I continue to enjoy seeing British bands in tiny venues in Melbourne. I suppose eventually after I’ve been here for long enough I will run out of bands I’ve heard of from over there that haven’t yet made it over here, but for now it’s great to be able to go to somewhere like the Hi-Fi, the tiny underground venue on Swanston Street, and watch a band who I’d be lucky to see in somewhere the size of Brixton Academy if we were in London. Here, instead, we were able to see them in a venue the size of someone’s (admittedly large) living room.
We stood to the side of the stage, within touching distance of the band, close enough to read the setlist taped to the floor, to see every bead of sweat on Johnny Borrell’s ugly face, to verify that, yes, the chords I worked out for Golden Touch are indeed correct, and close enough that when we had a text the following day from a friend of ours who we hadn’t realised was also at the gig he said that he’d spotted us across the room, adding that it was “hard not to, as you were practically on the stage”. Not that we’d particularly tried to be that close to the front, just that the Hi-Fi has a central sunken dancefloor area, so the best place to stand, we reckon, is on the step that runs around the edge of it–not only can you sit down while the support is on, but when you do stand up, no one can block your view–and the only free spot when we arrived was just to the side of the stage.
And despite no one over here knowing who Razorlight are, the tiny venue was packed out, and the mix of ex-pats and locals who’d presumably done time in London at some point loved every minute. We were even joined somewhere inside the venue, Sal reliably informs me having spotted him on her way back from the loo, by none other than Dr Karl Kennedy off of Neighbours.
At the end of the gig, as the last chords of Somewhere Else faded out, Mr Borrell signed off with “thank you Melbourne, you’ve been great, we’ll see you again in the summer.” Ahem. Johnny: it’s forty degrees out there. This is summer. Bloody Northern Hemisphere types…