Stone Roses shirt in the U2 photo above.)

Gigs here generally take the piss - how much were The Scream in London recently? It's well seen there ain't been a recession here.

DD34

HarbourLife

I went to a one-day festival on the harbour on Saturday, appropriately enough called HarbourLife. (I took that picture, click on it for the big version.)

A mate of a mate won two tickets, couldn't go, so flogged them to my mate for fifty bucks, so off we went. It's quite a small one, and it weren't sold out, so it was nice and cosy, in a stunning location right on the harbour opposite the Opera House. The beer tents and toilets and that were in the trees of the park and stage was down some steps right on the harbour.

The Temper Trap were headlining, but I hadn't heard of any of the other acts on the bill, which wasn't surprising as they turned out to be dance acts and DJs (I'd vaguely heard of Metronomy, who are from the UK). I didn't know until I got there that it's normally headlined by a big dance act and the whole thing is more of a dance festival than anything rock-based. Which would also explain the heavy police presence with sniffer dogs at the gates on the way in. Which would also explain everyone being off their tits on pills by the time we moseyed on down there at about half four.

The first band/DJ came on at two and the thing finished at ten, and I'm guessing the Essex-Police-circa-1995 style heavy-handed tactics meant that people who were indulging in naughties necked them just before they rocked up to the gates, so that by the time we got there they were all having a rare old time. Rather than me, who just felt very old! Most of the punters were kids, which was fair enough, but there were quite a few folk our age and older, and looking at them mushed off their chops and giving it the large gave me the right fear. This remember, is all in blazing sunshine and 80 degree heat.

The 'Trap were very good, though they've only got one album so it was over fairly sharp. Then we walked into the Cross and went to the Darlo Bar, and then the Green Park Hotel as the Darlo shuts at midnight but the Green Park's open until two. By that time we were in quite an advanced state of refreshment so it was only natural I then got myself home. And sat up until four watching Birmingham beat Chelsea, about which I can remember very little.