Fegs

I am back again although I promised I would go, but its not often a great white shark gets to see Mr H , in fact it was the first time, so heres a belated review of the gig for your consumption ....

I was sunning myself under a sea urchin between bites down in the Southern Ocean a few months past when a tattered copy of Rip It Up (the local South Australian music paper) floated by, and me being a ripper music fan, I scarfed it, popped on the old readin glasses and gave it a gander. I was looking up the gig guide for Oct, when what
do I see but the Gov Hindmarsh, me favorite watering hole, was putting on a gig by Robyn H and the Venus Three. Bonza! Gotta have some of that. So I got on the blower to me old mate Ianto in Adelaide and we made a date to meet down at the port and to get together for a few tinnies pre-show.

Well Oct 14th soon came round and I had a swim down the bight to good old Adelaide, me drinking buddy the Victorian Squid had a come along for a decko as he's a big REM fan and we'd arranged to meet Ianto and Ivars early so we could sink a few lagers in the Elephant room.

Now me and the squid were wondering how we were goin to get around, being both a bit on the water dependent side of things, but no worries, Ianto said he'd take care of it and she was apples mate, he and Ive had scrounged up a big ute and had a heavy duty aquarium perched on the back, so we hopped into that and the boys took us off
to the E-room before you could say possum fever!

Word had it that the polis were out in force on the road with the booze bus, so we didn't hit the grog too hard, just a couple of crates each of Coopers sparkling Ale with whisky chasers- although the squid preferred to stick to distilled ink, as I always say, each entity is entitled to stick to his own poison and the squids welcome to it, although ink always seems to turn him a bit sullen and prone to sulking it's not as if he's the best of company at any time, but a mates a mate and you've gotta stick by them , so we all kept mum.

Anyway, we poured ourselves into the ute and took a scrape round to the gov around eight or so, as we wanted to catch the support act and get a good posie down front as we were taping for the feglist. I was wondering how we were going to actually get into the gig, us being legless literally as well as physically after the Coopers - but as
usual, Ianto had fixed it, he'd hired a couple of those little electric gopher-mobiles that the old farts drive round in shopping malls and he'd strapped them together so we could fit the tank between them. Bewdy!

There were a few diehard fegs queueing up outside when we got there, but for some weird reason they ran away when we arrived, probably went off to post their first impressions of the show to the bleeding list, flighty bloody lot I reckon. So we squeezed ourselves over the ticket booth, got our fins, arms and tentacles stamped and sloshed
down the front to our fav taping spot, stage left and about five meters from the front, right in front of the speakers.

Once we'd got our drinks settled, I took a gander round the place, which hadn't changed that much since I'd been in Feb, they'd changed the straw on the floor and buffed up the earth as well so it looked bonzer. The holes in the wall had gone (well planks nailed on em anyway) and they'd put cushions on the sitting boards and old curtains over the barrels that supported them. New trestles, which were freshly, planed as well, no more splinters (well only a few)! There were more spittoons round the joint than you could point a prawn at and the barmaids had put on t-shirts to hide their tits so we could tell it was a bit of a posh do, the management had put on a real show for our overseas guests, didn't want the bastards thinking we're primitive here down under. Ianto was a bit peeved he had to leave his pet wombat Melba outside, but I told him, "you can't have members of REM getting fresh wom droppin's on their boots can you? what the f**k sort of impression they would get of Adelaide eh ! They'd think we're f**king peasants you drongo!"

Anyway Im digressing. As we were supping our beers, around eight thirty we sees some action towards the stage with instruments being set up. Ianto sees who is thinks is Robyn go past and disappear backstage, the cove was gray-haired but I had me doubts that it was Rob as I knows him pretty well from the photos on me website. The other buggers arrive, bloody hairy hippy bastard with a baseball cap who sets up on bass and a smooth bugger on the Rickenbacker who has to be Mr Buck.

Then I sees him, the real thing, carrying a tiny little cup of turkish coffee that balances like a witches tit on a plate, he's wearing a back and white spotted shirt with baggy sleeves and narrow violet trews and he's looking pretty spruce for an old bugger although he's gone f**kin gray. I nudges Ianto through the tank and tells him now that's a bloody Hitchcock!

