A Night on Our Own
With Russell back in Bellingen, you might have expected us to stay home for a quiet night and another episode of Inspector Rex, but we’d booked tickets to see Tex Perkins weeks ago, so off to The Basement we went for dinner and a show. It’s a very good music venue, and I’d like to go in for a jazz evening sometime, but Mr. Perkins is pursuing a different line than he had in the past, most notably perhaps with the Cruel Sea, his new band, the Dark Horses, having a folkier, country style, relying on his voice to do the muscular work, so it was as well suited to the stage there. He had a nice collection of sidemen with him, including Charlie Own and Joel Silbersher. I would, however, recommend against going to The Basement for dinner – it’s hard to mess up salmon, but they managed – too much microwave cookery, I’d wager. I can’t say anything good for the opening act last night either, except that individually they managed to play well enough. Maybe it’s just that I was too tired by the time they finished, but all their songs were the same and none of them ever got off the ground: too much time noodling to no good purpose; a they didn’t strike me as having spent much time practicing in the same room. In the end, it may be a while before we get out again, to the Annandale for the next heavyweight championship of Sydney, for example, although it does seem the music scene is having a nice resurgence, and I’d go see Tex Perkins again someday.