First act was local lad Vick Conrad and he was pretty good but we was getting impatient for the main act, the crowd was slowly building up to around 150 or so, the crowd representing the entire gamut of ozzie culture, drunken sheepshaggers, drunken bushrangers, drunken-TV wildlife experts, drunken abo trackers, drunken geriatric lawn
bowlers with varicose veins the size of tree trunks, drunken cricketers, drunken ozzie rules players, drunken celebrity golfers-and then to top it all the Kelly gang rolled up in their usual oilskins and bleeding tin helmets and pushed their way right down the front, blocking our bloody view !

Well f**k that, no-one stops the great white shark and the Victorian squid from seeing Robyn bloody Hitchcock for the first time ever, so we powered up the gofers and crunched over the bloody lot of them, I reckon we must have weighed a couple of tons between the water, our combined body weight and and the reinforced tank and we fair flattened them! At first they wouldn't stop whingin but eventually their dying screams petered out - (god how we laughed at THAT) -and just in time too, for who should come sauntering onstage unannounced but his nibs himself followed by the other three Venus buggers - the gray-haired buggerluggs being the drummer by the looks of things. Miserable sod only saw him smile once all night. Now the bass player was different kettle of prawns, all smiles, happy as larry - I reckon he must have just had his teeth done up and was showin them off as its not natural to grin like that all the time, although he did seem a cheerful sort I must admit. His nibs meanwhile was introducing the band and at last we were getting down to business. He sed, "mr scott McCoy puts down his drinks, mr peter buck straps on his guitar and Mr Bill R picks up his sticks, which can only mean its show-time and thanks to Vic for opening up. We're going to play a variety of tunes and here goes the beginning, where everybody starts " and BANG the bastards went straight into a sodding
HUGE version of "If You Were a Priest " what a start, the sound was good, the band was hot and the sheepshaggers and the lawn bowlers were shaking their bones in their seats.

No one was dancing yet, but that would soon be put right. I was keeping stock still in the tank as I was tapin', keeping the core-sounds out the water by getting the squid to hold them up on a tentacle or two. Lucky bugger he can keep some tentacles still and wiggle the others whilst I got to try to keep the deck dry and make sure the cable didn't come out of the plastic bag. Next the rickenbuggers came out the closet for "Sally Was a Legend". Which got everyone swaying.

I forgot to mention that there was a clutch of giant red-backs that had arrived after the start and had been lurking up the back frightening the waitresses, when the band lurched into Ole Tarantula the whole lot did a surge and barged their way down front, crowd surfing over the heads of the two legs and with mighty leaps they threw their turgid eight limbed bodies onto the stage and swarmed onto the PA, where they remained for the rest of the song, their distended red and black abdomens glistening faintly under the cans .
Fair do, the bloody band were not phased, but I think Robyn was perhaps a little nervous of their presence as he told a tale of being accosted by an old man in a lift who asked him "hey white boy, how many legs does love have" to which he replied, "old man, love is furry and has eight legs" at which the assembled arachnids were seen to nod their heads sagely and to relax their bodies perceptibly.

The concert resumed with a song dedicated to morris Windsor, the song being quite short but morris being taller and born of woman.

Queen of Eyes was great fun and by now the drunken hordes were dancing and throwing their beer glasses at the reinforced sheet metal screen that the management had lowered after the arachnids had invaded the stage. "Adventure rocket ship" was dedicated to Governor Hindmarsh who was described as probably being some colonial british
bastard who was sent out here to scratch his neck above his stiffening collar as he comes in and glares at his terrified wife as he waits to collect his medal so he can go home and die. But ghosts need a second chance.

This was a good night mates, the vocals were sharp and in tune and everyone - apart from misery-guts on the drums - appeared to be having fun, even though they weren't knocking back any beers- I mean what are these people? , Don't they know that beer is life!

Anyway I reckon that number knocked the stuffing out of the boys as they are getting on in years. So they changed the pace with a beaut song about this Arthur Kane geezer who was part of that poncey bleeding New York Dolls, bloody oath, fancy writing a song about a bastard who dresses up as a shiela! Still it takes all sorts I suppose and it's a good sing along which sticks in the old brain box after a few listens.

It appeared that the rest of the band were shagged out after this as Hitchcock strapped on the old acoustic and did a couple of songs alone, and they went down well, the red-backs swaying gently, lulled asleep by the sweet strains of "I often dream of trains" and "Vibrating", which gave security a change to sweep them up in giant nets and take them out the back for a good spraying with Mortein. That'll teach them to rush the stage!

Birds-head followed and as usual it was beautiful, it conjured up visions of dead crows strung up on a gibbet, a regular sight on the main streets of Adelaide, we're not known as the crow-eaters for nothing mates!

The other buggers must have got their second wind as they returned for a hot version of Flesh Number One and the crowd was dancing again. They pulled up the steel curtain again now the spiders had buggered off so we could see the band clearly as they played a lengthy dinky di version of Beautiful Queen. As I gazed around the venue I saw that Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep had arrived late and were busy devouring the sound-man up the back, much to the consternation of the band, but undeterred, they soldiered on manfully and no one in the crowd really noticed anything amiss as Cthulhu used to roadie for ELP in the 70s and is a qualified sound-man, so as he was sucking the
marrow from the sound-mans bones he skillfully manipulated the pots with spare facial tentacles. What a f**king legend that God is!


In order to break the tension Robyn announced that this number was descended from Remember by the plastic ono band but it goes off on a different. It goes off - and it did indeed as it was a mammoth "Somewhere Apart". At this point I had to leap partially out of my tanks and snatch the mics from the squid who had begun to gyrate uncontrollably, so moved was he by the bands syncopations and I must admit meself that I had a job keeping the old fins still during this one, but I managed the job. The next song is about "a man getting stung by a figurehead" and it turned out to be "Madonna of the Wasps" and many in the crowd looked fearfully over their shoulders in anticipation of a waspish invasion after the spider debacle, but we were spared that ordeal as the bouncers in an adroit move had placed giant fly screens over the doors which kept the waspish hordes
outside, where they could be be seen to pursue hapless patrons in the bar relentlessly in a mass fit of pique at being banned from stinging the flesh of their guitar hero .

Next followed a lengthy Briggs monologue, which was as funny as bath-load of bunnies but which was way too long to transcribe for you buggers and which stretched for four minutes. Briggs was great, but at the end Hitch said that this was the last song, which was Radio storm - for which he was greeted by a hail of bottles and used prophylactics, still we all know there was going to be an encore and there was, after a two minute hectic rowdy round of applause during which Cthulhu ate the entire bar staff in frustration, sparing only the duty manager who hid in the drains - where he was severely mauled by a spare ghoul who had accompanied the old ones for the trip and had been lurking a pleasant corner in anticipation of a small snack .

On return we got Aw Shit Man, which wasn't as good as the Robyn tunes and Cthulhu shat on the soundboard in protest, but repented when the band segued into "cigarettes coffee and booze". The tempo went up a notch or two when the band delivered a bleeding powerful; "Give it to the soft boys ", which had the old ones grooving in the aisles and
cutting bloody swathes through the audience as they gleefully swung their giant appendages in time to the music.

Barely a pause and we got a great "Acid Bird" durIng which Nyarlathotep secreted acidic solutions through his pores in sympathy and disappeared noisily into the basement as the floor was eaten away, but phoenix like he levitated up to the ceiling and hovered there like a bloody fruit bat for the rest of the set. Pretentious git!

Another encore followed rapturous applause from what remained of the audience as the lads delivered a thunderous five-minute "Eight Miles High" which caused the Squids tentacles to go pink with joy. The house erupted with pyrotechnics as the old ones provided a cosmic lightshow that resembled a pre 1970s acid trip on steroids and as the
band ripped like a roo on heat into the aptly named "I Wanna Destroy You" the roof was ripped off the building and the walls were simultaneously blown outwards by the combined force of the old ones wolf whistles and catcalls. You just can't take them anywhere!

Fortunately the band and ourselves were situated in the centre of the venue and were thus protected from most of the effects of falling masonry and rubble, as we dusted ourselves off , Ianto thrust his copy of Ole Tarantula into Robyn's shell shocked hand for signing and Ive thoughtfully chundered down the front of the polka dot shirt when
his turn arrived for an autograph, but strewth, R's a good old sport and a little smile played over his dust stained face as he wiped the puke off his shirt with the tail of Bills t shirt . As the emergency services converged on what had been the rear room of the Gov, we picked up Melba from the front bar and as we sidled off to our Ute we
chattered gleefully about what had been a bloody good gig.

Literally :)

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